American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote

"We’ll see," Jin Heon said vaguely. "I haven’t graduated yet. I want to focus on making money first."

"Making money is important, of course," her mother lectured gently, "but you also have to be careful. You’re about to enter the real world—"

"Jeez, okay, okay," Jin Heon said hurriedly. "I know, I’ll be careful, Mom. Let’s eat before it gets cold."

After they finished their meal, her mother insisted on walking the few kilometers back instead of letting Jin Heon call a taxi. Jin Heon couldn’t argue with her.

Watching her mother’s retreating figure, Jin Heon felt an overwhelming exhaustion wash over her.

If she didn’t know any better, she’d think she had just been forced to build the pyramids.

Once her mom was a good distance away, she pulled the receipt from her coat pocket, her heart aching at the sight of it.

"Damn... Why did a side of kimchi cost me $24.99 USD?" she muttered, scratching her head in frustration. ’Why isn’t there a -50% option for the tip? ...Thank God Mom didn’t see the bill or the menu.’

She was willing to spend any amount of money to treat her mother to a meal, but that didn’t stop her heart from hurting over money poorly spent.

Muttering to herself, Jin Heon rushed to catch the last subway train back to her New York University dorm.

As she pushed the door open, she found her roommate putting on makeup.

"Hey! Heon, you’re back," her roommate said, glancing at her from the mirror. "We’ve got a thing going on in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan. Some frat guys got a booth. I can lend you one of my hot outfits. You should change and come with me, yeah?"

"No thanks," Jin Heon said, hanging up her coat and expertly flipping open her laptop. "I have work to do."

"Ah, I’m so jealous. You get to work for Li Wei."

Her roommate stopped touching up her makeup and turned to look Jin Heon over carefully.

"But you’re such a grinder," she said with a shrug, her tone light. "You’re so pretty, you really don’t have to push yourself so hard."

"Why not come meet some cute guys and relax tonight? That guy Brad from the Wharton School of Business keeps asking me about you," she coaxed. "He’s a huge K-pop fan and is totally obsessed with exquisite Asian girls like you. Just say the word, and the passenger seat of his Porsche is all yours."

Hearing the phrases "Asian girls like you" and "K-pop fan," Jin Heon’s fingers paused slightly over the keyboard.

That familiar, baseless sense of irritation churned in her stomach like acid reflux.

"Ah, Brad. I’ve seen him," Jin Heon said without looking up from her typing. "That short stack with the mole bigger than his eye. He probably has to jump to press the elevator buttons. When he cries, he can probably do it standing up under his bed."

Her roommate thought about it for a moment, then giggled.

"Don’t be like that, Heon," she said, turning back to her makeup. "No guy’s going to put up with you talking like that."

’Maybe that’s what I’m hoping for.’

Jin Heon huffed twice and went back to typing.

There were many reasons her father used to hit her when she was a child. For example, she’d make other kids at school cry, either by cursing them out or beating them up. In elementary school, she even pinned a Black girl who mocked her to the ground and beat her.

She was famous at school for her fighting ability all the way through middle school. Her slender arms packed a surprising ferocity; she could swing a water bottle and smash it right on someone’s forehead.

It wasn’t that Jin Heon liked to fight. It was just that in a melting pot like New York, if a pretty little Asian girl from a poor family, with unimpressive parents, growing up in a regular neighborhood, wasn’t tough, well... she’d seen what happened to girls like that.

As for why her roommate asked why she studied so hard—it was precisely because only good grades would get the teachers and the dean to protect her.

Who else would protect her? Her alcoholic father? Her timid, meek mother?

But Jin Heon had never told her roommate or her colleagues about her family.

She worked in her dorm room late into the night before she finally rubbed her eyes and stretched.

Her roommate probably wasn’t coming back tonight. She could have the whole dorm room to herself again. ’True bliss.’

The email Chen Haisheng had sent her contained dozens of photos taken on-site in the Bronx and Queens, including the shipping licenses of several building material warehouses, the registration plates of abandoned office buildings, and a few purchase orders that had been deliberately torn in half.

Jin Heon started by searching the New York City Department of Buildings’ permit system and pulling all the construction permit records for the Manhattan Art Center. Then, she cross-referenced these materials with the files Li Wei had given her, finally narrowing it down to four highly-matching targets.

At 3 a.m., she organized her findings on these targets and sent them to Li Wei.

After the file was sent, Jin Heon let out a small cheer. She kicked off her slippers, peeled off her socks, and propped her long legs up on the desk for a big stretch.

"Mmm~, awesome. Finally done!"

After stretching, she felt so comfortable she could almost cry.

But her work for the day wasn’t over yet. She quickly took off her makeup, put on a face mask, and started working on her thesis. Every second counted, and it wasn’t like she could do much else while the mask was on anyway.

She had assumed Li Wei would be asleep at this hour, but less than ten minutes after she sent the email at 3 a.m., he replied.

"Even more of a grinder than I am," Jin Heon murmured to herself. "As expected of the boss. Successful people really don’t need to sleep."

As she spoke, she pulled up the picture of the villa in the Upper East Side she had passed by earlier that evening. She looked at it again and again, then looked at her bank balance, and sighed again and again.

"It’s okay, Xiaojin," she said to herself in the makeup mirror. "You can do it. You’ll definitely be able to buy this house and move in on your own."

Li Wei, of course, didn’t need to sleep. In fact, his [Knight’s Aura · First Sequence (Silver)] was currently active, allowing him to go for almost three days and three nights without sleep and with no ill effects. It seemed he could go even longer without any problems.

After receiving Jin Heon’s report, Li Wei quickly locked onto a contractor named Onyx United Building.

This company was contracted for the structural framework and security system construction of the Manhattan Art Center. Based on the information from Beatrice and the [Jester’s Skull], this seemed to be the most likely place to find something fishy.

Judging from Jin Heon’s deductive process, the company hadn’t made much effort to deliberately hide anything.

In fact, if Beatrice hadn’t given him the lead and the [Jester’s Skull] hadn’t revealed the key information, he never would have suspected there was anything wrong with this company.

’Looks like I’ll have to make a trip there myself.’

Li Wei walked to his closet, grabbed a trench coat, and put on a flat cap.

He hadn’t personally taken action since he last leveled up.

Having accumulated power up to this point, he was also curious just how far he could go in defying existing common sense and logic.