Li Wei's Simple Goal

"$1000?" he asked tentatively. "I think its value is far more than just the cost of materials."

However, to his surprise, Lyon jumped up in shock after hearing those words.

"What!" he shouted, "You're extorting me!"

Seeing that he seemed to be losing his skills, Li Wei quickly said a few nice words to comfort Leon.

He eventually sold the gold coin, which might have originally been worth only $400, for $500 and managed to escape before Leon could react.

"It seems that the current limit of this skill is not too far beyond human cognition," Li Wei thought as he walked. "Even if it is a skill, it must be based on a certain level of understanding of the other party. Getting a greedy miser to take out $1000 to buy a gold coin of unknown value is probably harder than killing him."

However, the $500 in his account did alleviate his immediate financial crisis.

[Mission Complete: You have successfully exploited the weakness of the greedy]

[Rewards: 0.1 Free Attribute Points, +1 Gold Coin]

As the familiar drape settled into his pocket, Levi knew he had another $500 in his account.

However, he didn't plan to go back and exchange the money again; he wanted to keep it to see if he could upgrade his skills.

If it can really be upgraded, will it be possible to reverse yin and yang in the future, and make the dead appear alive?

...

At noon, right on time, Li Wei arrived in Queens, not far from Brooklyn, near the construction site where his uncle Don Quixote was working. He found Don Quixote in front of a Chinese takeout restaurant that smelled of cheap fried food.

He was squatting on the curb, holding a bowl of stir-fried noodles that looked thick and oily, and eating it with great relish.

"Want to try some? This is from your area, I think it's called Fuzhou fried noodles? If I remember correctly," he wiped the grease from his mouth as he saw Li Wei approach, "it's only $12 a serving, and no tip required."

New York's Chinatown is generally populated by immigrants from Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, with those from Fujian province usually clustered on 8th Avenue, near where Li Wei now lives.

"I've already eaten," Li Wei said casually. "What are we going to do next?"

Don Quixote stood up, casually tossed the empty lunchbox into the trash can, dusted off his trousers, and said, "Since you sold some things today, you're paying for the gas. Get in the car, we're going to take care of some business."

Over the next few hours, Don Quixote drove his Toyota, which looked like it was about to fall apart, with Levi around to various offices in Brooklyn, getting citizen cards, subway cards, and even picking up free near-expiry bread from some charities.

"Listen, kid, I'm only teaching you this stuff once, got it?" Don Quixote said, picking his teeth with his filthy fingers as he turned the steering wheel with one hand. "In New York, poverty is the original sin, and so is stupidity. See those lunatics in uniform? They're not like the police in China, walk around them. If you see an empty car on the subway, don't go in, someone might pull you in, or some lunatic might be on hallucinogens and have gone crazy."

As Li Wei nodded in agreement, he looked out the window at the increasingly sophisticated buildings, the growing number of police cars, and the closer he got to Central Park, knowing that he was getting further and further away from Brooklyn.

"Where do we go now?" He turned to Don Quixote. "This is not the way back."

"Let's go to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It's rare to have an extra person today," Don Quixote said smugly. "I'll show you the real life of New York's upper class, and we'll also do some shopping while we're at it."

"Purchase goods?"

More than half an hour later, the car finally stopped on a quiet street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

This place is a completely different world compared to Brooklyn. The streets are spotless, as if they've been licked clean, and every building is a large, detached villa, with even the lawns all at the same height. Levi rolled down the car window and found that the air here lacked the pungent smell of urine and leaves that plagued Brooklyn; instead, there was a strange yet captivating aroma.

The smell of money.

You have arrived at the "Noble Courtyard".

The empire's high-ranking officials reside here, and guards patrol the area day and night.

No triggerable tasks have been detected yet.

"I didn't know you still had business here," Li Wei said, looking at the brand-new Mercedes-Benzes, Bentleys, Porsches, and other luxury cars parked along the roadside. "Or are you saying that your sourcing is just randomly picking a rich person's place and then going in to steal things?"

"What? Stealing... No, no, no," Don Quixote skillfully parked the car next to a fire hydrant on the side of the road, and casually stuck the fake disability certificate on it again. "We're here to clean up their trash."

"Disposing of things in New York is a hassle, and selling secondhand items is a very safe thing for them," Don Quixote led Levi to a roadside trash can, giving Levi a live demonstration. "And these rich people are extremely concerned about their image. Can you believe that they need the homeowners' association's approval to plant whatever they want on their lawn?"

As he spoke, he reached halfway into the trash can and rummaged through it. Soon he pulled out a Dyson vacuum cleaner that looked perfectly usable.

"Don't just stand there," he said, gleefully carrying the vacuum cleaner to the car. "If this thing works, it could sell for at least $150..."

Li Wei was watching Don Quixote's retreating figure, about to speak, when he heard a hoarse female voice with an Eastern European accent coming from in front of him:

"Which company are you a model for? I've never seen you before."

Li Wei turned to the side and saw a black Mercedes-Benz G-Class parked next to them at some point.

The cockpit window rolled down, and a middle-aged woman wearing sunglasses, who looked quite elegant, sized Li Wei up and down.

"Come closer," she beckoned to Li Wei, "come over here and let me take a look."

Li Wei glanced at Don Quixote, who was struggling to figure out how to open the stuck trunk not far away. After thinking for a moment, he took two steps forward, but still kept an arm's length distance from the noblewoman.

"How tall are you?" she suddenly asked. "185? 187?"

"188," Levi said. "Besides, I'm not a model; I'm here in New York to study."

"Nine-headed figure, broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and a beautiful mixed-race face," the middle-aged woman continued, "would you like to be a model?"

"Can you make a lot of money?" Li Wei asked. "If you can, then I'll think about it."

"Models don't actually earn much money," the middle-aged woman chuckled, amused by Li Wei's words, "but they're very glamorous, aren't they?"

"I'm not really interested," Li Wei shook his head, pointing to Don Quixote walking towards them. "I have to go help my uncle."

Hearing Li Wei's words, the middle-aged woman was clearly surprised, then a hint of regret flashed in her eyes. After a pause, she took a banknote from her Hermès bag in the passenger seat and handed it to Li Wei through the car door.

"It's so hot today, let me buy you and your uncle a cup of coffee as a thank you for helping me clear out the furniture," she thought for a moment, "Also, if you want to earn some extra money part-time, you can try Dolores boutique on the Upper East Side. They probably need a handsome male sales assistant like you."

He didn't refuse and took the money, saying, "Thank you."

The middle-aged woman looked him up and down again, then slowly drove away in her Mercedes-Benz G-Class.

Don Quixote, who had been hiding nearby, excitedly followed the car after it drove away, asking, "What did she say to you?"

"It's nothing," Li Wei said casually, looking at the banknote in his hand. "He gave me a $100 tip, bought us both coffee, and even introduced me to a job."

"Three dollars?!"

Don Quixote let out a strange cry, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. He snatched the Franklin from Levi's hand, examined it repeatedly in the sunlight, and rubbed it with his rough fingers. After confirming it wasn't counterfeit, he immediately began to bitterly curse the damned rich and this face-obsessed world.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I spend all day carrying bricks and washing dishes at the construction site, and this is all I get," he cursed as he shoved the money back into Levi's hand, but his eyes lingered on the $100 bill for two seconds. "Just because you're handsome? This damn world, I'm obviously very charming too, so why doesn't any rich woman give me a $100 tip?"

Li Wei looked at Don Quixote with some surprise as he put the money back into his hand.

He glanced at Don Quixote, who was filthy and whose trousers were covered in mud, then stuffed the money into his pocket and shrugged: "I'm not only handsome, I'm tall too."

"Fuck!"

Don Quixote gave Livy the middle finger, muttering angrily, while calling to Livy, "Getting a vacuum cleaner today is enough... Get in the car! I have to wash dishes this afternoon, you can go sell this later—no, I'll go, you'll definitely get ripped off."

On the way back to Brooklyn, Levi sat in the passenger seat, watching the scenery outside the car window gradually change from the neat and elegant Madison Avenue to Sunset Park full of graffiti, garbage and road construction barriers.

While his parents were alive, his family was not exactly wealthy, but they were quite well-off.

However, his life took a sharp turn for the worse after his parents went bankrupt in their business and were involved in a car accident.

It is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality, especially after experiencing such a drastic lifestyle.

"How do you make a lot of money in America?" he asked, turning to Don Quixote who was driving. "How do you afford a house here?"

"Here? Don't even dream about it," Don Quixote waved his hand lazily. "Unless you get into Harvard or Yale, become a great doctor or a great lawyer, and then you can charge a fucking $5000 an hour for consultations, and then you can afford a house here."

"Then I'll apply to Yale," Levi nodded, making up his mind. "I don't want to live with you in Brooklyn for the rest of my life."

Don Quixote chuckled and said, "Ha! Do you think just anyone can get into Yale? Do you have recommendation letters? Do you have money? Can you get into the AP program? And even then, you might not get into a school like Yale or Harvard."

"I'll figure out the money myself," Li Wei said, not mentioning his own system. "But what about recommendation letters and AP classes?"

"AP classes are similar to the elite classes in your Celestial Empire, where students learn university courses in advance. If you want to apply to a good university now, you have to take AP classes," Don Quixote sneered. "The top Ivy League universities are all private and you have to apply to them. What makes you think that someone with your background can get into an Ivy League university?"

"Then how do I get in?" Li Wei wasn't angry; instead, he asked, "Take Yale University for example, how do you get in?"

"Unless you win a national championship in some sport, get seven or eight A's in your AP class, and then get a recommendation letter from some big shot," Don Quixote said casually, "then maybe you'll have a chance."

Li Wei carefully considered Don Quixote's words, then suddenly asked, "What do you think of playing basketball? Wouldn't you make a lot of money after winning the national championship?"

The system has 0.1 attribute points left to allocate.

The sudden passing of his parents taught him a lesson: nothing lasts forever.

Although he was not sure if the system could stay with him for a long time, judging from the frequency of its activation and the speed of its improvement, his physical fitness should be able to improve rapidly in a short period of time. In addition, he was more familiar with basketball when he was in China, so he subconsciously thought of pursuing a career in basketball.

"Playing basketball? Basketball is definitely not as good as playing football," Don Quixote said sarcastically as he parked the car. "If you can win the national high school football championship with an Asian face, then you'll be really awesome, amazing, and you'll have really slapped those blacks and whites in the face, you know? If you get into an AP class, you'll definitely be able to get into Yale."

"You'll not only get a full scholarship, but the cheerleaders will be begging you to sign their little butts every day, and the fraternity will be begging you to join... Don't dream about it. After all these years of American football development, very few Asians have made it to the NCAA... I'm going to wash the dishes tonight, so make yourself something to eat."

...

When Li Wei returned to the basement from the glamorous Upper East Side, he was still pondering Don Quixote's words.

He boasted that he had no business acumen, no foresight, and couldn't predict the stock market. He believed that playing American football seemed like a promising path to making a fortune in America.

If he can get a full scholarship and get into a good university, it seems that the debt and fear of the future that are currently facing him will be resolved.

He triggered another quest.

However, this mission seems to be somewhat special.

This is a job change quest with multiple reward tiers.

"The Path of the Knights?" Levi muttered as he munched on the free bread he'd picked up from the charity that morning. "This looks pretty good."