American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote

This was a one-bedroom apartment in the West Village, with a monthly rent of 4,500 USD.

The New York rental market is a nightmare for young people.

A one-bedroom in Manhattan easily started at 6,000 USD. Brooklyn was a bit cheaper, but the commute was too long. Queens had plenty of options, but Jin Heon felt that after all the trouble of moving out, she should at least live a little closer to her boss.

Although 4,500 USD still stung a bit, the large, south-facing windows, excellent natural light, fully-equipped kitchen, and the Celestial Dynasty Supermarket right downstairs left her quite satisfied.

Although she had grown up eating Korean food, she had come to like Chinese food after spending so much time with her boss.

After finishing the move, Jin Heon pushed the last cardboard box into a corner, then turned and dove headfirst onto her freshly made bed, letting out a satisfied groan.

She rolled over on the bed.

And then rolled over again.

Then she wrapped herself up like a human spring roll, leaving only her face, wearing a goofy grin, exposed.

After about ten minutes, Jin Heon reluctantly peeled herself away from the luxury linens she had spent a fortune on, went to the kitchen, and made a cup of coffee.

Carrying her coffee cup back to the living room, she casually turned on the TV.

ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS, NBC—nearly every sports channel was broadcasting the same story.

The ticker at the bottom left of the screen read:

"Giants Quarterback Li Wei Announces Three-Year Hiatus to Focus on Academics"

Jin Heon switched to the live ESPN broadcast. On the screen, Li Wei was sitting in the Giants’ press conference room, taking questions from reporters.

He wore a simple black hoodie, his hair falling casually across his forehead, his expression completely relaxed.

"—so you’re saying you chose to take this hiatus voluntarily?" a reporter pressed.

"That’s right," Li Wei shrugged. "I just don’t find it interesting anymore."

"Not interesting?" The reporter clearly hadn’t expected that answer. "You just won the Super Bowl, the regular season MVP, and the Super Bowl MVP, and you don’t find it interesting?"

"I’ve won everything you just mentioned," Li Wei said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I got the undefeated season, too. What’s left? Playing another year would just be doing it all over again."

A stir went through the press corps.

"And to be honest," Li Wei said with a faint smile, "I don’t have any competition left. That makes things pretty boring."

The reporter gasped, sucking in the cold March air of New York. "Isn’t that a bit too—"

"I know what you’re going to say," Li Wei said, waving a hand dismissively. "That I’m being too arrogant? But isn’t it the truth?"

He looked straight into the camera, as if speaking to everyone watching at home.

"So, I hope that during my three-year hiatus, every team takes a good, long look at how to deal with me. Hire some more defensive coaches, come up with some new plays," he winked at the camera. "When I come back in three years, I hope the games won’t be so boring."

The reporters erupted, frantically raising their hands with questions, but Li Wei had already stood up. He held up a "number one" sign to the camera, and then, flanked by Don Quixote and the Giants’ PR team, walked off without a backward glance.

Jin Heon, still holding her coffee cup, watched Li Wei’s retreating figure on the screen and smiled.

She was supposed to have been there with him today, but when Li Wei found out she was moving, he insisted she take the day off to take care of her own affairs.

She turned off the TV, leaned back on the sofa, and pulled out her phone to scroll through TikTok.

The first few videos on her For You page were all clips or fan edits about Li Wei’s hiatus. The buzz around the news was already growing exponentially. She even scrolled past a post from someone offering 20 USD for a bottle of LW, a drink that originally cost 5 USD.

’They’re really crazy,’ she thought happily.

She laughed as she scrolled, until she landed on a post from a gossip account called "New York Gossip News."

A line of large text was written across the video’s thumbnail:

"In the 2 Weeks Since the Super Bowl, Over 20 Female Influencers Have Hinted at a Romantic Past with Li Wei"

Jin Heon froze. She tapped on the video and nearly spat out her coffee.

The video compiled a list of female influencers who were clout-chasing after Li Wei’s Super Bowl win. A fitness blogger with over 800,000 followers posted a picture of Li Wei’s jersey on Instagram with the caption, "Some memories are just for us."

There was also a moderately well-known model from Los Angeles who, on the day Li Wei lifted the trophy, posted, "Congratulations, though you probably don’t remember me anymore." She gained 100,000 followers in two weeks.

And then there were even more shameless small-time bloggers who just made things up out of whole cloth, vividly describing on a livestream the intimate details of what supposedly happened between her and Li Wei one night when he was in Miami for a game.

Seeing that last one, Jin Heon nearly crushed her phone in her hand.

’I haven’t even—wait, no. Don’t I know the boss’s taste? Ah—FUCK!! What’s a 200-pound black woman doing trying to get a piece of this clout?!’

...

"So, that’s the situation," Jin Heon said. "I considered contacting the platform to get the videos taken down, but while removing one video is easy, suppressing this whole narrative won’t be as simple."

She paused. "After all, a lot of them are bloggers with hundreds of thousands of followers. They’re all determined to ride this wave of your popularity for some clout."

Li Wei, for his part, seemed to be watching the videos Jin Heon had sent with great interest.

"I actually do remember this one," he said, turning his phone to show Jin Heon. "At the Super Bowl victory party in Los Angeles, she snuck in with someone, I’m not sure who. Maybe that’s what her vague post was about?"