It was nearly noon near a construction site in Queens.
Don Quixote was driving his car while scrolling through TikTok on his cracked-screen phone.
"Tsk, kids these days..." he muttered, shaking his head in dismay as he scrolled. "What on earth has happened to society? Does the United States of America even have a future?"
Suddenly, a new short video popped up on his feed. The scene looked a little familiar, like a neighborhood he occasionally drove past.
The video, filmed from a distance, showed a completely naked, muscular Latin American man running down the street, covering his face with one hand while masturbating with the other. A crowd of people surrounded him, gleefully filming him with their phones.
"Fack!" Don Quixote was so startled he nearly jumped out of the driver's seat. "My eyes! How did this get past the censors?!"
...
"How on earth did you do it?!"
Meanwhile, back at the gym, which had now emptied out, Michael stared at Li Wei in disbelief as he took the water bottle.
"Do what?" Li Wei replied, taking the water bottle and placing it contentedly in his bag. "I can't believe this prize money isn't taxed. I thought they were going to take nearly 20%."
"But how did you do it?" Michael scratched his head in frustration. "When you first came to the gym, you struggled to bench 80, and you—"
"Ever consider the possibility that I'm just that strong?" Li Wei said dismissively, packing his protein powder into his bag as well. "If that big guy hadn't been running his mouth, I wouldn't have had to teach him a lesson like that."
Even if it meant wasting a use of [Berserk] here, Li Wei felt no regrets.
It was only after coming to the United States of America that he discovered how hypocritical people here were.
On the surface, the United States of America prohibits racial discrimination, but in reality, it's everywhere. In fact, the lower people are on the social ladder, the more severe the discrimination gets.
Racial discrimination was like a taboo—an omnipresent existence that everyone knew about, but no one ever spoke of.
More than once on the subway, Li Wei had caught Black or white people shooting him looks of hatred and disgust for no reason, as if he had offended them somewhere before.
At least now that idiot from Latin America knew to respect Asians, and knew that some people hide their true strength.
"I'm off," Li Wei said to Michael. "I've got things to do."
"I'm heading out too," Michael said, shaking his head. "I have to go do my community service. The church needs me."
'Who would've thought the young Black man, Michael, was religious.'
Li Wei said goodbye to Michael and headed to the Upper East Side to continue his part-time job.
Lady Delores wasn't in the shop today, and not a single customer came in the entire afternoon.
The wooden crate Li Wei had moved last time had been opened, allowing him to finally get a good look at the piece of art he had transported.
It was an abstract, humanoid metal sculpture that looked like it was cast in a single piece.
Li Wei instinctively felt something was off. First, the metal sculpture didn't look like it weighed 300 kilograms. Second, when he was moving it last time, he'd heard something rattling around inside, which made him think it wasn't solid.
But the sculpture before him now looked like it was cast in a single piece.
However, Lady Delores certainly wouldn't tell him the reason why, and it wasn't his place to ask further.
Still, he had grown a bit curious about Lady Delores and her shop. Judging by its revenue, it was completely impossible for the store to ever turn a profit. And from Lady Delores's attitude toward her employees, it was obvious she didn't care about such small amounts of money.
'What kind of boss provides a part-time employee with a suit worth over ten thousand USD as a uniform?'
His three-hour part-time shift flew by. At 5 p.m., Li Wei changed back into his regular clothes and took the subway to Leon's shop again.
The moment Leon saw Li Wei, his expression changed.
"Kid, you have the nerve to come back!" he yelled furiously. "You cheated me!"
"Hm?" Li Wei asked. "How did I cheat you?"
"This game company doesn't even exist!" Leon took out the Gold Coins Li Wei had sold him and slammed them on the table. "They're just ordinary gold, 24-karat! There's no collector's value at all!"
"Oh, about that..."
As Li Wei calmly walked forward, he activated his upgraded skill—[Eloquent Talk].
After the skill upgrade, it now had a 100% success rate for persuading greedy people like Leon.
"Listen to me, I would never lie to you..."
As Li Wei spoke, Leon's expression shifted from anger to confusion, and finally to sudden realization.
"So, it's because I was searching in the wrong language that I couldn't find the game company?" he said, a bit embarrassed. "That's what I thought... an ordinary person wouldn't use pure gold coins to mint their own souvenirs..."
"Exactly. So you see, you've wronged me," Li Wei said with a nod, taking out another 16 Gold Coins. "These are the last 16 I have. Give me an appraisal."
With the completion of the "Path to Class Change" quest, Li Wei had 17 Gold Coins left, and he would never get any more.
He planned to keep one as a special memento and sell the remaining 16 to scrape together the rent money to move out as soon as possible.
He was in the middle of haggling with Leon, trying to manipulate his perception and make him believe the coins' collector's value had somehow increased again. Just as he was about to sell them to the crooked merchant for three times their original price, his phone suddenly rang.
"Hello? Uncle Don Quixote," Li Wei said casually. "I'm... I'm at Leon's shop, selling some stuff... Okay, I'll wait for you out front."
"Strange," he muttered after hanging up. "Why is he looking for me at this hour?"
"Deal!" Leon finally succumbed to Li Wei's brainwashing. "1,200 USD each, I'll take them all!" he said, gritting his teeth.
The Gold Coins, which could have originally sold for 400 USD each, were ultimately sold by Li Wei for 1,200 USD each—all 16 of them.
In the end, he left Leon's recycling shop with 19,200 USD in cash.
Including the money he had saved up, he now had over 27,000 USD in cash. This was more than enough to rent the two-bedroom, two-living-room apartment he had his eye on.
Although he would have to live with the landlord, which would impact his daily life, Li Wei was in no position to be picky at this stage. Moving out of the basement as soon as possible was the top priority.
As he was thinking this, Don Quixote's beat-up Toyota pulled up in front of him. The window rolled down, revealing Don Quixote's somewhat pale face.
"Get in," he said. "I'm taking you somewhere."
Slightly confused, Li Wei got into the car and watched as Don Quixote drove straight toward downtown New York, toward Manhattan.
After getting in, Li Wei was surprised to find that Don Quixote had actually cleaned himself up today.
He had shaved, had his hair cut, and was wearing a suit that was a bit loose but clearly custom-made. Li Wei could see the initials of the name Don Quixote Cervantes on the cuffs.
"Got a date today?" Li Wei joked. "All dressed up and looking sharp?"