People in America: My Uncle Don Quixote

The moment the points were added, his muscles began to undergo incredible changes. All the bad postures and habits he had developed were now being washed away and corrected by a gentle yet irresistible force.

Li Wei felt a surge of heat flowing into his body, followed by a slight tingling and pain in various parts of his body, which gradually subsided after more than ten minutes. The soreness in his muscles from doing push-ups had completely disappeared.

"Could there really be such an unreasonable thing in the world?" Li Wei muttered to himself. "So the system is real after all."

Li Wei flexed his muscles slightly and clenched his fist.

The size and quality of the muscles did not improve, possibly because no effort was put into strengthening them.

However, the fatigue in my body and the soreness in my arms were completely swept away.

"Let's test it again and see how much it has improved."

「1、2、3、4、5、6、7、8......9.......10~」

Although he had done 10 push-ups 10 minutes earlier, the improvement he received after only 0.1 points of increase in physical fitness was vastly different from what he had experienced before.

If the previous 10 push-ups had consumed half of his maximum strength, then this time, doing 10 only consumed a third or even less.

Although his physique only improved from 0.8 to 0.9, his maximum stamina did not seem to increase by more than ten percent, but by nearly half in one go!

Although his previous poor health played a role, this improvement is still quite significant.

Li Wei stared intently at the system panel in his mind. For a moment, even the arguing and shouting upstairs didn't seem so jarring to him anymore.

The next day, just after 7 a.m. on his phone, Li Wei was awakened by Don Quixote's voice.

"Get up, kid, if you don't want to rot away in this moldy basement on your very first day!"

Don Quixote's booming voice, combined with the noise of him dressing in the cramped space, was even more effective than the horns of cars on the roadside. Li Wei rubbed his throbbing temples, opened his eyes, and looked at the unfamiliar ceiling—and the system panel in his eye sockets that he could summon at any time according to his thoughts!

It's all real; he wasn't dreaming!

Li Wei sat up, pulled back the curtain, and saw Don Quixote putting on a reflective vest covered in lime and paint splatters, with half a piece of something that looked like a fried cake in his mouth.

His eyes were clear but weary, as if the energetic knight at three in the morning was not him at all.

"Listen, I'm going to a construction site in Queens to carry bricks," he mumbled as he tied his shoelaces. "Since you don't need me to take you to school—damn, I haven't contacted the school for you yet—you'd better stay put, or go for a walk on 8th Avenue. Don't go far, don't cause trouble, and come to the construction site at noon. Don't make eye contact with anyone on the street, especially Black people."

"Uncle," Li Wei called out to Don Quixote, who was about to leave, his hand instinctively resting on the coins in his pocket, "Are there... any places around here that recycle old items? Or perhaps a pawn shop or something?"

Don Quixote stopped what he was doing, turned to look at Livy, and said eagerly, "What contraband or valuables have you brought? Or are you trying to sell some watch your father left you?"

"No..." Li Wei decided to tell a little lie, "I brought some winter clothes with me. Now it's summer, so I might as well sell them to get some money."

Don Quixote followed his gaze and saw the suitcase spread out at Livy's feet, filled to the brim with clothes.

"Ha! A smart decision," he scoffed, losing interest, and pushed open the iron gate. "Turn right out of the alley, onto 8th Avenue. There's a recycling shop called Lyon's Grocery Store that takes everything. Tell them Don Quixote Cervantes recommended it to you; their recycling is relatively safe, they won't rip you off. But you'd better speak English; if you speak Chinese, they'll think you're a freshly caught lamb and rip you off."

With a "bang," the iron gate slammed shut.

Li Wei went to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and waited for a while. After finding that the water flowing out was still dark yellow and murky, he gave up the idea of ​​washing up in the room.

He changed into an inconspicuous short-sleeved shirt, put on a baseball cap, locked the basement door, and followed Don Quixote's directions to 8th Avenue.

Sunset Park in the morning displays a strange, chaotic vitality.

As you step out of that dark alley, you are immediately met with blinding light and a cacophony of voices.

Eighth Avenue is known as Brooklyn's Chinatown, a place where immigrants from Fujian and other parts of the world mingle, as well as a large number of Latinos.

As Li Wei walked along, he found that 8th Avenue was crowded with all kinds of stalls, selling vegetables, seafood, and cheap daily necessities. The air was filled with the smell of fish, car exhaust, and some kind of fried food mixed together.

He pulled his hat down low and walked two blocks before spotting a shop with a faded neon sign that read "Lyon Pawnshop & Secondhand Goods Store" in English.

Just then, another voice echoed in his mind:

Adventurer Levi, you have arrived at the Fairy Shop.

[Leon the Fairy is a notorious shrewd businessman. His daily routine involves carefully selecting his clients based on their status and ruthlessly exploiting them; very few people can actually get anything out of him.]

[Task issued: Bargain with Lyon and teach this cunning merchant a lesson in losing money]

[Task Reward: Attribute Points +0.1, Gold Coins +1]

Pushing open the door, Li Wei found a gloomy-looking old white man sitting behind the counter, reading a newspaper while stuffing donuts into his mouth.

Hearing the noise at the door, he lifted his eyelids above his reading glasses and glanced at Li Wei.

"Buying or selling?" he asked in Mandarin with a Southeastern accent.

"To sell things," Li Wei said in English. "Don Quixote Cervantes sent me."

Upon hearing the name, Leon paused for a moment, then let out a snort of laughter. Li Wei recognized it as a conditioned reflex to hearing the name of the village idiot: "So it's him. He hasn't been around for a while. I wonder if he still enjoys reading chivalric romances?"

"He hasn't been looking at it much lately," Li Wei said casually as he stepped forward. "He's taken on two jobs, so he's probably too busy to take any."

"Still decided to earn money honestly with your own hands... What an idiot... Here you go," Leon muttered, pulling out a magnifying glass. "What are you selling? Cell phones? Or something else?"

Li Wei pulled out a gold coin from his pocket: "I won this commemorative coin in a game before. It's pure gold. Let me estimate its value."

He didn't know if it was pure gold, but he brought it over for Leon to see first, just in case it was pure gold, so that Leon would know that he also knew his stuff.

Lyon examined it closely with a magnifying glass and muttered, "Strange design... but it doesn't look like an antique."

He took a bottle of acid from the drawer, lightly scratched the edge of the gold coin, and then dripped a drop of acid onto it.

A few seconds later, the gold mark remained motionless under the acid, and even shone brighter under the light.

"It's very pure, 24k gold...5 grams," he looked up at Li Wei, "but without an official stamp or proof of purchase, I can only offer you 3% of the gold price."

"The price of gold is $80 per gram right now, and you can only offer $120 for 5 grams?" Levi couldn't help but say. "Isn't that a bit too harsh?"

Lyon scoffed and spread his hands: "Do you have proof of purchase? Do you have an official gold seal? How can I be sure that this thing is legitimate? Besides, I've already given you a fair price out of respect for Don Quixote. I usually buy back things at a quarter of the original price."

Li Wei took a deep breath and nodded. It was obvious they were trying to rip him off because he was an unfamiliar Asian teenager with no connections.

This isn't some cell phone or electronic device that depreciates quickly; this is gold! A reputable gold shop can get it back up to 9%!

Looking at the skill he had drawn yesterday, he couldn't help but speak again:

"You know what?" he said, "I suddenly realized that this thing isn't just a commemorative coin issued by a game company."

On the panel that only he could see, a skill he had just drawn yesterday was emitting a faint glow:

[Skill: Poor oratory skills]

[Effect: You have a 50% chance of persuading a greedy person with weak willpower.]

Suddenly, Li Wei heard a "ding" sound in his mind.

Then, Leon's expression changed several times.

He then sat up straight in his chair and slammed his fist into his palm with considerable excitement.

"I knew it!" he shouted. "You're absolutely right!"

done?

Li Wei was somewhat surprised by the system's power, but he was also a little uncertain. After hesitating for a moment, he said, "This is a limited edition item; only a thousand were ever made worldwide."

Upon hearing Levi's words, the fairy Leon picked up the gold coin from the table again and examined it over and over.

"No wonder this thing is so exquisitely crafted," he said, looking up at Li Wei with a dazed expression. "So, according to you, this thing has a high collector's value?"

"That's right," Li Wei gradually grew bolder, "and I have inside information. This game will soon be released in North America, and these commemorative coins will definitely fetch a high price on eBay or Amazon!"

"I understand... I understand..." Leon completely believed Levi's words, and now he picked up the magnifying glass again to examine the gold coin carefully. "So... you still want to sell it?"

For Li Wei, this thing couldn't be eaten, and as Leon said, he couldn't prove where the gold coin came from, so he couldn't go through the proper procedures to recycle it. And right now, his biggest problem was that he was short of money.

"I wouldn't be selling it if I didn't need the money right now," Levi said, looking at Lyon. "So, name your price."

"Well..." Leon muttered for a while before finally making up his mind, "How about $300?"

Li Wei shook his head. The mission required Leon to experience the taste of losing money, but he could still make a profit of $300.