We're Interested in Football Too

After unloading the plates, Li Wei set the barbell on the power rack and began testing his lower-body strength.

Eight red 25-kilogram plates, followed by a few smaller weight plates.

He opened with a 250-kilogram squat.

That kind of weight would clear out any commercial gym, but here in the basement, only the rapidly spinning washing machine bore witness to the scene.

Li Wei wore no protective gear—no belt, no knee sleeves.

With a Constitution at level 1.7, his joints were already strong and resilient enough that he had no need for such external support.

He ducked beneath the bar, letting his trapezius muscles catch the rough knurling.

He shot up in an instant.

270, 280, 290... He kept adding weight until he passed 315 kilograms. Only when the barbell sleeves on both sides had begun to bend slightly did Li Wei finally set a new record.

250 kilograms on the bench press, 315 kilograms in the squat.

At his current body weight of roughly 95 kilograms, he could probably place in the top ten, perhaps even the top five, if he entered an international powerlifting competition.

For now, there was no way to test the effects of his improved Agility in the basement, but he figured there had to be considerable progress there as well.

Just as Li Wei was quietly rejoicing, he heard the front door upstairs being pushed open. Don Quixote came in.

"What's with all those cardboard boxes at the door?" Don Quixote said when he saw Li Wei coming up from the basement. "Remember to flatten those boxes and tie them together. Otherwise, those lazy garbage collectors might refuse to take them and slap you with a fine."

"My gym equipment arrived." Li Wei looked at Don Quixote's grave expression. "But why are you back so early?"

It was only a little after three in the afternoon. Don Quixote should have still been in Susan's little office at this hour.

"I..." Don Quixote looked as though his parents had died. "I'm fucking doomed."

?

Li Wei thought for a moment. "Did you kill your ex-wife?"

"Not that quickly. I haven't figured out a good method yet." Don Quixote opened the refrigerator. "You bought beer—great. I need this right now."

He opened a beer, threw himself onto the couch, and chugged the whole can.

"Since it's not about your ex-wife," Li Wei said as he sat beside him, "what is it? Are you about to lose your job again?"

"Quite the opposite," Don Quixote muttered. "I've done too fucking well, and that's the problem."

??

"Are you speaking English?" Li Wei had no idea what nonsense this old dog was spouting. "Can you say something a human being can understand?"

"My dear nephew, come here." Don Quixote beckoned Li Wei over, his expression deadly serious. "I have something to ask you."

Li Wei leaned forward. "What is it?"

"Say your boss sees you working overtime all the time, working hard," he said. "What would a normal boss do?"

"A normal boss would give you a bonus, or symbolically raise your pay a little. At worst, they'd give you an extra one of those dry, stringy turkeys at Thanksgiving."

Li Wei analyzed it objectively. "If you perform diligently enough, they might even consider changing you from a 'temporary worker' to a 'full-time contract employee,' so you can finally get that damned Social Security and health insurance."

"Exactly!" Don Quixote slapped his thigh. "But Susan—she called me into her office just now and locked the door. I thought she wanted to go over this quarter's materials list with me, but then she looked me in the eyes and asked whether I was free Friday night. She said she wanted to treat me to dinner, as thanks for helping her sort out several years' worth of bad accounts over the past two weeks."

"That's a good thing!" Li Wei said happily. "I bet she has a thing for you!"

Li Wei had long known that Susan was somewhat interested in Don Quixote. He just hadn't expected her to hold out for more than two weeks before making a move.

"That's exactly the problem!"

Don Quixote sprang up as though someone had stuck a needle in his ass. He paced rapidly around the cramped living room, his dress shoes making agitated sounds against the floor. "It's a trap. Li Wei, you're still young. You don't understand. A woman's invitation is like a Federal Reserve rate-cut signal. On the surface, it gives you liquidity, but really, it's to lock you into higher debt."

"But don't you think," Li Wei said with a shrug, "that in your current state, there's nothing she could lock you into?"

Don Quixote's expression froze. That did seem to be true.

He was no longer the high-spirited JPMorgan Chase investment banking VP in his early thirties. He was now a down-and-out accountant and inspector who had to live at other people's mercy.

"So I think you can relax," Li Wei advised. "Try getting to know her. There's no harm in it. Friday is still a few days away, so you can keep observing and decide later."

"No matter what," Don Quixote said, continuing to pace through the living room, "I feel like disaster is about to strike."

Two days passed in the blink of an eye.

After receiving an email from Franklin K. Lane High School, Li Wei went to a secondhand electronics shop and spent 200 dollars on a Dell laptop that was nearly obsolete. He also politely declined the clerk's offer of a hundred gigabytes of free high-definition pirated videos from Woodpecker and Brazzers.

On his way back, he also signed up for the driver's license exam. In New York State, all you needed to get a license was to be at least sixteen and have a passport.

On the morning of the third day, it was the big first day of school for students across the East Coast.

Li Wei hitched a ride with Don Quixote to welcome his own first day of school.

However, contrary to his expectation of entering the school as an unknown nobody, people began pointing at him and whispering as soon as he lined up to pass through security.

"That's him..."

"The backup quarterback..."

"...so handsome..."

"Asian..."

By the time Li Wei passed security and entered the graffiti-covered school building, the attention only intensified.

"Excuse me," he said, stopping two passing high school girls. "Do you know me?"

The two girls exchanged a surprised glance, then burst into giggles.

"Of course!" One of them looked him up and down. "You're Bruce Lee, the new starting quarterback."

Li Wei hesitated. "Uh, I'm the new quarterback, but I'm not Bruce Lee. My name is Li Wei."

"Sorry." The other girl popped her gum. "It's just that you're really famous, haha."

"Why?" Li Wei asked in confusion. "Today's my first day at school."

"Oh, that." The first girl pulled out her phone and searched through it. "There are videos going around school of you knocking over three tackles. You don't look like someone so handsome would be that strong."

"Yeah, Li Wei." The gum-chewing girl winked at him. "We're interested in football too. Can you come to our house this weekend and teach us?"