American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote

On Tuesday evening, the Manhattan sky was so overcast it looked heavy with rain. A November cold snap blew in from the Hudson River, carrying a bone-chilling wind.

Li Wei had come to visit the mole person who called himself Arthur. He parked his black Cadillac Escalade in a hidden corner near Riverfront Park.

He didn’t get out of the car right away. Instead, he reached over to the passenger seat and picked up several brown paper bags, still warm to the touch. Inside were a few roast beef sandwiches, steaming hot black coffee, several pairs of thick thermal socks, and some brand-new packs of AAA batteries.

Pushing the door open, Li Wei deftly slipped through a wire fence and climbed down a rusty ladder, re-entering the freight tunnel that reeked of mold and piss.

The moment he got down, Li Wei paused, taken aback.

With the sudden drop in temperature, the number of homeless people in the tunnel had clearly grown. Many were huddled under cardboard and in tattered sleeping bags, sizing up the unexpected visitor.

More specifically, they were staring at the paper bags in his hands.

’Alright, alright,’ Li Wei muttered to himself. ’Looks like I still have some time.’

He made another call to Chen Haisheng, asking him to purchase a batch of the same supplies and bring them over.

"Form a line," he said. "No fighting, and no snatching."

There were a few who thought about using force to intimidate others and get a bigger share. But for some unknown reason, the moment they looked at Li Wei, their hearts began to pound wildly. It was like an animal instinct kicking in, as if they’d encountered a natural predator, and they didn’t dare make a move.

It took about half an hour for Li Wei to distribute all the supplies he had. He watched as the homeless people vanished back into the darkness.

Carrying the remaining supplies, Li Wei made his way through the subterranean world and returned to the familiar makeshift shack built from plywood and tarps.

Lifting the patterned bedsheet that served as a door curtain, Li Wei saw Arthur sitting on an overturned paint bucket under a dim, bare bulb. He was scrolling through the news on an iPad with a shattered screen.

Despite the harsh surroundings, Arthur’s army-green coat was kept as neat as possible, and the collar of his shirt wasn’t rumpled.

"Long time no see, big star." Arthur looked up, a faint smile appearing when he saw it was Li Wei. "The hero of New York City, the NFL’s yellow-skinned God."

"That’s a bit much," Li Wei said, stepping inside. He placed the heavy brown paper bag on the wooden plank in front of Arthur. "What surprises me most is that you actually have Wi-Fi down here."

"I just live here," Arthur said with a laugh. "Doesn’t mean I’m a caveman."

He took the paper bag from Li Wei, pulled out a sandwich, and took a huge, ravenous bite.

"Excellent," Arthur mumbled, his mouth full. "A million times better than the sour oatmeal they serve at the shelter. Thanks for the socks and batteries. These are a real lifesaver right now."

"As for the Wi-Fi and electricity," Arthur said, swallowing his food and gesturing with the iPad, "the average homeless person would just try to tap into a high-voltage line and most likely end up a piece of charcoal or trigger a fire alarm. But I used to work in urban planning and real estate compliance. I have the blueprints for every single utility line down here."

Li Wei’s interest was piqued, and he pressed for more details.

Perhaps it was more satisfying for Arthur to show off his small victories to someone like Li Wei, rather than to a crowd of people who mostly hadn’t finished high school. He opened up completely and began to impart the survival wisdom of the mole people.

"The internet, for example," he said, pointing toward a ventilation duct. "I made a simple antenna at the mouth of the ventilation shaft, welded it together from discarded soda cans and copper wire. Three blocks straight above us, there’s a Starbucks and a public library."

"As for food, New York’s charities and supermarkets run on a strict schedule," he said, folding the sandwich wrapper neatly. "Mondays and Thursdays, the shelter at Saint John’s Church; their potato and beef stew isn’t bad. Wednesdays, you can get canned goods near Hell’s Kitchen. The rest of the time, you go to the back alley of Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s at 11:40 PM to pick up the fruit they’re throwing out."

"Sounds like you’re doing alright," Li Wei said with a shrug.

"Life finds a way, Li Wei," Arthur said with a sigh. "After all, no matter where you are, you have to do what it takes to survive."

"You’re a smart man, Arthur," Li Wei said suddenly. "Your knowledge and abilities shouldn’t be wasted down here, living as a mole person with no identity."

"Are you trying to recruit me?" Arthur chuckled. "To help you handle contracts, taxes, and real estate? I take it you’re thinking about tax shelters for when those big commercial endorsements start rolling in next year."

Li Wei gave a noncommittal nod.

After he won the Super Bowl next year, commercial endorsements would surely come flooding in. And when it came to sheltering that income, aside from a foundation, another very important and common method was to purchase commercial real estate to generate massive paper losses for his company.

And for that, a top-tier real estate lawyer like Arthur—someone who understood land zoning and aggressive tax avoidance strategies—would be an indispensable core asset.

A brief silence fell over the small shack, broken only by the faint rumble of a distant subway train.

"Honestly... I don’t know." Arthur shook his head, his expression uncertain. "Look, I’m doing alright down here. The people around here respect me... because I can solve their problems. If I go back out there, will I even be able to keep up?"

"And more importantly, I made enemies of a powerful group when I refused to sign off on an inspection report for subpar load-bearing steel," he said. "Those developers ruined my life. If I go out and start working for you, they might drag you into their mess too."

"Come find me when you really need me," he said, his words flowing more easily now. "For now, at least, I’m content with my life."

Li Wei saw the resolve in Arthur’s eyes and didn’t press the matter further.

"Alright then." Li Wei stood up, brushing the dust from his coat. "I’ll come find you when the time comes."

"Remember to pay my consultation fee," Arthur said, waving the sandwich with a half-joking smile. "After all, my old rates were very expensive."

"I’ll bring you a different kind next time," Li Wei responded as he left Arthur’s shack and climbed back to the surface.

Once he was back in the driver’s seat of his Cadillac Escalade, he glanced at his watch.

It was getting late. Li Wei started the engine, pulled away from Riverfront Park, and sped toward Saint Mary’s Park in the South Bronx.

By the time he arrived at Saint Mary’s Park, the timing was roughly what one of the homeless men had told him earlier.

He cut through a few patches of bare bushes. Deep in the park, next to a long-dry and derelict fountain, a faint camping lantern glowed.

A gaunt man in a gray trench coat and black-framed glasses was squatting on the ground, pressing a few bottles of anti-inflammatory pills and some gauze into the arms of a homeless man.

Gods above! Will you look at what I’ve found?

The Jester’s Skull flew out, the rubies in its eye sockets shimmering.

Since when did Knights and Alchemists start getting all charitable? Did someone hit me with a confusion spell?

Li Wei ignored the skull’s mockery and stepped out from the shadows.

The crunch of his footsteps on dry leaves was exceptionally clear in the night air. The man in the trench coat shot up like a startled rabbit, his hand instinctively diving into his coat pocket as he stared nervously at the tall, powerfully-built Li Wei.

Seeing his chance, the homeless man clutched the medicine and scrambled away, disappearing into the darkness.

"The South Bronx isn’t exactly the place for acts of kindness," Li Wei said with a shrug. "This area has more drug dealers and gangs than anywhere else in New York."

"This is my home, after all. The place where I grew up." Elias Thorne’s expression relaxed slightly upon seeing Li Wei’s Asian features. Then he asked, puzzled, "You look very familiar. Have we met before?"

"Maybe on TV," Li Wei said casually. "I was on the other side of the park giving food to the mole people, and I heard there was a charitable doctor over here. I got curious and came to take a look."

"Wait... I remember now." Elias Thorne drew in a sharp breath. "You’re Li Wei! The Giants’ Quarterback! The big star in New York!"

"That’s me," Li Wei said, looking Elias up and down. "What, surprised?"

"I am," Elias said, taking his hand out of his pocket to shake Li Wei’s. "The Tyrant of the Gridiron giving food to the homeless in his spare time. Who would’ve thought?"

"People have many sides, just like you," Li Wei said, pointing to the logo on his trench coat. "You used to be with the Johnson Group?"

"That’s right." The hand Elias used to adjust his glasses paused for a moment. He tugged at the group-issued trench coat. "Former senior scientist at the Johnson Group. Luckily, they didn’t ask for the coat back when they fired me. I have to say, it’s pretty comfortable."

"So what are you doing playing barefoot doctor in an abandoned park in the middle of the night?" Li Wei asked.

"It’s not strange at all. I’ve just come back to where I belong." Elias sighed, gesturing at the dilapidated, graffiti-covered walls and dead shrubs. "My father was white, and my mother is Dominican. I grew up right here in the South Bronx. I learned to walk in this very park, Saint Mary’s, and I watched gang fights happen here, too."

As he spoke, he pulled a small box of mints from his pocket, tipped two into his palm, and tossed them into his mouth. "Later, I got lucky. My grades were good, I got a scholarship, and I went all the way to a Ph.D. After graduation, I joined the Johnson Group’s R&D center. I thought I could use science to change things, you know? Cure severe muscular atrophy, maybe, or neuronal degeneration."

"And then?" Li Wei prompted, not letting the conversation die.

"And then I completely screwed it up," Elias said with a wry laugh. "I actually synthesized a completely new telomerase-repairing peptide chain. In vitro, at the cellular level, its tissue regeneration capabilities were nothing short of a miracle. I thought I’d touched the hem of God’s garment."

"But it failed."

"A complete failure," Elias said, running a hand through his thinning hair in frustration. "Once it was injected into a mammalian body, the subject’s metabolism would skyrocket exponentially. The heart simply couldn’t handle the pressure of pumping that much blood. Within ten to fifteen minutes, the subject would die from hyperthermia and organ failure."

’Sounds like it was made for me,’ Li Wei thought.

’With the System and his current physique to back him up, maybe he could actually handle what the System considered an "ancient Magic Potion".’