Wang Qiang the Emigrant

"You... you're robbing me!"

When Li Wei walked closer, he saw a middle-aged man in square black-framed glasses, somewhat overweight and out of shape, angrily accusing Leon in Chinese.

"Mr. Wang Qiang, please calm down," Leon said leisurely as he filed his nails. "This headset model has been out for a long time. Yours has no resale value at all."

"But... this is a collector's edition!" Wang Qiang's face turned red with anger, yet he could do nothing about it. "I-I-I... I'm not selling it anymore."

"Suit yourself. Please see yourself out."

Leon waved Wang Qiang away, dismissing him.

Wang Qiang stuffed the headset from the counter into his arms and turned to leave.

"From the motherland?" He turned back, and after seeing Li Wei nod, he lowered his voice. "Don't sell things to him. He's a crooked merchant."

Li Wei stepped aside to make room and merely smiled without saying anything.

After Wang Qiang left, Li Wei walked up to the counter, took four gold coins from his pocket, and arranged them in a row.

"I have four more gold coins here, also pure gold." As Li Wei spoke, he activated [Clumsy Eloquence]. "Can the price go a little higher this time?"

His mental strength had improved significantly since it was at 1.0, and the skill had leveled up twice. Li Wei had a feeling he could get a better price than last time.

Leon simply stared at the coins Li Wei had taken out, neither speaking nor showing any reaction.

Just as Li Wei began to wonder whether the skill had failed this time, the familiar ding finally sounded in his mind.

Only then did Leon slowly say, "You're right. These things have high collector's value, so the buyback price should be higher."

"Last time, the buyback price was five hundred dollars per coin." Li Wei smiled faintly. "What's the highest price you can offer this time?"

When Li Wei left the resale shop in high spirits, he happened to see Wang Qiang squatting by the roadside, smoking with a troubled look on his face.

"Young man." Seeing Li Wei come out after only a few minutes, Wang Qiang patted his backside and stood up, speaking earnestly. "I already told you, that old French guy loves ripping off Chinese people like us. Why did you still sell things to him?"

"It was all right." Li Wei did not tell him that he had sold four gold coins worth sixteen hundred dollars for three thousand dollars. "I only come by once in a while."

"Ah... you young people." Seeing Li Wei's plain clothes, Wang Qiang pushed up his glasses. "You look unfamiliar. You haven't been here long, right? Did you come here to study?"

Li Wei nodded and did not say much more.

When fellow townsmen met, they stabbed each other in the back. For now, he had no intention of revealing his personal information.

"My son is about your age too. He goes to Franklin High School, though he hasn't been here long and his English grades are pretty poor. He still has to take language classes. Luckily, my wife's English is decent," Wang Qiang said. "By the way, you don't look like a bad kid. Where do you live? If you study nearby too, Hao Ran can look out for you."

"I live around Sunset Park." Li Wei casually gave a rough area. "I live with relatives."

Wang Qiang froze for a moment, then looked Li Wei over again through his thick lenses. His indignation toward the crooked merchant instantly vanished, replaced by a mixture of superiority and pity.

His back visibly straightened a little.

"Oh dear, the environment around Sunset Park is so filthy and run-down. How can people live there?" Wang Qiang clicked his tongue twice. "It's not like the apartment we rent in Flushing. It's a little expensive, three thousand dollars a month, but at least it has windows and good lighting and ventilation. People won't get sick living there."

"But America is great. Different ethnicities blend together, everyone is equal, and there are opportunities everywhere." He sighed with emotion, completely forgetting that he had been selling secondhand goods when Li Wei met him. "And making money is fast. Back in China, I worked in construction and nearly killed myself for eight thousand yuan a month. After coming here, I worked for a Chinese contractor and made over a hundred dollars a day. That would be almost fifteen hundred yuan a day back home."

"Indeed." Li Wei quietly stepped back, politely putting some distance between them. "I have a part-time job this afternoon, so I won't disturb you."

The smile on Wang Qiang's face stiffened. But he quickly found himself an excuse and waved his hand. "It's nothing if young people get off to a worse start. Young people nowadays just haven't suffered enough. Take care of yourself. I need to get to work too."

As he spoke, he climbed into a secondhand Ford Raptor that was about as beat-up as Don Quixote's Toyota. It was as if he had drawn plenty of emotional satisfaction from Li Wei before driving away.

Watching Wang Qiang's receding figure, Li Wei shrugged. He could roughly tell that Wang Qiang did not have any particularly bad intentions. He was merely using Li Wei to gain a little pitiful sense of superiority and psychological comfort.

At three in the morning, police sirens and gunshots still circled over Brooklyn.

Li Wei hid in the cubicle and carefully counted the cash on him, his pen constantly recording accounts in his notebook.

After his mental strength increased, he needed much less sleep than before. Even if he went to bed at three in the morning, he was still full of energy when he got up at eight.

His part-time job at Dolores Boutique was his only source of income. After deducting transportation, groceries, and gym membership expenses over the past few days, and adding the thirty-five hundred dollars he had gotten from selling five gold coins, including the ones he had given Don Quixote, he had just over four thousand dollars left on hand.

Including the six thousand in his account, his total assets had already surpassed ten thousand dollars.

But if he wanted to rent an apartment somewhere slightly safer and escape the basement, he was still short on money—not just a little short, but far short.

In relatively safe Brooklyn neighborhoods that could get him out of his current half-bankrupt, half-homeless situation, such as Bay Ridge or Bensonhurst, rent for a 2B2B apartment was generally over thirty-two hundred dollars a month.

Besides the rent, there were broker fees, electricity, gas, internet, and other miscellaneous expenses. Even if Li Wei paid the rent while Don Quixote covered the other costs, it would probably still be difficult.

Moreover, many landlords in America required a credit score issued by a bank or credit card company. Someone like Don Quixote, who often paid late and was practically undocumented, definitely would not have a sufficient score.

If they wanted to bypass the credit score requirement, they could only pay more. With three months' deposit, one month's rent, and a broker fee equal to half a month's rent, Li Wei needed to have at least twenty thousand dollars before he could even consider moving out.

Just as he was calculating whether he could wash his clothes at the gym to save the three-dollar daily laundromat fee, Li Wei heard Don Quixote's snoring suddenly stop.

It was time for the Lone-Ball Knight to set out again.

There were still seventeen gold coins from his Path of the Knight quest that had yet to be collected. Once he completed the quest, he would have enough money to move out!

After leaving the cubicle, Li Wei indeed saw Don Quixote standing there in armor with his eyes closed.

The moment Don Quixote saw him, he shouted, "Squire Li Wei! Follow me into battle and purge the witch!"