You're Absolutely Right

After saying that, Don Quixote sorted the documents into categories, stood up, and gave Li Wei a hug.

"I still have work to do over in Dyker Heights," he said. "Don't act on impulse here, and don't—fuck! How did you get so huge?"

He took two steps back and looked Li Wei up and down, then couldn't help stepping forward to squeeze Li Wei's arm.

"I remember when you first got here, you were skinny as a baby chick," he cursed. "How the fuck did you turn into a goddamn North American bison after one month?"

Li Wei stroked his chin and said thoughtfully, "I don't know either. Could it be that I'm really talented?"

"You'd be damned if you weren't... I should've introduced you to hauling bricks with me. You'd have been damn good at it." Don Quixote looked at Li Wei's arms stretching his sleeves taut and laughed speechlessly. "Forget it. You're a kid with your own mind. I'm leaving."

As he spoke, he peeled the visitor badge sticker from his chest and left through the lobby entrance.

After asking a passing teacher for directions, Li Wei followed the corridor to the nurse's office on the basement level.

Before he could knock and enter, voices drifted out from inside.

"Ms. Murphy, my migraine is seriously about to explode..." a male voice said. "I really need some painkillers, or could you write me a pass to leave school?"

When Li Wei pushed the door open, he saw a huge Black school nurse standing with her hands on her hips, saying something to a small, thin white student.

"Mr. Norman, right now, immediately, use those healthy legs of yours to get out of my sight."

Ms. Murphy had been furious, but the moment she saw Li Wei enter, a brilliant smile appeared on her face. Even her tone turned gentle.

"Good morning. I haven't seen you before. Are you a newly transferred student?"

Li Wei nodded calmly.

He had already grown somewhat accustomed to the preferential treatment and benefits brought by his handsome face, but Norman, who had been left standing off to the side, could not accept being ignored and loudly protested.

"Hey! That's not fair! I'm suffering!"

"Your only suffering is that school hasn't let out yet, Mr. Norman. Get lost."

After getting thoroughly chewed out by Ms. Murphy, Norman's expression immediately turned indignant. Muttering curses, he jumped off the bed and scampered out of the nurse's office like a monkey.

"All right, child," Ms. Murphy said, coughing twice as she tried to make her attitude gentler. "Are you here for a physical?"

"Yes." Li Wei sat down across from her and smiled. "I'm planning to join the football team, so I need a physical examination report."

"Please stand on that scale." As Ms. Murphy spoke, she took a medical form from a drawer. "Generally speaking, I rarely see students of Asian descent playing football. Hmm... I thought you'd focus on your studies too."

"I do want to focus on my studies, ma'am," Li Wei said as he stepped onto the scale. "Can't I excel in both academics and sports?"

"205 pounds, 93 kilograms..." Ms. Murphy said. "It's good to have that kind of ambition, but you still need to be careful. Those football boys don't know their own strength. They might deliberately exclude you... Now let's measure your heartbeat."

"Bullying on campus? That would be bad." Li Wei sat beside her. "I prefer reasoning things out with people."

"Fifty-two beats per minute?" Ms. Murphy tapped the old machine and looked at Li Wei nervously. "How do you feel right now, child? Dizzy? Blurred vision?"

Li Wei knew that his increased physique had made his heart more efficient at pumping blood than an ordinary person's, rather than it being some kind of illness.

"Hmm... My cardiopulmonary endurance has always been much better than other people's, and my heart rate is slower too," he explained. "It's normal."

Ms. Murphy was rather astonished by Li Wei's physical condition and said that it was "extremely rare in her more than twenty years as a school nurse." In the end, she stamped his physical examination form as approved.

"Go eat something," she said. "But don't eat too much. Coach Miller will be testing your physical fitness this afternoon."

After thanking her, Li Wei politely left the basement.

By the time he climbed the stairs to the ground floor, it was already close to noon.

The exam ended and the dismissal bell rang. In an instant, the entire hallway filled with students of all kinds of skin tones, seemingly from nowhere.

Li Wei also saw again the white boy who had tried to deconstruct "why X and Y were math" during the exam.

"Hey, algebra bro!" The boy waved excitedly when he saw Li Wei. "Thanks so much for what you did during the exam."

"No problem," Li Wei said calmly. "Did you finish filling them in?"

"Yeah, I filled every blank with '1,' just like you said!" He excitedly held out his hand. "I'm Travis. What about you?"

"Li Wei." The corner of Li Wei's mouth twitched. "If you don't mind, I'm going to the cafeteria to find something to eat—"

"That's great!" Travis was completely the sort to act familiar right away. "I'm going to the cafeteria too! That test exhausted me. It was so boring."

Why did foreigners have so little sense of boundaries when socializing? Li Wei sighed inwardly and could only head to the cafeteria with him.

Along the way, before Li Wei could even say a word, Travis spilled everything out like beans from a bamboo tube. He talked about how gifted he was in strength, and how he had transferred to Franklin K. Lane High School because it was the largest high school nearby and had a complete football team that could compete against other schools.

"Hey, Li Wei." As they moved through the crowd, Travis looked excited. "See? Those girls are all looking at us."

Li Wei casually brushed him off as they walked. "Yeah, maybe they're looking because we're new faces."

"I don't think so. They must be captivated by my masculine charm," Travis said with absolute certainty. "Look, they're practically staring. You're really lucky to be walking beside me."

Li Wei nearly choked on his own saliva. After coughing hard several times, he turned to look at Travis's utterly serious face.

"...Indeed," Li Wei said. "You're absolutely right."

Franklin K. Lane High School's cafeteria was located around the corner on the first floor. Its enormous windows were covered with wire mesh year-round, and the sunlight that shone through was sliced into tiny, fragmented squares.

Li Wei and Travis did not have student ID numbers yet, but their exam registration numbers could also be entered.

The two took compartmentalized plastic trays from the stacked shelves and received two pieces of fried chicken, a scoop of corn kernels boiled into mush, and a carton of chocolate milk with a highly questionable expiration date.

They avoided several large groups and sat down near the edge.

"So you're going to the tryouts this afternoon too?!"

Travis looked at Li Wei, who was casually eating fried chicken, his eyes filled with delight. "Hey, you helped me during the exam just now. I'll definitely help you later."