A young engineer stopped to help an old couple in the rain, not knowing the man he saved was a billionaire testing the world’s humanity. What happened next shook the entire aerospace industry.

# **HANDS IN THE RAIN**

**1. The Night Rain of Small Decisions**

America in late November is always a biting cold. That night, on I-90, the wind whistled through the yellowed lampposts, and the rain poured down as if someone had torn the sky apart.

**Ethan Miles**, 27, an aerospace engineer at AerisTech, was driving his old Ford home after a 12-hour shift. The fuel light was red, and the radio was crackling with an urgent weather report.

Ethan just wanted to go home, eat instant noodles, and sleep.

But as he crossed the Millstone Bridge, he saw an old sedan parked at the curb, its hazard lights flashing. An old man and an old woman were standing huddled in the rain, their thin coats sticking to their backs.

Ethan sighed.

“Don’t, Ethan… it’s raining… you don’t have a tow truck to fix it…”
But then he remembered his grandfather—who was also an old man standing in the rain waiting for someone to help.

He turned on his signal and stopped the car.

—

**2. The Mysterious Couple**

The old man was in his seventies, his hair was white, his eyes were deep but strangely calm. The old woman was small, her hands were shaking from the cold.

Ethan ran over:

“Can I help you?”

The old man smiled:
“My car… probably has a dead battery. I tried calling for help but they said it would take more than two hours.”

The rain was pouring down.

Ethan opened his trunk and took out the jumper cables. After 10 minutes of struggling in the rain, the old man’s car started again.

The old woman put her hand on Ethan’s shoulder, her voice trembling:
“Young man, it’s so cold… why did you stop and help us?”

Ethan smiled awkwardly:
“Because… I’m sure if it were your parents, you’d want someone to stop.”

The old man looked at him for a long time.

Too long.

Then he said something that made Ethan shiver:

“There are very few people like you in this world.”

Before getting in the car, the old man gave Ethan a black, faded business card with only one line of silver writing on it:

**H. Weston**

On the back was the only phone number.

Ethan didn’t pay any attention. He just thought the old couple were very polite.

And then he drove away.

He had no idea that he had just touched the fuse of an entire industry.

—

**3. The Storm of Lies**

Two days later, Ethan arrived at the company to find a strange scene: all the department heads, senior engineers, and management were waiting in the large conference room.

The CEO, **Richard Lorne**, walked in looking nervous.

“We’re about to be inspected by *Weston Aerospace Trust*.”

The room was buzzing.

Ethan paused.

Weston?
The old man…?

That couldn’t be. Weston Aerospace Trust was a giant investment fund that invested billions of dollars in private space projects. The head of the fund was **Harrison Weston**, one of the three most secretive billionaires in America. No one had ever met him.

Richard continued:

“This visit determines the future of AerisTech. If they refuse to fund us, we’ll go bankrupt in six months.”

Someone asked:
“When will they come?”

The director replied:
“Today.”

Ethan felt his heart skip a beat.

—

**4. The fateful visit**

Three shiny black SUVs parked in front of the lobby.

A group of people in suits walked down, but the leader was—unbelievably—

**The Old Man in the Rain.**

He was clean, his coat expensive, his eyes cold and different.

Richard ran to shake hands:

“Mr. Harrison Weston, it’s an honor—”

Mr. Weston gently brushed Richard’s hand away, his eyes scanning the room… then stopping at Ethan.

“We’ve met,” he said, his voice low and sharp as a knife.

The entire conference room turned to look at Ethan.

Richard’s face turned from red to white.

“Ethan… you know Mr. Weston??”

Ethan stood there, stunned.
“Yes… I was just helping him in the rain…”

Richard almost fainted.

Weston laughed, a loud and resounding laugh:

“Yes. And that’s why I came here.”

—

**5. The Billionaire’s Test**

Weston stood in the middle of the conference room, holding up a black business card.

“For the past 10 years, I’ve traveled the country, pretending to be poor people, homeless people, people in need… just to find one thing: **true humanity**.”

He looked at Ethan.

“You’re the only person in three years who stopped to help me without asking for anything in return.”

The entire conference room fell silent.

Weston continued:

“But this isn’t about a good guy stopping to help an old man. I’m looking for an engineer… who’s not just good, but also *moral*.”

He walked up to Richard, looked him straight in the eye:

“Because your aerospace industry is rotten.”

Richard jumped up:
“Mr. Weston, we—”

“Shut up.”

Weston’s voice was as sharp as a gunshot.

—

**6. The event that shook the industry**

Weston opened his suitcase.
Inside were:

* a USB stick,
* a security report,
* and images from AerisTech’s internal camera.

He threw them all down on the table in front of the board of directors.

“I’ve been investigating you guys since before I met this engineer. You cut corners, replaced NASA-grade alloys with cheap metals, and ignored safety standards during the testing phase.”

He looked at Richard:

“You’re building *time bombs* and selling them to the government.”

Another director stammered:
“We… we don’t—”

Weston slammed his hand on the table.

“I have all the evidence.”

The screen lit up.

The entire conference room was silent.

They were watching the board of directors discuss “bypassing the government”, “reducing the inspection budget”, “maximizing profits by reducing safety”.

Richard trembled:
“Weston… what do you want?”

Weston pointed at Ethan.

“I want him to run the project instead of you.”

The room exploded.

“I can’t.”
“He’s a low-level engineer!”
“You want to destroy us?!”

Weston was silent for a while, then said coldly:

“No. I want to save America.”

—

**7. Ethan was pulled into the vortex**

Ethan was completely shocked. He stood up:

“I’m just an ordinary engineer. I have no management experience.”

Weston looked at him:

“You have something they don’t have.”
He touched Ethan’s chest.
“Conscience.”

Ethan swallowed:

“But I don’t know anything about internal politics, corporate infighting—”

“Then learn.”

Weston turned to the board of directors:

“My $12 billion support contract will be signed *if and only if* Ethan Miles is appointed as the head of the Phoenix project.”

Richard clenched his hair.

Phoenix is ​​AerisTech’s largest hybrid-ion jet project. If this project fails, AerisTech is over.

—

**8. The Real War**

From that moment on, Ethan became the hated man of the majority in the company.

He was:

* cut off from data access,
* isolated,
* technically trapped,
* and even received anonymous threats.

A week later, Weston reappeared in Ethan’s office.

He placed a thick stack of documents on the table:

“You don’t understand why I chose you, do you?”

Ethan: “I… I still feel like I’m not good enough.”

Weston smiled, looking gentle for the first time like that day in the rain:

“When you stopped the car, you didn’t know I was a billionaire. You didn’t act, you didn’t calculate. You just did the right thing.”

Then he whispered:

“I want someone like that to lead the future of aerospace technology.”

—

**9. Climax: Unexpected Evidence**

Three weeks later, when Ethan was inspecting the Phoenix engine compartment, the internal alarm system blared.

Federal police stormed the AerisTech building.

Richard was handcuffed and dragged out.

So were the other four directors.

Ethan stared at Weston, who was standing behind him, silent.

“You… you called them?”

Weston shook his head:

“I don’t need it.”

He held up a photo on his phone.

“They did it themselves.”

In the photo is **Richard** and a group of people trying to destroy the entire Phoenix data storage system the night before. Weston had installed surveillance cameras long ago.

“I gave them a chance,” Weston said. “And they chose to destroy the future.”

—

**10. Final Twist — The Truth About the Rain**

When everything calmed down, Ethan asked Mr. Weston:

“Did you really have a hard time in the rain that day?”

Weston looked at him for a long time.

Then he took off the antique watch and put it in Ethan’s hand.

“No.”

Ethan was stunned.

“I… I set up that situation to see how people would react.”

Ethan let out a breath:

“So… I was just part of an experiment?”

Mr. Weston nodded slightly.

“Yes. But you were the only one who got out of the car, even though it was raining, even though you didn’t get anything.”

Then he smiled gently, unlike his usual cold demeanor:

“And sometimes, Ethan… it’s the smallest decisions that create the biggest turning points in history.”

—

**11. The Open End — and the Industry Shock**

Three months later, Ethan became **project leader of the Phoenix**, under Weston’s direct supervision.

The Phoenix became the **first hybrid jet to pass NASA’s test**.

The international news exploded. AerisTech’s stock rose 300%.

Weston appeared on television, saying a line that shocked the entire space industry:

> “If we let people without morals control the future of the sky, then we don’t deserve to touch the universe.”

Ethan watched the interview in silence.
Outside, rain pattered on the office window.

And he understood—

A small rainy night had changed his entire life.
And perhaps, the future of the American aerospace industry.