Li Wei, Stay a Moment

"I'll do it," Li Wei said. "I'll give it a try. Maybe I can move it inside."

"Oh, come on, sweetheart," Emma teased the younger man before her. "I know you're muscular, but three grown men couldn't move this thing."

Li Wei stepped forward and crouched in front of the crate, examining it carefully.

It was a wooden crate that could just barely fit through the boutique's entrance. It wasn't very large, reaching only up to his waist, and iron bars had been cast along both sides to hold the wood together. It looked solidly built.

"How much do you think it weighs?" Li Wei wondered aloud, turning to the delivery workers. "Three hundred kilos? Four hundred?"

One of the workers was a burly white man. After hearing Li Wei and Emma's conversation, he looked him up and down, a flicker of disdain passing through his eyes.

"At least three hundred kilos, I'd say," he replied. "It's solid."

Li Wei noticed the mockery in his eyes, but didn't react for now.

He made a rough estimate. With his strength currently at 1.2, he could already push a 125-kilo barbell. On the way here, he'd estimated that every 0.1 increase in strength added roughly 20 to 40 kilos to what he could lift.

If he used [Berserk] to double his strength for a short time, maybe he could manage it?

"What kind of artwork is inside?" Li Wei asked Emma as he returned to her side. "Do I need to handle it carefully?"

"Of course you need to handle it carefully! If I remember correctly, it's a sculpture," Emma said, rolling her eyes at him. "Would it be called art if it weren't valuable?"

"So, if I can lift it and move it inside, what will you say?"

Hearing Li Wei's bold claim, Emma looked him up and down before replying:

"You're a little young for me, but you're exactly my type. If you want to ask me out, just say so."

"I don't," Li Wei said, pointing to a fancy all-you-can-eat steakhouse nearby. "If I can move it inside, how about you buy me dinner?"

"Jeez... you know how to pick a place. Lunch there costs 150 dollars per person..." Emma's mouth twitched as she joked, "But fine. If you can't move it inside, you buy me dinner. Deal?"

Li Wei nodded, set down the small bag he'd brought with him, and went over to the crate, taking a deep breath.

Seeing the beautiful Emma take the initiative to flirt with a yellow-skinned kid, the delivery worker's eyes flashed with irritation.

"Be careful, kid. Don't throw your back out," he advised, half-mocking and half-sincere. "This isn't some little dumbbell at home—"

[Berserk] activated!

An unprecedented wave of heat surged out of his heart, flooding every muscle fiber like a river bursting its banks.

[Strength 1.2]--[Strength 2.4]

[Agility 1.1]--[Agility 2.2]

[Constitution 1.1]--[Constitution 2.2]

In an instant, Li Wei felt the world truly slow down. His pupils contracted, and the chatter around him seemed to recede, growing increasingly indistinct.

The only thing he could clearly feel was the roaring strength within him.

He crouched and gripped the reinforced iron bars beneath the crate with both hands.

He braced his lower back, his lats locking tight like two iron gates, while his thighs acted like a pair of jacks. The wooden crate weighed over three hundred kilos, and three strong men had been unable to move it. Yet just like that... it rose smoothly, almost lightly, off the ground.

The veins in Li Wei's arms bulged like writhing dragons, but his face wasn't contorted in a grimace like everyone had expected. He was only breathing a little hard.

"Oh my God..." Emma couldn't help covering her mouth. Her playful warning about his back had caught in her throat.

Holding the crate, Li Wei took one step, then two, then three. To everyone's astonishment, he set it down steadily in the corner.

He even took care not to bump it against the glass door. Clearly, three hundred kilos was nowhere near his limit.

"Strange..." Li Wei muttered. "Wasn't this packed properly? Why does it feel like it's not full inside..."

After he set the crate down, everyone looked at the handsome, unassuming Asian part-timer as if he were a monster.

That thing weighed three hundred kilos! And unlike a barbell, it had no bar to grip and no evenly distributed weight. It was an irregular object weighing nearly half a ton!

The delivery worker who'd just warned him rubbed his eyes, then walked over and tried to move the crate himself. It didn't budge an inch.

"This is pretty light," Li Wei said, patting him on the shoulder. "Who would've thought a guy with muscles as big as yours would have no strength at all?"

The man turned toward him, his face flushed red. He wanted to say something, but couldn't get a word out. Like a fish gasping for air, all he could do was swallow Li Wei's taunt.

No sooner had the delivery truck left than a Bentley Bentayga pulled up outside the boutique.

Mrs. Dolores was unusually a little late, but she still carried herself with her usual grace and composure.

"Why did they leave?" she asked. "Emma, didn't you tell me the sculpture I bought was stuck outside and couldn't get in?"

"That was the case, Mrs. Dolores," Emma said, glancing at Li Wei. "But Li Wei moved it inside all by himself."

For the first time, Li Wei saw a hint of confusion and surprise on Mrs. Dolores's face.

"Did you open it?" she asked. "Otherwise, how could you possibly have moved it by yourself?"

"Maybe I was born with superhuman strength," Li Wei said with a shrug. "Or maybe those movers are just weak from taking too many steroids."

Mrs. Dolores walked over to the corner and checked the seals around the crate.

From the expression on her face, Li Wei knew his task was probably complete.

Sure enough, the next second, a quest-completed notification appeared before his eyes:

[Quest: Helping Others is a Knight's Virtue completed]

[Reward issued: +0.1 free attribute points]

Yes!

Li Wei secretly clenched his fist and quietly put the attribute point into his constitution.

[Constitution 1.1]--[Constitution 1.2]

Li Wei suddenly took a slow, deep breath.

He drew the breath out, long and deep. He could feel his lungs expanding with unprecedented efficiency, extracting every bit of oxygen from the air. Then his powerful heart pumped blood, carrying energy all the way to his fingertips and the ends of his hair.

He felt as if, if he wanted, he could maintain a pace of four minutes per kilometer and run all the way from the Upper East Side back to Sunset Park. One benefit of improved constitution was a tremendous increase in stamina.

But before he could savor the changes in his body, Mrs. Dolores called all four sales assistants over and said seriously:

"I'll be away on a business trip for the next few days," she said, looking at Li Wei and the others. "While I'm gone, everything will carry on as usual."

Her gaze suddenly settled on Li Wei. "The rest of you can go back to work. Li Wei, stay a moment."