America: A Prodigy of Stereotypes

Li Qun emerged from the alley and walked into the apartment rented by Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter not far away, delivering their secret-recipe roast chicken to them.

David Cage, who lives downstairs from Steve, went to his father's house for Thanksgiving, which meant that Li Qun delivered one less roast chicken.

Because of work, Steve and Sharon stayed in New York for Thanksgiving this year, instead of going to Washington to spend the holiday with Sharon's aunt like last year.

However, Steve and Sharon had already arranged with Sharon's aunt that they would spend Christmas with her.

"Ding-dong!"

"Liqun?"

"Surprise, Johnny!"

"Wow! That's a real shock!!"

Steve pulled Li Qun into the apartment, where he and Sharon had just put the turkey on the table. They had bought a medium-sized turkey, enough for a family of four, but Steve's stomach could easily finish it.

"I've brought you and Sharon a roast chicken. Happy Thanksgiving!" Li Qun placed the roast chicken on the table.

"Look, we have such a big turkey, and you still send us a roast chicken. Don't you even consider whether we can finish it?" Steve joked.

“I know perfectly well that you can finish it, Johnny.”

“This roast chicken isn’t very big; even a girl could eat the whole thing. I saw it with my own eyes in my family’s restaurant,” Li Qun said.

Thank you.

"I need to hurry back; I still have a few people to deliver roast chicken to," Li Qun said.

"OK then……"

"Here, have this chicken leg!"

Steve used a knife to cut off a leg from the roast turkey on the table, wrapped the leg bone in paper, and handed it to Li Qun.

"I ate as I walked," Li Qun said with a smile, taking a bite of the turkey leg.

“This must be the best part of the turkey, right?” Li Qun said to Steve.

"The turkey Sharon bought, she roasted it too," Steve said, looking at Sharon, who smiled at Li Qun and Steve.

“There’s nothing special about it, I just followed the recipe in the cookbook,” Sharon said, pointing to the recipe on the countertop.

"The meat isn't too dry."

Li Qun devoured the turkey leg in a few bites, leaving only bones. Sharon's roasted turkey leg slightly changed Li Qun's preconceived notion that roasted turkey meat was dry.

After leaving the apartment rented by Steve and Sharon, Li Qun took the roast chicken and went to the Sanctuary of the Holy See in New York, where his father was also staying that day.

In the meditation room on the third floor, Old Man Bruce Banner, dressed in the robes of an apprentice sorcerer and Dr. Banner in the robes of a guardian sorcerer, were performing a ritual to appease the vengeful spirits of the Native Americans.

"Dr. Banner, Dad, I've brought you some roast chicken." Li Qun called out to the two people inside the meditation room from the doorway.

"Roast chicken? Perfect timing!"

The old man reached out and grabbed the roast chicken from Li Qun's hand. After separating the foil and lotus leaf, he placed the roast chicken on the altar as an offering to the vengeful spirits of the Indians.

"Don't speak later, or you'll be haunted by ghosts," Dr. Banner said to Li Qun.

Liqun turned and left.

Li Qun has learned that if a person is haunted by the resentment of Native Americans, their luck will plummet, and everything they do will go astray.

Li Qun passed through the portal back to the Chinese restaurant, which was still packed with people.

Although the restaurant was packed, my uncle wasn't busy; he even had time to chat with people outside.

During holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, Chinese restaurants require customers to make reservations in advance; once the restaurant is fully booked, they will not accept new customers.

With the appointment system in place, my uncle and aunt's busy time is not long.

"Have you delivered them all?" Uncle asked Li Qun.

“I didn’t send any to Chagwen. I don’t know where she’s spending the holiday.” Li Qun brought out a stool from the shop and sat down with his uncle outside the restaurant.

“You have so much energy. I can only deliver to the neighbors in the neighborhood,” the uncle said.

“I gave them to professors, to my rich classmates, and to my good friends. I had a purpose in doing so,” Li Qun said.

“You and your mother are both very clear-headed and know everything perfectly well,” the uncle said.

"And what about my dad?" Li Qun asked curiously.

"He's all about fairness in this regard; he'll give to everyone and he'll never abandon someone who can't help him," the uncle laughed.

The uncle took out his cigarette case from his pocket, and was about to light one when he remembered that he was on the street outside the restaurant, so he put the cigarette away.

"Shall we eat the roast chicken you didn't give away?" Uncle suggested.

"Uncle, you pointed out a lot of flaws to me when I was making it."

Today, Li Qun gave his friend a roast chicken. He bought each chicken himself and did every step of the process by himself. His uncle just watched Li Qun's process and gave him some verbal pointers on what was wrong with the roast chicken.

"I'll go and call Shuangxi down."

Shuangxi was watching TV upstairs. On Thanksgiving Day, the TV station was broadcasting a football game. Some people felt that a Thanksgiving dinner had to be eaten while watching a fiercely contested football game to truly be considered Thanksgiving.

"Auntie, come and have some roast chicken."

"I need to control my diet. I can't get any fatter. You guys eat, don't worry about me," Auntie said to Liqun.

"Won't you really try my cooking?" Li Qun asked.

“I think it’s better than what I did,” Auntie said to Liqun.

"Ok."

"How about a piece of chicken breast?" Li Qun still wasn't going to give up on letting his aunt try the roast chicken he made.

"Your roast chicken wasn't marinated thoroughly, and the chicken breast isn't flavorful enough," my aunt politely declined.

At home, my uncle's cooking skills are ranked first, followed by my aunt's, then Liqun, and finally Shuangxi.

Shuangxi's cooking skills can hardly be called cooking skills. When Liqun was hospitalized after her car accident, Shuangxi was home alone and he tried to make instant noodles with cold water. After taking a bite and realizing the noodles weren't properly soaked, he simply heated them up in the microwave, fooling himself into doing something wrong.

Chapter 230 The Third Choice

Thanksgiving is on a Thursday, and the next day is "Black Friday," the start of the biggest shopping festival of the year in the United States.

No one can resist the super discounts of "Black Friday". Some people queue up in front of stores all night, just to be the first to grab super low-priced best-selling items when the stores open at six o'clock in the morning.

Officers George Stacy and Jefferson Morales returned to the police station at 2 a.m. By 3 a.m., traffic around major shopping districts in New York City was congested. The New York police were busy in the middle of the night, increasing patrols, directing traffic, and maintaining order.

Gwen has trouble sleeping whenever George Stacy has to work in the middle of the night.

She nestled on the sofa, holding her phone in both hands, wanting to chat with someone. The TV was on, and David Cage's soothing voice, the host of a midnight show, drifted off to sleep.

Gwen didn't want to be hypnotized by David's sleep aid program, so she switched to another TV show where two boxers were passionately fighting each other in the ring.

Gwen changed the channel again, this time to a replay of another football game played during the day on Thanksgiving Day, which she watched with great interest.

……

"Liqun, why are these people running around carrying a ball?"

At four in the morning in New York, Gwen was not asleep, nor was Li Qun. He was in the Sanctuary with his father and Dr. Banner, doing extra exercises to strengthen their jaw muscles. The three of them were eating hot pot and watching the football game they had missed during the day.

"I don't know either, but if you replace this ball with a piece of gold, then you can understand it."

"So they were simulating a robbery?" Hulk stroked his chin, making the same gesture as Dr. Banner when he was thinking.

After the perspective shifted, Hulk, who had initially found football boring, suddenly discovered what made it interesting.

A rugby match is essentially two groups fiercely fighting over a valuable item; the running and collisions of the rugby players are a symbolic performance of real-life robbery.

"Why didn't I think of that before?" Dr. Banner looked at Li Qun in surprise.

"Isn't that right? Is there any other explanation?" The old man scooped a piece of beef from the hot pot and put it in the dipping sauce, then looked at Dr. Banner.

“Never tell anyone this at school. If your words get out, you’ll know what real school bullying is, Liqun,” Dr. Banner warned Liqun.

"I've got it."

“This sport is really brutal. I’ve heard that many rugby players suffer from very serious aftereffects after retiring,” Dad said.

“In essence, it’s a kind of animal fight,” Dr. Banner said casually.

"The stadium's design is modeled after the ancient Roman Colosseum."

"Wild animals are difficult to control, but people are easy to train."

“Dr. Banner, you wouldn’t have told your classmates at school when you were my age that rugby was actually a gladiatorial game, would you?” Li Qun looked at Bruce Banner suspiciously.

"You guessed it." Dr. Banner smiled.

"You know what? The bullying I experienced back then wasn't the kind shown on TV."

"However, I didn't just passively endure their bullying. I fought back in many ways to let them know that I'm not someone to be trifled with."

“Hulk remembers me,” Hulk said, turning to Banner.

"Do you remember him?" Dr. Banner looked at Hulk with a puzzled expression.

How could you possibly remember?

“Banner was angry, and Hulk remembered that anger,” Hulk said.

"Ok."

"Banner remembers, so Hulk naturally remembers too. Hulk also knows that Banner now remembers those people's names and faces as well."

“I’m very petty,” Banner told Li Qun.

“Banner, there’s an old saying in China: ‘A gentleman takes his revenge even after ten years.’” Old Man said to Dr. Banner.

“Holding grudges is a wonderful virtue I learned from my teacher. My teacher told me that the most important thing in learning magic is to have a clear mind.”

"If the mind is not clear, the magic power will not flow smoothly; if the magic power is not flowing smoothly, the spells will be delayed."

"And this is something my teacher learned from his senior classmate."

“My teacher, the Ancient One, was not initially the first choice to become the Great Sage; it was his senior brother who was.”

"But an accident caused the death of the teacher's senior brother, and the teacher, as the second candidate, succeeded him as the Grand Master."

"What kind of accident was it? An invasion by a dimensional demon?" Li Qun asked with concern.