Today Is There a Date? (Thanks to Alliance Leader "Handsome to the Point of No Return 12138")

It was nearing noon, near a construction site in Queens.

Don Quixote was driving while scrolling through TikTok on his phone, its screen cracked.

"Tsk, young people these days..." he lamented as he scrolled. "What has this society come to? Does America even have a future?"

Suddenly, a new short video popped up. The scene looked familiar, like a neighborhood he sometimes drove past.

The video showed a muscular Latino man, completely naked, running down the street from a distance. He covered his face with one hand while pleasuring himself with the other. A crowd surrounded him, gleefully filming.

"Fuck!" Don Quixote nearly jumped out of the driver's seat in fright. "My eyes! How did this get past moderation?"

"How did you do that?"

Elsewhere, the gym had emptied out. Michael stared in disbelief at Li Wei, who had just taken the water bottle from him.

"How did I do what?" Li Wei took the bottle, then happily put it in his bag. "I didn't expect the prize money to be tax-free. I thought they'd take nearly twenty percent out again."

"How did you do that?" Michael scratched his head. "When you first came into the gym, you could barely bench eighty, and you—"

"Is it possible that I'm just this strong?" Li Wei casually replied, putting the protein powder into his bag too. "If that big guy hadn't run his mouth, I wouldn't have had to teach him such a lesson."

Even though he'd wasted a use of [Berserk] on this, Li Wei didn't regret it.

After coming to America, he'd realized just how hypocritical people here were.

Racial discrimination was officially prohibited in America, but in reality, it was everywhere. The lower a person's social standing, the more likely they were to discriminate against others.

Racism was like a taboo: everyone knew it existed and saw it everywhere, but no one would say it out loud.

More than once, Li Wei had seen Black or white people on the subway cast hateful, disgusted looks at him for no apparent reason, as if he'd done something to offend them.

At least now that Latino idiot knew to respect people of Asian descent. He'd learned what it meant to keep a low profile.

"I'm heading out," Li Wei called to Michael. "I've got things to do."

"I'm heading out too," Michael said with a shake of his head. "I have to do community service. The church needs me."

Who would've guessed the young Black guy, Michael, was religious?

Li Wei said goodbye to Michael and headed to the Upper East Side for his next part-time shift.

Mrs. Dolores wasn't at the shop today, and no one came in all afternoon.

The wooden crate Li Wei had carried in last time had been unpacked, letting him finally see the artwork he'd hauled inside.

It was an abstract metal sculpture of a human figure, apparently cast in one piece.

Li Wei instinctively felt something was off. For one thing, the sculpture didn't look like it weighed 300 kilograms. For another, when he'd carried it last time, he'd heard something shifting inside, which had made him think it wasn't filled all the way through.

Yet the sculpture before him looked like a single solid piece.

But Mrs. Dolores certainly wasn't going to tell him why, and he didn't feel comfortable pressing her.

Still, he'd grown curious about Mrs. Dolores and the shop. Judging by its revenue, the shop had no chance of breaking even, and from the way Mrs. Dolores treated her employees, it was clear she didn't care about small expenses.

Who else gave part-time employees suits worth over ten thousand dollars as uniforms?

His three-hour shift flew by. At five in the afternoon, Li Wei changed back into his regular clothes and took the subway to Leon's shop again.

Leon's expression changed the moment he saw Li Wei.

"You've got some nerve coming back here!" he shouted angrily. "You cheated me!"

"Hm?" Li Wei asked. "How did I cheat you?"

"There's no such game company!" Leon took out the gold coins Li Wei had sold him and slapped them down on the table. "They're just ordinary 24-karat gold coins! They have no collector's value at all!"

"Oh, I see..."

As he calmly walked forward, Li Wei activated his upgraded skill, [Eloquent Speaker].

After the skill upgrade, it could persuade greedy people like Leon with a 100% success rate.

"Listen, I wouldn't lie to you..."

As Li Wei explained, Leon's expression shifted from anger to confusion, then finally to realization.

"So I couldn't find the game company because I was searching in the wrong language?" he said sheepishly. "I knew it. Most people wouldn't use pure gold to mint their own commemorative coins..."

"Exactly. You wronged me," Li Wei said with a nod, then took out sixteen more coins. "These are the last sixteen I have. Give me a quote."

After completing the career change quest, Li Wei had seventeen coins left, and he wouldn't be getting any more.

He planned to keep one as a special memento and sell the other sixteen, so he could save up enough for rent and move out as soon as possible.

While he tried to persuade Leon to change his mind and believe the coins were worth even more than before, hoping to sell them to the crook for three times their original price, his phone suddenly rang.

"Hello? Uncle Don Quixote," Li Wei said casually. "I'm... I'm at Leon's shop, selling some things... Sure, I'll wait outside."

"Strange," he muttered after hanging up. "Why is he looking for me at this hour?"

"Deal!" Leon finally gave in to Li Wei's brainwashing, gritting his teeth. "Twelve hundred dollars apiece. I'll take them all!"

Li Wei sold the coins, which could have fetched four hundred dollars each at their original price, for twelve hundred apiece.

In the end, he left Leon's pawnshop with $19,200 in cash.

Including the money he'd already saved, he now had more than $27,000 on him—enough to rent the two-bedroom apartment he'd had his eye on.

He'd have to live with the landlord, which would affect his day-to-day life, but at this stage, Li Wei couldn't afford to be picky. Getting out of the basement as soon as possible was what mattered.

As he thought this, Don Quixote's beat-up Toyota pulled up in front of him. The window rolled down, revealing Don Quixote's somewhat pale face.

"Get in," he said. "I'm taking you somewhere."

Somewhat bewildered, Li Wei got into the car and watched as Don Quixote drove toward Manhattan, the heart of New York City.

Once he was in the car, Li Wei was surprised to see that Don Quixote had actually made an effort to tidy himself up today.

He'd shaved and fixed his hair, and he was wearing a slightly oversized suit that was clearly custom-made. Li Wei could make out the initials of Don Quixote Cervantes on the cuff.

"Got a date today?" Li Wei joked. "You're dressed all fancy!"