People in America: My Uncle Don Quixote

"Thank you, Director Harrison." Levi smiled and nodded.

Then, as if remembering something, Li Wei snapped his fingers at the caddie standing not far away.

The caddie ran over excitedly, looking at Li Wei with anticipation.

As expected, Li Wei took out his wallet from his pocket, pulled out a black bank card, and handed it over.

"According to the rules here, if I get a hole-in-one, am I supposed to treat you?" Li Wei asked.

In terms of golf rules, the default rule in Asian clubs for a hole-in-one is to treat the player to a meal. Some clubs even offer "hole-in-one insurance" to avoid the huge expenses of souvenirs, meals, and red envelopes that would result in a hole-in-one.

However, the situation seemed different in England and America. American clubs generally followed the custom of treating everyone in the clubhouse bar to a round of drinks. The caddie took the card and stammered, "Y-yes, sir. Usually, it's a drink for everyone in the clubhouse bar..." "Go tell the bartender," Levi nodded, "to send every guest in the clubhouse a glass of Dom Pérignon vintage champagne, saying it's to celebrate a little bit of luck on the 18th hole." Levi paused, glancing at the expectant caddie, "Also, deduct $1000 from your bill as a tip." "Y-yes! Thank you, sir!" The caddie blushed with excitement, grabbed the card, and hurried towards the clubhouse.

Li Wei watched as he grabbed his credit card and ran off in a flash, and couldn't help but click his tongue in regret.

He now knows why these Americans can't save money.

He's spent at least another $1 this round, and this is just a small example.

The equipment, time, membership fees, and other costs of playing golf here amount to at least the pre-tax salaries of two junior traders on Wall Street over a year. The champagne isn't the point; the point is sharing the joy of a hole-in-one.

For the next few minutes, although Levi's grip clearly indicated a novice's, his accuracy astonished Royce, Harrison, and others (there were no more hole-in-ones). They all exchanged phone numbers with Levi, planning to invite him to play golf together when the time was right, to thoroughly humiliate their rivals on the course. After the round, Levi, having been drinking, got into Elizabeth's black Range Rover, and his bodyguard/driver drove them home. "I'm so sorry about today," Elizabeth apologized again. "If it weren't for your superb skills, things would have been much more difficult today, and I might have even had to ask you to do me a favor." "You noticed that too?" Levi chuckled. "It's alright, if we're really talking about it, I'm the one who owes you a favor." "By the way," he said, "but today was a bit strange. You said you and Harrison had already talked, so how could he change his mind at the last minute?" Elizabeth thought for a moment, glanced at the silent driver in the front seat, took a small remote control from the center armrest of the back seat, and gently pressed it. A screen slowly rose between the front and back seats. Elizabeth leaned closer to Levi and smoothed her hair.

"Because the Mellon family has just too many offspring," she whispered. "Do you know how many members the Mellon family has?"

Li Wei shook his head.

"You don't know, do you?" Elizabeth pointed to herself. "I don't know either, but I do know that there are at least 500 people with the surname Mellon, and just my grandfather's lineage alone has more than 40 people." "Wish..." Levi said rather cautiously, "That's quite a large family."

"And in my grandfather's lineage," Elizabeth sighed as she spoke, "because of my father's situation, our family... well, we're on the fringes, otherwise I wouldn't have had to start working right after graduating high school."

“I thought this was the life you wanted to pursue,” Levi said. “You know, like proving yourself as a rich second-generation heir or something.” “Don’t be silly,” Elizabeth chuckled. “Proving yourself requires you to still have room to grow, or at least you believe you still have room to grow.” Through Elizabeth’s explanation, Levi barely grasped a glimpse of the Mellon family, a famous American conglomerate and a cornerstone family of the founding of the United States. To put it simply, by Elizabeth Mellon’s generation, the Mellon family had already spanned seven or eight generations. From Andrew William Mellon’s founding of the Mellon family in 1816 to the present, it had developed into a super-large family spanning five generations and consisting of hundreds of people.

Under the management and leadership of the investment committee, a small group of people manages the family trust and the family's overall capital.

Further down are the various business units controlled by the Mellon family, so tightly organized and clearly defined that it's more like a small empire or company than a family. "Now, the family members, especially those of us in the fourth or fifth generation, can't even fully explain what businesses the family has," Elizabeth shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Especially our family, which has been sidelined to the point that I'm here in Brooklyn doing things like minority and underprivileged social welfare funds and arts centers—these are all marginal jobs."

"You know what?" Levi said half-jokingly, "When I first met you, I thought you were the heir to the Mellon family." "Well, as for heir... well, I guess you could say that," Elizabeth smiled. "My family was actually quite well-off. My grandfather and his family were in charge of charity, arts, and social activism within the Mellon family. They were considered core members of the family system, but..."

She suddenly fell silent, as if carefully considering what to say next.

“It’s just that he raised an artist son with a rebellious and defiant spirit, namely my father,” she said. “When my father was young, he made a documentary exposing the factories of capitalism, but it turned out to be one of the factories owned by the Mellon family. He was therefore considered a tainted member of the family, so as his daughter, I’m doing things that are not so ‘old-money’ or so ‘Mellon’.” So that’s why she opened her art gallery in Brooklyn and is so close to the new money from Russia. “If it were my uncle sitting there making demands today, even if he wanted to build an illegal bio-lab in downtown New York, Harrison would sign it without hesitation,” Elizabeth scoffed. “How could people like them, who have served the family for decades, possibly respect me?”

“But you’re doing well now,” Levi said. “Isn’t your art gallery about to be renovated? If it’s successful, won’t the family value you more? When will the new exhibition be held?” “In two weeks, if my cousins ​​don’t cause me any trouble,” Elizabeth closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, “my dozen or so siblings won’t just sit by and watch our family regain our grandfather’s favor.”

Although Harrison said he wouldn't accept money, Levi ultimately reluctantly sent his share, spending the entire $600,000 he had prepared. After all, this was his own network of connections and favors, and the connections of the head of the top orthopedic hospital in the United States weren't something anyone could easily cultivate. With the help and impetus of these three clerks, in less than a week, all the permits that had previously given Don Quixote a headache and required him to run himself ragged were approved. Now they could wait for the construction team to come and begin renovations, and Levi could now legally purchase all sorts of firearms and medical equipment. From standard 9RM pistols to 7.62 and 5.56 caliber assault rifles, and even submachine guns, sniper rifles, and anti-materiel sniper rifles, Levi purchased two of each. In addition to weapons, there were also customized force gauges, cryogenic oxygen chambers, and various high-tech equipment, all waiting for about a month of renovation and construction before they could be inspected and moved in. Li Wei sat on the sofa in the palace, looking at the final financial report sent by Don Quixote, and quickly went through the cash flow. He originally had more than 3.6 million US dollars left, but he spent 1.3 million on land, 600,000 on social obligations, and nearly 1 million US dollars on purchasing equipment. Now his cash flow had dwindled to just over 700,000 US dollars! This directly caused Li Wei to fall from the level of a millionaire, and his millionaire experience card temporarily expired.

"I still need to focus on playing well and making money," Li Wei said, turning off his phone and stretching his neck. "The construction team's development and acceptance will probably cost a lot more." However, he wasn't worried about his finances, as the upcoming season would bring him at least tens of millions of US dollars in revenue. Time flew by, and it was mid-August, with the summer heatwave in the eastern United States reaching its peak.

Tourists and glamorous women on the street have already changed into super short shorts and fishnet stockings, with two artificially sculpted grapefruits practically bursting out from their tight short-sleeved shirts. And what could be hotter than the summer weather in the Eastern United States and the glamorous women of the New York area?

Some brothers, some.

Welcome to the American summer NFL season. In the first preseason game, the New York Giants face the Seattle Seahawks.

Although it was just a preseason game, with key players typically playing only a quarter or two to get into form, tonight's ratings saw an unusually explosive surge. An hour and a half before tip-off, the traffic around Metropolitan Life Stadium was paralyzed. Outside this Super Bowl-sized arena, which can hold 82500, hundreds of pickup trucks and RVs densely packed every parking space, and the thick smoke from countless barbecue grills, mingling with the aroma of cumin and charcoal, almost obscured the New Jersey skyline. Everywhere you looked, the stadium was filled with frenzied fans in Giants blue jerseys, the vast majority of whom wore the rookie's number—the center of attention—on their backs. Broadcast trucks from all major American sports networks had long since filled the stadium's perimeter, and Fox Sports even fielded their top-tier commentary team. The reason was simple: tonight was the NFL debut of Reeve, the "$2 Million Man," shrouded in countless accolades and a symbol of justice. "Good evening, America! Welcome to the NFL preseason broadcast. I'm your old friend Joe Buck, and sitting next to me is Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Ekman."