American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote

People were slapping his helmet, pounding his shoulder pads. Some tried to rush over and lift him up, but failed because too many people were crammed together.

One person simply took a leap, jumped onto another teammate's back, and reached out just to touch Li Wei.

"We did it!!!"

"Undefeated!! Undefeated!!!"

"King! King!"

Cheers, screams, laughter, and sobs all mixed together.

Head Coach Dabor stood at the edge of the crowd, not rushing in.

He still had that tough-as-nails redneck look, but right now his hands were on his hips as he stared up at the dome of SoFi Stadium.

They say if you look up at the sky when you want to cry, the tears won't fall.

The offensive coordinator next to him wanted to rush over and hug him, but Dabor stopped him.

He needed a few seconds. He took a few deep breaths, exhaled, and when he turned back, he had already regained his usual composure.

The scene on the field was complete chaos.

Golden confetti shot out from cannons at the top of the stadium. Tens of millions of tiny paper scraps fluttered through the air, landing on the heads of 70,000 people, on the turf, on the jerseys, inside helmets, and impartially into everyone's hair.

The head of the equipment department was hoisted onto the shoulders of two young equipment assistants, grinning like a big, fat kid in his forties or fifties.

The chief team doctor stood on the outskirts of Li Wei's huddle, shouting things about being careful and not getting hurt, but unfortunately, no one could hear him.

The entire New York Giants organization, all several hundred of them, from sports stars with multi-million dollar salaries to ordinary employees, were all stirred into one thick soup of celebration.

The cheering wasn't just happening at the stadium, but in every corner of America.

In a small bar in Brooklyn, Coach Miller was cheering ecstatically for having won a year's worth of free first drinks.

"What did I tell you?" Coach Miller slammed both hands on the bar. "I said Li Wei would definitely win!"

The owner leaned against the shelves behind him, a wide smile on his face as he pulled a Budweiser from the cooler and placed it in front of Miller.

"Alright, alright, you win, Miller," he said with a laugh. "Here's your first free beer."

He had bet on the Giants to win. Although he'd placed the bet too late for great odds, he still made a small profit.

"Fellas!" Coach Miller stood triumphantly on a chair, holding the frosty Budweiser. "Look at this! Pigs are flying! That cheapskate Hansen actually gave me a free beer!"

"To the cheapskate!"

"To Li Wei!"

Coach Miller wildly bit off the cap with his teeth, tilted his head back, and chugged half the bottle in one go, then roared:

"To Li Wei!"

Just as they were cheering, a swarm of reporters rushed into the bar, followed by cameramen in vests from various TV stations.

The small bar had never seen such a spectacle. Everyone was stunned.

"Who is Coach Miller?!" the first male reporter to burst in shouted. "Li Wei's high school coach, Coach Miller?!"

Everyone in the bar pointed at Miller, who was standing on the chair with beer dripping from his beard onto his collar.

Coach Miller had imagined someone might interview him after Li Wei won the Super Bowl, but definitely not right now.

"That's him!" a second reporter yelled, pointing at Coach Miller. "He's Coach Miller!"

In the next instant, the seven or eight cameramen who had squeezed in all started furiously snapping photos of Coach Miller—unshaven, sloppily dressed, standing on a chair, and holding half a bottle of beer.

"Coach Miller! Fox News! Can you tell us—"

Meanwhile, not far away in Manhattan, Arthur Wens was sitting upright in front of a microphone in a radio studio, an irrepressible look of joy on his face.

The station was called WFAN, New York's biggest sports radio station, and he had been invited at the last minute to be a guest commentator for the Super Bowl live broadcast.

He was invited entirely because, during the Super Bowl Media Day, Li Wei had looked into the camera in front of 20 million viewers across America and said, "You could say that without Scout Wens, there would be no me."

In the age of short videos and social media, going viral happens overnight.

Scout Wens didn't feel it that day, but by the next, even his wife's colleagues knew who he was.

He didn't even have to save the video clip of Li Wei's words; it was sliced into countless versions and spread like wildfire online. Overnight, he went from being an obscure evaluator for 247Sports to "the talent scout who discovered the King."

A producer from WFAN contacted him at the last minute, asking if he'd be willing to come to the station to watch the Super Bowl live and chat about the story of how he discovered Li Wei.

Wens agreed on the spot.

He even wore a brand-new dark blue suit, a tie in the Giants' colors, and shined his leather shoes until they gleamed. Before leaving, he specifically asked his wife to take a picture of him, saying he wanted to save it for his future grandchildren.

And when the final whistle of the Super Bowl blew, the radio studio erupted in cheers.

"Listeners!" The host's voice trembled with excitement. "The game is over! The New York Giants have won! Super Bowl champions! An undefeated season! A first in NFL history!"

He eagerly turned to Wens. "Arthur, what are you feeling right now?"

Wens paused, then delivered his prepared lines. "I feel very honored. I've been a scout for over a decade and discovered thousands of players, many of whom went on to the NFL after graduation. But Li Wei is the only one who made me jump out of my seat the very first second I saw his video."

"Was that the very blurry Twitter video?" the host pressed. "It's gone viral too. Netizens and fans dug it up, and it now has over a million likes."

"Yes, that's the one," Wens nodded. "The moment I saw that video, I knew he wasn't just some ordinary high school kid."

"And then?"

"Then, early the next morning, I drove from Manhattan to Brooklyn," Wens said with a smile. "I went to Franklin K. Lane High School. I'd never been to that school before, you know? It's one of the most run-down public high schools in Brooklyn. The field was just bald patches of dirt."

"As it turned out, I walked into the coach's office and found that the coach's WiFi password was..." He stopped abruptly and coughed twice. "Never mind, that's not important."

The host burst out laughing, and the few staff members in the studio laughed along with him.

「New York, Upper West Side.」

In the home of Dasha, Lily's classmate.

Her father was sitting cross-legged on the living room sofa, the TV in front of him broadcasting Fox's live coverage of the Super Bowl.

Her mother sat on a separate armchair, her mind wandering through trivialities. She wondered how many other items she'd have to buy to finally get her Hermes bag. She thought about how handsome her yoga instructor was, but that bitch in her class was always shamelessly flirting with him, causing the instructor to pay less and less attention to her. Every so often, she'd glance at the TV screen.

As for Dasha, a Gen Z girl, she had no interest in the Super Bowl or football.

Right up until the final minutes of the fourth quarter, she was still in her room, texting Bobby, completely ignoring the cheers coming from the living room.

It wasn't until she heard her father yell "Touchdown!" that she shuffled out in her slippers out of curiosity and plopped down on the sofa.

"Who won?" she asked nonchalantly.

"The Giants," her father said. "And it was a history-making victory."

At first, Dasha didn't react much. Her knowledge of football was limited to knowing that Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen's relationship seemed to be on the rocks lately.

And that the handsome older brother of Lily Cervantes, the girl she hated most, played in the NFL.

But when the Fox camera zoomed in for a close-up of Li Wei's face, she shot up from the sofa.

Isn't that the mean man from the "Winter Family Day"? The one who made her apologize to Lily Cervantes in front of everyone?

'This is the man who won the Super Bowl? Who made NFL history?'

As if by some cruel twist of fate, Fox's close-up filled the entire screen with Li Wei's smile, while Joe Buck's passionate voice poured out of the Devialet speakers.

The top-of-the-line speakers, worth over 3,000 USD a pair, made Joe Buck's voice ring in her ears like a giant bell.

"The King is crowned!"

Dasha froze for a moment, then suddenly shrieked.

"Why is it so loud!" she screamed impatiently. "It's so noisy I'm going deaf."

SO ANNOYING!!!!!!!

Startled by Dasha, her father instinctively turned the volume down a bit.

"Turn it off! Turn off the TV!" Dasha continued to order relentlessly. "I don't want to watch it anymore!"

"Dasha! What's gotten into you now?!" Her father's face hardened.

He glanced at Li Wei on the screen and immediately understood what was happening. After all, he was the one who had dragged his daughter over to apologize to Li Wei that day.

"Okay, okay, calm down," her mother said, putting an arm around Dasha. "Why don't you go back to your room?"

Dasha completely melted down.

Her mother hugged Dasha as she guided her toward her room.

After closing the door, her mother returned to the living room and looked at her husband, who was still watching TV.

"Did you turn off the TV?" she asked, knowing full well it was still on.

"In a minute, in a minute," her father said, his eyes glued to the screen. "It's almost over."

On the screen, the Giants players were in the middle of their post-game championship ceremony. Golden streamers rained down from the dome of SoFi Stadium like a golden storm.

"What a historic moment..." Dasha's father mused.

Her mother shot him a glare, rolled her eyes, and turned to go comfort Dasha in her room.

Her father kept watching the TV. The Super Bowl post-game proceedings were moving along in an orderly fashion.

According to standard NFL procedure, within 15 minutes of the game's end, the awards stage would begin to be set up on the field, and the player tunnel would be opened to allow players' families and core team members onto the field.

In the VIP box, the moment the final whistle blew, Anya was the first to leap up from the sofa.

She led the charge, rushing out without even grabbing her coat.

Elizabeth followed close behind, walking quickly.

Kaja sighed and hurried after Anya.

Chen Haisheng and Don Quixote were the only ones left.

Don Quixote wasn't in a hurry to leave. He stood before the box's floor-to-ceiling windows, looking down at the figure on the field below—his proudest nephew.

'Who would have thought that just over a year ago, we were living in a basement, could only afford discounted chicken legs from the supermarket, that I'd almost lost visitation rights to my daughter, and couldn't even scrape together the money for summer camp?'

He chuckled softly, then turned and headed for the elevator, ready to join the others.