American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote

With two minutes left in the game, the Giants got the ball.

When Li Wei stepped back onto the field, a strange silence fell over the stadium.

82,500 people held their breath at once.

minute and 53 seconds.

Starting from his own 25-yard line, Li Wei suddenly broke into a confident smile.

"He’s smiling! He’s smiling!" Joe Buck shouted. "Troy, what do you think he’s thinking right now?"

"I think," said Troy Aikman, "he’s probably thinking, ’Game over.’"

After receiving the ball, Li Wei didn’t hesitate or make any fakes.

He tucked the ball securely into the crook of his right arm, extended his left, and charged straight ahead.

The Chiefs’ middle linebacker was the first to meet him, diving at Li Wei’s waist in a textbook-perfect tackle.

Li Wei didn’t change direction. His left hand simply slapped the top of the linebacker’s helmet, slamming him straight to the ground.

The middle linebacker fell to his knees, and Li Wei ran past him without losing an ounce of speed.

The second defender lunged from the side. It was the Chiefs’ outside linebacker, and he was fast.

But Li Wei was faster. With just a slight juke, a simple fake sent the man tumbling to the ground, where he rolled twice before stopping.

And Li Wei still hadn’t slowed down.

"That’s two!" Joe Buck had already shot up from his seat. "He’s past two men! Now he’s at midfield—he’s crossed the 50-yard line! Forty-five yards to go!"

The Chiefs’ safety was the last line of defense.

He had been on the field for 50 minutes. His thigh muscles were burning with lactic acid, and it felt like there was a hole in his lungs, every breath a searing pain.

But he still charged forward. It was his duty.

He gritted his teeth and ran toward the full-speed Li Wei, trying to stop this monster head-on.

However, when Li Wei was less than three yards away, he executed a sudden stop and cut.

The change in direction wasn’t huge, but for a safety whose stamina was completely drained, it was an insurmountable gulf.

The safety’s heels stumbled, and his body’s momentum carried him lunging in the direction Li Wei had been going.

Li Wei was no longer there.

By the time the safety stopped on the turf and looked back, Li Wei was already more than five yards ahead of him and still accelerating!

25!

20!

15!

No one could catch him now.

At the 10-yard line, two of the Chiefs’ cornerbacks flew past the safety, desperately chasing after Li Wei.

But they were still too far away, at least 10 yards behind. In the world of the NFL, that distance was like being in another time zone.

As Li Wei crossed the white line of the end zone, he even had the presence of mind to glance back at the opponents he had left far behind.

Touchdown.

But Li Wei didn’t stop to celebrate. Instead, his jog slowed to a stroll.

As he walked, he surveyed the roaring stadium, his expression not even particularly excited. It was more like the leisurely air of a King strolling through his own garden.

Only then did the two pursuing cornerbacks finally reach the end zone, unable to stop in time and stumbling past Li Wei.

Then Li Wei glanced at them, bent down, and gently placed the football on the grass.

"The sheer arrogance!" Joe Buck clutched his head, rubbing his face with both hands. "Seventy-five yards! A 75-yard rushing touchdown! He blew past three players, and then he just strolls into the end zone! He placed the ball on the ground! He placed the ball on the ground!"

"Troy! Have you ever seen anything like it?!"

Troy stood up, his face a mixture of disbelief, awe, and reluctant admiration.

"Joe, I have not," he said calmly. "I have never seen a player, in the last two minutes of a championship game, decide to run it in himself for a 75-yard touchdown, running over and juking past three players, only to stroll into the end zone."

"Do you know what that means?" He looked at Joe Buck. "It means he has absolute confidence in himself. And he’s earned the right to be that confident, because he delivered."

The moment the touchdown was scored, the stadium absolutely erupted.

The sound of 82,500 people went beyond shouting; no one could even hear their own voice.

In a follow-up report, Fox’s technical team confirmed that at the moment of Li Wei’s touchdown, the noise level inside MetLife Stadium peaked at 139 decibels, surpassing his own previous record and setting a new NFL record.

The Giants’ bench went wild. Everyone stormed the field, swarming around Li Wei.

On the sideline, Dabor stood with his hands on his hips, his face flushed as he gasped for air.

For the entire minute-plus that Li Wei was running, he had forgotten to breathe.

’Jesus Christ, if Li Wei had gotten injured, or if the run had failed and cost the Giants their shot at the Super Bowl, John Mara would have had me riddled with a Vulcan cannon for five minutes straight.’

Giants 45, Chiefs 38.

With 29 seconds left on the clock, a 7-point comeback was technically possible, yet also incredibly unlikely.

Mahomes stood at his own 25-yard line. After attempting a long pass, it was intercepted by the Giants’ safety.

Game over.

"The New York Giants!" Joe Buck announced, taking a deep breath and speaking in a near-solemn tone. "Have defeated the Kansas City Chiefs to advance to the Super Bowl! In two weeks, they will face the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl!"

"And what’s even crazier is that they’re going in with a perfect record! From week one of the regular season to this very moment, the New York Giants have not lost a single game!"

Troy Aikman had a thoughtful expression.

"Joe," he said, "I don’t even know how to describe Li Wei anymore. Monster, genius, the Yellow-Skinned God, King—we’ve used all those words, and none of them feel quite accurate enough for him."

"So what do you think?" Joe Buck shot back.

Sixty million people across America shot back.

What do you think?

"I think..." Troy paused for a moment. "Maybe many, many years from now, when people talk about this era of the NFL, they won’t say it was the era of Mahomes, and they won’t say it was the era of any one team. They’ll say it was the era of Li Wei."

"They’ll use ’Li Wei’ as an adjective. For example, ’He plays like Li Wei,’ or, ’He plays with the same style Li Wei had back in the day.’"

The camera cut to the center of the field.

Mahomes had already taken off his helmet, his face drenched in sweat, but he didn’t head straight for the locker room.

He stood on the 30-yard line, watching Li Wei on the other side of the field being mobbed by his teammates.

Today, he had delivered a performance that could be called perfect by any standard in his career—432 passing yards, 5 touchdowns.

In any other game, those stats would have been enough to earn him the MVP.

But he had lost.

He watched for about five seconds, then walked over.

"Let’s grab a drink in a couple of days," he said, clapping Li Wei on the shoulder pad.

"I’m not of legal drinking age yet," Li Wei shrugged.

Mahomes froze for a second, then burst out laughing, slapping Li Wei’s shoulder hard.

[In the semifinals of the Knight’s Joust, facing an evenly matched opponent, you withstood the pressure to single-handedly break the enemy formation. Like a lone rider charging deep into enemy lines, you slew the general and seized the banner, thus embodying the virtue of Valor and achieving a great victory.]

[You have embodied one of the Eight Knightly Virtues: Valor]

[Free attribute points +0.1]

Li Wei was swept away by his teammates. The celebrations in the private boxes, on the field, and outside the stadium seemed as if they would never end.

But Li Wei, the man of the hour, had already been guided by staff through the player tunnel and to the post-game press conference.

Inside the press conference hall at MetLife Stadium, hundreds of reporters packed every seat, with a row of cameramen even standing in the aisles.

Flashes went off one after another, and the sound of camera shutters was a constant crackle, like a bug zapper by a river in the summer.

Li Wei walked up to the podium wearing a newly-changed Giants championship commemorative T-shirt. At least 20 microphones were set up in front of him: from the NFL, Fox, ESPN, NBC, CBS, and even a few media outlets from the Middle East, Asia, and Europe whose names he didn’t recognize.

He sat down behind the main table.

"First of all," a reporter from the NFL officially began, "congratulations to the New York Giants on making history again, advancing to the Super Bowl with an undefeated record. Li Wei, is there anything you’d like to say to the fans?"

"Thank you to all the fans for their support," Li Wei said. "Thanks to my teammates, the coaching staff, Mr. John Mara, and the entire Giants management. Today was a tough fight. The Kansas City Chiefs are a great team, and Mahomes is a great player. We just played a little better."

A female reporter from Fox stood up. "Li Wei, we noticed you’ve been drinking something from a dark-colored bottle during games, ever since the playoffs started. Now that you’re in the Super Bowl, can you tell us what it is?"

"I can’t say too much right now," he said, shaking his head. "But you’ll all find out on Super Bowl Sunday."

"Let’s just say everyone has already guessed," the reporter teased good-naturedly, and the other reporters laughed.

A senior reporter from Sports Illustrated stood up. He pushed up his glasses, his tone more serious than the previous reporters.

"Li Wei, after the game, Troy Aikman said something during the broadcast," he said. "He said that in the future, when people talk about this era of the NFL, they’ll call it ’the era of Li Wei.’ He even said that the name ’Li Wei’ will become an adjective used to describe players who come after you."

He paused. "What are your thoughts on that assessment?"

The press hall fell silent. All the microphones tilted a few degrees toward Li Wei.

Li Wei leaned back in his chair.

Then he smiled.

It wasn’t a polite or humble smile, but a confident, undisguised one.

"I have a lot of respect for Mr. Troy Aikman," he said. "He’s a Hall of Famer, so his opinion carries a lot of weight with me."

"But if you’re asking me what I think," he said, staring into the reporter’s eyes, "I think that if there’s ever someone in the future who can be called ’like Li Wei’—"

"—then that person must be incredibly talented."

For a second, the press hall was silent. Then it erupted in whistles and applause.

"Thank you to our King, the Yellow-Skinned God, Li Wei for joining us."

Finally, the press officer announced, "This concludes the interview. See you all at the Super Bowl in two weeks!"