American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote

He gazed at the essay question demanding the use of "the Markov process and the Black-Scholes equation to predict long-term trends." The page was a blur of Greek letters and stochastic calculus symbols, like a swarm of distorted black ants dancing frantically across his retinas.

’I don’t get it. I don’t get it at all.’

What made his heart sink even more was the sound coming from beside him.

SCRITCH SCRATCH SCRITCH SCRATCH—

It was the sound of Li Wei’s pen flying across the paper.

He risked a glance out of the corner of his eye and saw Li Wei writing without even seeming to read the question. The very essay problem that made him sick to his stomach seemed, under Li Wei’s pen, as simple as a first-grade math question: "If you have three apples and eat one, how many are left?"

’Wait a minute, aren’t we taking the same exam?’

’Am I really that stupid?’

The student felt an immense pressure, and a cold sweat began to bead on his forehead.

He shot his hand up. "Professor! I... I have to use the restroom."

The Dean shot him a cold glance, nodded, and casually pointed to a doctoral student TA standing by the door. "Follow him."

The student bolted from the exam room as if granted a pardon.

His plan was simple. Once he reached the restroom, even if he only had thirty seconds, he could try to do *something*.

However, as he burst into the restroom, despair descended upon him once more.

The tall doctoral student shadowed him like a prison guard, following him right into the restroom and even standing behind him to watch as he urinated.

’It’s over. This time, I’m completely screwed.’

After stalling in the restroom for a full ten minutes, he dragged his heavy feet back, pushing open the door to the lecture hall as if walking to his own execution.

However, when his eyes adjusted to the scene inside the exam room, he suddenly thought he might have entered the wrong room.

The Dean was gone!

Not that he was dead, but that pressure-inducing monster who had loomed over him like a guardian statue had vanished.

’With the Dean gone, there was room to cheat. His spring was about to arrive.’

He instinctively glanced over at Li Wei’s seat, only to find that Li Wei had also disappeared, along with his test paper and pen.

He looked up at the clock on the wall.

The three-hour exam was only halfway through.

Li Wei had handed in his test while the other student was in the restroom.

In a corridor behind the lecture hall, pale winter sunlight filtered through a massive stained-glass window, casting mottled patterns of light and shadow across the bluestone floor.

Li Wei stood calmly, his bag slung over one shoulder and his hands tucked in his coat pockets, watching the Dean flip through his exam paper page by page.

After a full five minutes, the Dean, known for being strict and old-fashioned, closed the test and looked up at Li Wei.

"You barely paused while answering the questions," the Dean’s voice, betraying no emotion, echoed in the hallway. "How did it feel?"

"It was definitely challenging," Li Wei said, his eyes on the test in the Dean’s hands. "But I think I did well. Can I get an A+?"

"No, you will not get an A+." The Dean shook his head without hesitation.

Li Wei nodded, waiting for him to elaborate.

"Your answers are perfect, but they are perfect in the way a perfect Frankenstein’s monster is. I hope you understand what I’m saying," the Dean said, tapping a finger on the thick stack of pages. "On the final two open-ended questions, your answers are stitched together from the original texts of six academic journals and textbooks. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but—"

He mulled over his next words for a moment before speaking them.

"But you’re like a computer," he said, shaking his head. "I didn’t see any of your own critical thought."

Li Wei remained silent. His 5.0 Spiritual Power granted him a photographic memory, but it couldn’t overcome the academic intuition the Dean had cultivated over decades in the field.

He nodded, calmly accepting the rebuttal.

"So," he asked, "are you going to exercise your authority, Dean, give me a B, and force me to withdraw?"

The Dean looked at Li Wei and suddenly sighed.

"If any other student had submitted a test like this, I would have immediately launched an investigation with the Committee on Academic Integrity. The amount of memorization required is so great that I would suspect some highly advanced cheating method was used."

The Dean tucked the test back under his arm. "But I stood right next to you and watched for an hour and a half."

A flicker of emotion crossed his stern, traditional face. "I still disapprove of your approach—not taking academia seriously, splitting your time between work and class."

"But I cannot deny the effort it must have taken to memorize this material," he said with feeling. "Though I did not see it myself, I believe you must have worked day and night. It would have required absolute focus and grueling effort."

’Not at all. It just took me one afternoon to memorize everything,’ Li Wei thought.

The Dean paused. "I will not give you an A+, because your answers didn’t show me your own thought process."

"But I will give you an A," he said. "Because academia will always respect and revere the ’brute force’ methods of those willing to put in the grueling work."

A rare, relieved smile finally touched the corners of the Dean’s mouth. "Congratulations, Mr. Li Wei. This semester, with straight A’s in all your subjects, you have proven your capabilities to the entire School of Management."

Hearing this, Li Wei broke into a smile as well. "So, about that bet we made earlier..."

"I haven’t forgotten," the Dean cut him off crisply. "As the Dean of the Yale School of Management, I know when I’m beaten."

"From this moment on, I owe you a major favor."

’The Dean of the Yale School of Management... what did that title truly represent?’

’His alumni directory was filled with the CEOs of top Wall Street investment banks, the founders of Silicon Valley tech giants, and powerful senators on Washington’s Congress Hill.’

’If he so wished, he could even participate directly in internal discussions regarding the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s regulatory bills.’

’The old man’s connections were unfathomable.’

"This is your victory, young man." The Dean turned and headed for his office at the end of the corridor. "Good luck in the upcoming NFL playoffs, and have a Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas to you too, Dean," Li Wei shrugged. "Actually, there are still four regular-season games before the playoffs."

[Congratulations! You have passed the arduous first-stage assessment of the Royal Knight Academy!]

Once the Dean was gone, the system notification popped up abruptly, shimmering with fine flecks of golden light.

[After countless days and nights of tireless study and the ultimate tempering of your Spirit, you have proven to the world through perseverance and sweat that a true Knight must not only shed blood on the battlefield but also seize glory in the halls of academia. Having crossed this chasm insurmountable to ordinary people, your mind and strength have surely progressed immensely.]

[You have received an additional reward: Constitution +0.1, Spirit +0.1]

Li Wei shrugged, calmly accepting that he had crossed this "chasm insurmountable to ordinary people" with his "perseverance and sweat."

「Two days later. MetLife Stadium.」

The Giants once again faced the Dallas Cowboys at home.

The two teams already had a bitter rivalry, and after Li Wei had thoroughly humiliated them once before, the tension between them should have been even more explosive.

But whether it was because they knew they couldn’t beat Li Wei, or perhaps to conserve energy for the upcoming playoffs, the Dallas Cowboys scored in the first half but then allowed the Giants to overtake them in the second. The result was another 0.1 attribute points for Li Wei and a magnificent fourteen-game winning streak for the Giants!

This was also their last game before Christmas.

Head Coach Dabor walked in, his face beaming, and announced that they would get a full week of rest until their Monday night game in two weeks’ time.

The entire locker room instantly erupted, with everyone madly tossing towels and water bottles into the air.

Li Wei sat in front of his locker, wiping champagne from his hair as he listened to his teammates excitedly discussing plans to vacation in the Caribbean or throw yacht parties in Miami.

His mind, however, was on the Mellon Family’s dinner party.

He had just received a message from Elizabeth on his phone.

It was next week!