Chapter 332 - 214: Whose Home Field Is This Anyway?
The Gulfstream jet cruised smoothly at an altitude of 30,000 feet. Outside, the clouds refracted the sunlight, appearing exceptionally brilliant.
Jin Heon sat on a wide, soft leather airplane seat, her hands gingerly caressing the walnut-grain folding tray table. Her eyes sparkled with unconcealable novelty and excitement.
She turned her head, gazing at the sea of clouds outside that seemed within arm’s reach and the window, which was more than twice the size of one on a regular plane, and couldn’t help but let out a sigh.
"Daebak..." She subconsciously exclaimed in her native tongue, then quickly covered her mouth and switched back to English, turning to Li Wei and Don Quixote sitting opposite her. "Boss, I’ve never been on such a luxurious plane in my life."
Chen Haisheng, sitting beside her, nodded silently.
’Same here.’
"I come from an ordinary family. I’d never even seen what business class looked like before." She touched everything around her, absolutely fascinated. "I can’t believe my first-ever cabin upgrade skipped first class and went straight to a private jet!"
Chen Haisheng continued to nod silently.
’Same here.’
Don Quixote, holding a glass of champagne, gave a smug smile upon hearing her. He swirled his glass. "It’s all thanks to Li Wei’s ridiculously dominant stats that we got John Mara to begrudgingly reimburse us for a full year of private jet travel."
"Daebak..." Jin Heon covered her mouth. "The boss is seriously amazing."
"It’s also thanks to Uncle Don Quixote’s negotiation skills," Li Wei said, putting down his phone with a laugh. "Otherwise, I wouldn’t have even thought to ask for all this."
"So?" Don Quixote nudged Li Wei with his elbow, joking, "Is a 3% commission okay with you?"
Li Wei gave Don Quixote a helpless look. "Forget 3%, I wouldn’t have said a word even if it was 10%."
Don Quixote roared with laughter, raised his glass, stood up, and addressed the other three people present.
"Allow me to propose a toast," he said.
"Everything is on the right track now," he said enthusiastically. "First, let’s welcome our new employee, Hai Sheng!"
Chen Haisheng’s face instantly turned red. He stood up, flustered, not knowing whether to put his hands in his pockets or in front of him.
"Hai Sheng did something brilliant recently," Don Quixote said. "Li Wei, do you remember that reporter from The Washington Post who was always bad-mouthing you? A guy named Richard Crane?"
"Who?" Li Wei had to think for a moment before remembering. "The guy who wrote those hit pieces on me, right?"
"That’s him. I had Hai Sheng look into him," Don Quixote said, raising his glass to Chen Haisheng. "Turns out, he was betting on games and deliberately bad-mouthing you to lower the odds."
"But the problem’s solved now," he said with a smile. "He shouldn’t have time to bother us anymore. His sports betting got exposed. It’s questionable if he’ll even get to keep his press credentials."
Li Wei understood now. He raised his glass in a toast to Chen Haisheng.
Chen Haisheng was both excited and nervous. He, who could usually bullshit with the best of them in front of his underlings, found himself unconsciously tensing up in front of Li Wei.
"It was my job," he said in a muffled voice. "I still have a lot to learn."
"The second thing to celebrate," Don Quixote said, "is our new intern, Xiaojin."
Jin Heon took the cue and stood up as well.
"Xiaojin’s PR tactics have been a huge success," he said jokingly. "I think we’ll see the results when we land in Florida. I’d also like to congratulate Xiaojin in advance on successfully completing her internship and officially joining us."
"We’ve still got a while before we land," Don Quixote concluded. "Here’s to our big star achieving a resounding victory and securing his 10th consecutive win!"
"Cheers!"
"Cheers!"
After downing the champagne, Li Wei put on his headphones and started texting Anya and Elizabeth in turn.
Jin Heon, meanwhile, picked up her phone. After snapping a bunch of photos of Li Wei for social media content, she began taking non-stop selfies.
After taking so many photos that she had to plug her phone into a power bank, Jin Heon finally quieted down.
She muttered, "There’s actually smooth Wi-Fi at 30,000 feet? Damn this evil capitalism," while connecting to the plane’s network.
As Li Wei’s dedicated PR person, her fingers opened the Twitter app almost out of muscle memory.
Using her main account was out of the question; as Li Wei’s intern, she maintained absolute professionalism. So, she switched to the anonymous alt account she used for her intense internet surfing—one with a harmless cartoon cat avatar and the ID "IcedStrawberryAmericano."
She started searching for content with Li Wei’s tag, ready to monitor any shifts in public opinion.
Just as she had reported to Li Wei earlier, the current public sentiment was overwhelmingly positive. The feed was filled with praise for Li Wei, GIF clips, and discussions about the massive fan reception for the away game in Tampa Bay.
But on the internet, there’s never a shortage of stubborn trolls and extreme haters. Especially the diehard remnants of the Dallas Cowboys and Kansas Chiefs fanbases, whom Li Wei had thoroughly crushed.
Jin Heon’s fingers swiped rapidly across the screen, and her gaze suddenly locked onto a tweet posted just a few minutes earlier.
The tweet was from a burly white guy whose profile picture was a close-up selfie. In the photo, his face was fleshy, his double chin was prominent, and his neck was so thick it seemed to merge with his head.
This hater was relentlessly spreading rumors and conspiracy theories about Li Wei under a tweet praising his physique and football IQ:
"Don’t be stupid. Li Wei is definitely some biochemically-enhanced soldier from the Celestial Dynasty. He might look tough now, but I bet his balls have shrunk to the size of grape seeds."
Jin Heon frowned and clicked on his profile, discovering that this hater was present in the replies of nearly every post praising Li Wei.
Jin Heon’s eyes narrowed slightly, her pupils flashing with the combat lust of a Seoul keyboard warrior.
"Aishibal..." she muttered, gritting her teeth. ’How dare he say that about Li Wei...’
[IcedStrawberryAmericano] replied:
"Aigoo, old man, didn’t the grease on your keyboard jam your fingers when you typed that? Looking at your profile pic, your chin and neck are practically making out. Is your staple diet the cheapest pig feed, bought by the ton? No wonder. A pig raised on clenbuterol sees everyone else as a doper."
After sending the reply, Jin Heon let out a cold laugh and took a sip of her iced Americano.
Sure enough, less than half a minute later, a private message came from him.
Jin Heon looked at the screen full of "Facks" and "fucking bitches" and gave a sweet smile to herself.
’Americans and their limited vocabulary,’ she thought with a tsk. ’They don’t even know how to curse properly. Is this all the firepower they have? So lazy.’
Unfazed, Jin Heon’s thumbs flew across the screen as she continued her elegant, dimension-lowering assault.
’Fighting is so satisfying.’
As she drove her opponent crazy with her insults, she glanced at Li Wei’s handsome profile and thought, ’Li Wei is still too young. He probably wouldn’t know how to handle this kind of cyberbullying.’
’Don’t worry, Boss. Xiaojin will shield you from all the nasty words.’
「A few hours later」
The Gulfstream jet landed smoothly on the private tarmac at Tampa International Airport.
The moment they stepped out of the VIP channel, a wave of warmth unique to Florida washed over them, followed by a deafening roar of screams.
Outside the barricades, a dense crowd of fans wearing dark blue number 1 jerseys was packed together. This was supposed to be the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ home turf, but looking out, you could barely see any of the home team’s red jerseys.
Huge cardboard signs were held high in the crowd:
"FLORIDA LOVES LI WEI!"
"THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU’VE DONE FOR THE SCHOOLS, LI WEI!"
"WELCOME, TYRANT!"
The fans waved their homemade signs and merchandise. When Li Wei’s tall, upright figure appeared, the wave of sound was almost strong enough to blow the roof off the terminal.
Several security guards formed a human wall, looking on high alert. Li Wei, however, calmly walked forward, took the footballs and markers handed to him by a few young fans who were moved to tears, and fluently signed his name.
"Welcome to Florida, Li Wei!" the fans cheered.
"Looks like this is definitely different from last time in Dallas," Li Wei said with a smile, turning to Don Quixote and the others as he signed autographs and posed for photos.
Everywhere he went, cheers erupted, rising and falling as if the crowd were welcoming a god.
「Sunday afternoon. Raymond James Stadium.」
The stadium, with a capacity of over sixty thousand, was completely sold out. Although the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were prepared for a tough fight, the huge blocks of dark blue in the stands made it seem almost like a semi-home game for the New York Giants.
In the panoramic studio, Fox Sports’ star commentary duo, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, were already in position.
"Welcome to this week’s nationally televised game of the week! I’m Joe Buck, and next to me is Troy Aikman." As the number one "Li Chui," Joe Buck’s excitement was written all over his face. "Troy, look at these stands! This is Tampa Bay! But I swear, the cheers I’m hearing for Li Wei are louder than those for the home team!"
Troy Aikman wasn’t wearing his usual stern expression today.
The legendary Quarterback—who had been skeptical during Li Wei’s debut and had even predicted before the game against the Chiefs that Li Wei’s invincible myth would be shattered—now watched the big screen showing Li Wei warming up, a rare, extremely complicated expression on his face.
"I have to admit, Joe," he said, "my previous arrogant judgment of this young man... I might have made a slight mistake."
Joe Buck teased, "Our traditionalist hardliner is actually softening his stance today?"
"Because in the last two weeks, we not only saw his great turn towards Mahomes at MetLife Stadium—a moment filled with class and recognition—but we’ve also seen him, off the field, using real money to tangibly improve healthcare support for underprivileged communities and public schools."
"Did you know, Troy," Joe Buck said, "according to the salary contract the Giants released, Li Wei’s take-home pay so far, after taxes, wouldn’t exceed 15 million USD."
"That still sounds like an astronomical figure, Joe."
"It is, but my point is," Joe Buck continued, "did you know, Troy, that during his last charity event, he quietly donated 3 million USD worth of equipment?"
"Yes, I saw the report in the New York Times," Troy said with admiration. "This is a young man with a heart of gold."
"Not only that, Troy," Joe Buck said, "according to the grapevine, Li Wei plans to renovate parks, donate equipment, and refurbish basketball courts in the most chaotic parts of the South Bronx. The total investment for that will also exceed 2 million USD."
"Which means Li Wei has already donated a third of his income to date to charity," Troy said. "The shift in public opinion about Li Wei is no accident. He’s earning the respect of the entire league with his actions."
"Whoa," Joe Buck said, his eyes widening dramatically. He then burst out laughing, his voice booming through the microphones across the nation. "Troy, if you keep praising him like this, people are going to think you’ve been bought off by Li Wei’s agent."
"Enough of that, Joe," Troy joked back. "The game is about to start. Besides, there’s something else very noteworthy: we have a VIP guest who has also come to the game today."
"Who?"
"That would be Ronald Deane DeSantis," Troy shouted. "The Governor of Florida! Director, let’s get a shot of him!"