Chapter 365 - 238: I Support You Having an Affair
"Okay! I’ll remember that, Elizabeth!"
The sumptuous dinner ended in a warm and pleasant atmosphere.
Li Wei and Lily had to return to their apartment in Fortress City, and Elizabeth needed to go back to her art gallery in Brooklyn for some business, so the three of them parted ways at the restaurant entrance.
Inside the Cullinan on the way back, Lily was still too young to sit in the front passenger seat, so she sat in the back with her toys.
While scrolling through her phone, she kept giving Li Wei a strange look, as if she wanted to say something but was holding back.
Li Wei noticed this, frequently glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
"What’s wrong?" Her staring was starting to give Li Wei the creeps. "Is there something on my face?"
"Did you and Anya break up?" Lily asked suddenly.
"What?" Li Wei was taken aback. "No, we’re doing great."
"Then are you having an affair with Elizabeth?"
Li Wei nearly choked on his own saliva, instinctively slamming on the brakes. "What nonsense are you spouting? Of course not! What on earth goes on in that little head of yours all day?"
Lily bit her lip and let out a rather disappointed, "Oh."
Silence fell over the car again.
Li Wei drove for a while longer before he couldn’t stand it anymore and broke the silence.
"Why would you think that?"
"I overheard you on the phone with Anya a few days ago," Lily said. "I couldn’t hear clearly, but Anya sounded really angry."
"Oh, that..."
Li Wei wasn’t sure how to explain to a 13-year-old girl that during a recent roleplaying session, he had tied a belt around Anya’s wrists. He’d left it on for too long, causing her wrists to be red and swollen for days. A classmate had asked about it, which prompted her to call and deliberately chew him out.
"Anyway, we’re still on good terms," Li Wei said. "I didn’t break up with Anya."
"Then would you consider dating Elizabeth in the future?" Lily asked suddenly. "Isn’t she pretty? Isn’t she fun? Isn’t she rich?"
"If you put it that way... I suppose that’s true," Li Wei said, his voice pausing. "But nothing’s going on between us right now."
Looking at Elizabeth’s face, not even an enemy could say she wasn’t beautiful.
"I support you having an affair!" Lily suddenly declared.
The tires rolled over a cold speed bump in Manhattan, and the car suddenly fell silent.
’Is this what Gen Z is like?’ Li Wei suddenly had an existential crisis. ’Am I really getting old?’
"So you don’t like Anya?" he asked. "Anya buys you clothes all the time."
Unlike the career-driven Elizabeth, Anya’s life philosophy centered on one word: spend!
She loved to shop but hated to unwrap her purchases.
Sometimes, even after buying out an entire brand, she wouldn’t be satisfied and would just buy clothes for Li Wei and Lily too.
Elizabeth worked herself to the bone, scheming and fighting to secure a one billion USD capital injection, and would probably only see about ten million USD of it herself. Yet, that was just a single month’s trust fund payout for Miss Anya.
She couldn’t spend it all. It was simply impossible.
Faced with the incredibly lavish Anya, who was also very good to her, Lily fell into deep thought.
"Argh!" she exclaimed in frustration. "Why are you making me make such a difficult choice!"
No matter how young, a woman is still a woman. Making them decide on something is incredibly difficult.
"Brother," she said, refusing to let it go, "can’t you just date both of them? Anya can buy me clothes, and Elizabeth can stick up for me. Wouldn’t that be great?"
’Wow,’ Li Wei thought, glancing at her. ’Her fantasy is even better than mine.’
"Don’t overthink it," Li Wei said sternly. "We’re home."
「The next morning.」
Li Wei, Don Quixote, and Jin Heon took a private jet back to Los Angeles to face the Los Angeles Chargers in an away game at SoFi Stadium.
Meanwhile, the lab was close to synthesizing the "Ancient Magic Potion" Li Wei had requested, and Chen Haisheng was monitoring the progress around the clock.
As per their prior agreement, the script for this game was planned out down to the flow of each quarter.
First quarter: Li Wei played by the book.
He accurately found a few gaps in the defense, led the offense on a steady drive, and drew first blood with a 20-yard touchdown pass.
At the end of the first quarter, the New York Giants led 7-0.
Second quarter: Li Wei started to look exhausted.
"Li Wei’s footwork seems to have slowed down," Joe Buck said in the broadcast booth, his eyes glued to the advanced data analysis on the screen. "His release time on passes is 0.4 seconds slower on average than in the first quarter, and he’s showing less willingness to run out of the pocket."
"That’s perfectly logical, Joe," Troy Aikman offered his opinion. "He played every single offensive and defensive snap in the last game against the Eagles. Even a machine needs time to cool down."
The Chargers keenly seized this perfect window of opportunity while the Giants’ Quarterback was "fatigued." Late in the second quarter, they scored 10 unanswered points with a long pass and a field goal, taking the lead 10-7.
Third quarter: Li Wei entered a slump, and the Chargers had a huge advantage.
He began to meticulously manage the point differential. He couldn’t let the Chargers pull too far ahead, or the fourth-quarter comeback would look too staged.
Otherwise, some fans would definitely notice something was off: ’Oh, so you suddenly explode in the fourth quarter and play like a beast? What were you doing in the first two quarters? Just messing with us on purpose?’
So, Li Wei led the offense on an extremely time-consuming ground drive, which ultimately stalled just before the end zone. They had to settle for a field goal to get 3 points back, tying the score at 10-10.
But afterward, he was "deliberately" half a beat too slow in his defensive read, allowing the Chargers’ Quarterback to find an opening and answer with a field goal of their own.
After three quarters, the score was set at 13-10, with the Giants trailing by only 3 points.
Fourth quarter: Li Wei secured the victory.
To create a pretext for his subsequent performance, he even allowed himself to be sacked for the first time ever before finally winning the game with a 60-yard desperation pass.
17-13. Li Wei completed the toughest victory in history, leading the Giants to their 13th consecutive win.
The toughest part, that is, was the acting.
’That 20 million really isn’t easy money,’ he thought. ’I almost lost control of the score.’
Li Wei was still a true professional. In the locker room, he wiped himself down with a towel. Even though he hadn’t broken much of a sweat, he had to sell the performance.
In any case, as long as he won, he would gain 0.1 attribute points.
Don Quixote pushed the door open, saw Li Wei wiping away his "sweat," and burst out laughing.
"Look at these numbers," he said, handing Li Wei a tablet. "The ratings recovered just as we thought. They even started to climb in the fourth quarter."
"So I guess my 20 million is in the bag?" Li Wei asked, looking at the tablet in his hands. "What about that gift you promised me?"
"It’ll arrive next week," Don Quixote said with a grin. "And there’s one more piece of news."
"Chen Haisheng called during your game. He said the lab has synthesized that formula you wanted."