American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote

February 13th, three days before the Super Bowl kickoff.

But the entire United States of America had already descended into a state of near-frenzy.

New York, Manhattan, Fifth Avenue.

A Mexican street vendor nudged his hot dog cart a little closer to the curb.

He wasn’t making room for the passing pedestrians and tourists, but rather to set up a folding table.

The table was covered with phone cases, mugs, baseball caps, and refrigerator magnets, all printed with the Giants’ number 1 jersey. Most prominent of all was the number 1 dark blue T-shirt sitting right in the middle.

These goods, sourced from China for less than three yuan each, would sell for $19.99 USD as soon as they hit New York Manhattan. Even if you haggled him down to $10 USD, he’d put on a pained expression before closing the deal with a blooming smile.

The buyers came from all walks of life: a Wall Street white-collar worker in a down vest, a Black mother pushing a stroller, an elderly Asian woman carrying groceries from Whole Foods. Li Wei had conquered everyone, regardless of age.

Three blocks down the same street, the Macy’s flagship store had changed its entire street-facing window display to a Super Bowl theme.

The mannequins in the window wore Giants jerseys and held footballs, set against a backdrop of MetLife Stadium constructed from thousands of tiny LED bulbs.

If tourists headed further uptown, between Sixth and Seventh Avenue, stores like Nike, Budweiser, the official NFL shop, and Apple all featured specially designed Super Bowl celebration posters, complete with exclusive promotional slogans to build hype for the event.

The biggest screen of all was the nearly 4,000-square-foot mega-screen on the facade of the Nasdaq Building in the heart of Times Square.

On this screen, an image of Li Wei in his dark blue jersey, looking back over his shoulder at the camera, filled the entire display. A white digital countdown scrolled across the bottom.

In a tour group from Texas, a middle-aged white man in a cowboy hat muttered to himself and sighed as he took a commemorative photo for his wife.

"Whatever," he grumbled, watching his wife zoom in on Li Wei in the photo. "I’m rooting for the San Francisco 49ers."

"Then you’re a dead man," his wife shot back.

This scene wasn’t unique to New York.

On Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, flags for the Giants and the 49ers hung side-by-side on every lamppost, snapping in the cold wind blowing off the Great Lakes.

On Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, a sports bar had placed a life-sized cardboard cutout of Li Wei by its entrance. It read: "Support the Giants, take a photo with the King, get a free beer."

The bar’s owner had originally just wanted to attract some football fans and drunks, but he was shocked to find that most of the people who came to take photos were women—women who normally didn’t even watch the NFL, or even understand football.

What did they watch? Only Li Wei’s clips and games, and they couldn’t get enough.

They would first pose with the Li Wei cutout. Some even placed a hand on its crotch, while others squatted down in front of it and struck a series of sultry and provocative poses. Not many of them were even interested in the free beer.

These female fans of Li Wei, in turn, attracted a crowd of men into the establishment. The bustling bar then drew in unsuspecting passersby. With all these factors combined, the Hollywood Boulevard bar actually sold out its entire stock before nine o’clock at night.

In Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle—in every city with an NFL team—the Super Bowl atmosphere was as pervasive as a February cold snap.

City parades, soaring sales of big-screen projectors, empty chip and beer aisles at Walmart, and record-breaking Super Bowl combo deals at Pizza Hut and Domino’s, with orders up by nearly half compared to the same period last year.

According to a forecast report jointly released by the NFL and Nielsen on the first day of Super Bowl week, this year’s game was projected to attract over 150 million domestic viewers in the United States of America. Including international broadcasts and streaming numbers, the total audience was expected to exceed 170 million.

If these numbers held true, it would be the most-watched Super Bowl in NFL history.

One out of every two Americans would be turning on their TVs or phones that day.

The four major broadcast networks—ESPN, Fox, NBC, and CBS—had been running nonstop coverage for over 72 hours since the first day of media week, endlessly replaying pre-game analysis, player interviews, and historical retrospectives.

Fox even brought in Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to host a special program called "The King’s Road." The six-part documentary series, airing one episode per day, chronicled Li Wei’s journey from Franklin K. Lane High School to the Super Bowl stage. Each episode consistently drew over 20 million viewers.

Social media was even more chaotic, with TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) flooded with a deluge of content about Li Wei.

The price for a 30-second Super Bowl ad slot had soared to $8.5 million USD, with prime-time slots even breaking the $9 million mark. Despite this, a dozen brands were still on the waiting list.

Data released by major sportsbooks in Las Vegas showed that the total amount bet on this year’s Super Bowl was expected to exceed $1.2 billion USD. And even with the Giants listed as the overwhelming favorites to win, a significant amount of money was still being poured on the 49ers.

These gamblers weren’t betting on logic; they were betting on their disbelief that a young man who had just turned 19 could remain undefeated forever.

But behind this magnificent spectacle were the workers toiling silently to make it all happen.

「February 14th, 4:17 AM, Los Angeles.」

The city was still caught between dream and wakefulness. On the 405 freeway, only a few scattered trucks and early-morning commuters moved through the darkness, their headlights leaving long trails of light.

The lights were blazing inside a warehouse on the outskirts of the city, one of several major distribution hubs in the area.

Inside, a dozen logistics trucks were lined up neatly at the loading bays, with forklifts zipping back and forth.

Workers were sorting and stacking boxes of dark-packaged beverages. As they moved past one another, you could see the label on the boxes—LW.

A red sticker was affixed to the seal of each box, printed with a warning: "Do not unseal or sell before the Super Bowl ad on February 16th. Violators will be fined $500,000 USD and subject to legal action."

This was the Los Angeles hub, one of 15 core nodes across the nation.

At this very moment, the same scene was playing out simultaneously in warehouses in 14 other cities: New York, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, and more.

Most of the hard-working laborers had no idea what this LW beverage was. They only knew there was more work than usual today, and the overtime pay was unusually high.

One of the workers pushed the last pallet onto a truck, then straightened up and glanced at the TV on the wall. It was showing the fourth episode of Fox’s "The King’s Road," replaying a clip of Li Wei’s sprint for a touchdown in the league championship game.

He jutted his chin toward Rachel, who was wearing a work vest beside him. "You think this kid’s for real, or is he on something?"

"Who cares," Rachel said, backing up the forklift. "Even if you were on something, you couldn’t run 75 yards."

"If I had a body like that, imagine how many boxes I could unload," the worker said, his eyes fixed on the TV.

"If you had a body like that, you wouldn’t be a warehouse worker," Rachel said, parking the forklift back in its designated spot. "All done. I’m heading out."

The work was mostly finished. The workers left one by one, and the warehouse gradually grew quiet, leaving only the security guard behind.

In the parking area, Rachel got into her 10-year-old silver Honda Civic and slowly drove away from the factory grounds.

The car’s right front wheel was slightly misaligned, making a clunking sound every few seconds, but the woman behind the wheel had grown used to it.

She didn’t go home to change and sleep. Instead, she drove straight onto the freeway. Her lower back was screaming in protest after more than 12 hours of work, but today was the day of her son’s pre-op checkup, and she couldn’t be late.

A morning talk show was on the radio, with two hosts discussing the Super Bowl.

"...I saw a poll on Twitter that asked, ’If Li Wei had to fight a grizzly bear one-on-one, who would you bet on?’ And guess what? Nearly half the people bet on Li Wei to win."

"That’s insane, man. Absolutely insane."

"I’m telling you, I’ve given it some serious thought. I’d probably put my money on the black bear, but I still think Li Wei has a 30% chance of winning."

Rachel reached out and turned the volume down a bit.

It wasn’t that she was tired of hearing the name. On the contrary, she was all too familiar with it.

To be precise, her son was all too familiar with it.

Before long, the silver Civic turned into the parking lot of the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. She found a spot furthest from the entrance, because the spaces closer to the building cost more.

She sat in the car and rubbed her face hard, trying to wipe away the exhaustion from work. Then she put on a smile, grabbed a discounted box of chocolate wafer cookies from the passenger seat, and got out.

Walking into the inpatient building, Rachel stopped at the nurses’ station.

"Good morning, Kelly."

"Ms. Rachel Horton!" The nurse, Kelly, looked up from behind her computer. Seeing Rachel in her work vest, she asked, "You came straight here after a night shift again?"

"It’s Ethan’s pre-op checkup today," Rachel said with a smile. "How is he doing?"

"He’s doing well, ate most of his breakfast," Kelly said, flipping through a chart on her clipboard. "He has a lot of tests this morning. A congenital ventricular septal defect isn’t considered major surgery, but we still need to be thorough."

"There’s a follow-up echocardiogram at 9:00, so Dr. Weber can get another look at the size and location of the defect to confirm the surgical plan. Blood work is at 10:30, and the pre-op check with anesthesiology is at 1:00 PM. The anesthesiologist will want to speak with you alone."

"Has the surgery time been scheduled?" Rachel asked nervously.

"It has. Tomorrow afternoon," Kelly confirmed with a nod.

"Um... the Super Bowl is the day after tomorrow, right?" Rachel asked suddenly.

"That’s right," Kelly said, glancing at Rachel. "But Ethan can’t watch the Super Bowl. He’ll need to be under observation for at least three days. Ms. Rachel Horton, his heart can’t handle any intense emotional fluctuations."

"Oh..." Rachel was taken aback. "Ethan’s been looking forward to this Super Bowl for three months."

"There’s nothing to be done about it," Kelly said, leaning in. "This is just when it was scheduled. Or would you rather discharge Ethan and get back in line?"

"No, never mind," Rachel said, quickly waving her hands. "We waited half a year for this surgery slot. If we cancel, we’d have to wait another six months."

Kelly nodded and went back to her work.

A few seconds later, she looked up and saw that Rachel hadn’t left. "Ms. Rachel Horton, is there anything else? Your son is in his room."

Rachel hesitated.

"Kelly, I was just wondering," she lowered her voice, "is there any chance... of postponing the surgery for a day or two?"