Chapter 114: Chapter 87: Thanksgiving Date

"Calm down," Li Wei said, stepping in front of Don Quixote to block him. "If you rush over there this late at night, the only things you’ll get are a restraining order from the New York Police Department and a tour of a jail cell on Thanksgiving. You’ll accomplish nothing. Plus, if you hurt her, you could lose your visitation rights for good."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Don Quixote demanded, fuming with impotent rage. "I can’t just let her keep bleeding me dry, can I?"

"Tomorrow morning, on Thanksgiving, I’m going with Anya—the Russian girl—to see the Macy’s parade," Li Wei said, patting Don Quixote’s shoulder. "After the parade, around noon, we’ll go pick up your daughter."

"You?" Don Quixote said, stunned. "You have a plan?"

Li Wei recalled his talent for eloquent speech, which he hadn’t used in a long while. He smiled. "Trust me. I have a way."

...

「The next morning, on Thanksgiving Day.」

Anya examined her body in the full-length mirror.

Her legs were a little short compared to other girls in the United States of America, probably because she wasn’t very tall. Her breasts were also a bit small, and not the shape she preferred.

This deflated her a little. After all, among their mutual acquaintances, Elizabeth Mellon was taller, and her breasts and butt were both bigger than hers.

Her jeans had left a red mark on her waist. In fact, she’d already tried on at least six pairs but couldn’t find the perfect one to complement her legs and the shoes she planned to wear.

But her skin was still amazing—a delicate, ivory white, as pale as Siberian snow. ’How long has it been since I’ve seen the snow in Moscow? Six months? A year? To me, it feels like a lifetime.’

Her hair was a messy bun. She dashed into the bathroom, applied some new lip gloss, and then grabbed a comb. She brushed her hair until it cascaded sensually over her shoulders.

’There we go.’ She was extremely pleased with herself now.

’Wait, something’s still missing.’

As she was getting dressed, she suddenly remembered something. She dashed over to her vanity, bit her lower lip, and pulled out her favorite bottle from over a hundred perfumes. She stripped naked and sprayed a little bit everywhere.

’Oh, I’m such a bad girl.’

However, such meticulous primping came with a consequence.

The intercom by the door buzzed.

"Suka!" she cursed.

She glanced at the time. A full thirty-seven minutes had passed since she was supposed to meet Li Wei.

She had no choice but to grab an outfit with her eyes closed, praying it wouldn’t look too awful—even though she wasn’t the praying type. Back in Moscow, she used to go to the Eastern Orthodox Church with her father, but that was the extent of it.

’Please let everything go well,’ she thought. ’I’ve done my best.’

By the time Li Wei came upstairs and rang her doorbell, she hastily opened the door a crack.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," Li Wei, dressed casually, said as he handed Anya the rose in his hand. "This is for you."

"Should I take off my shoes?" he added awkwardly. "This is my first time in a girl’s home."

Anya smiled and opened the door wider. ’He looks a little nervous,’ she thought, ’even more than me. That’s really cute.’

"Come in and wait a minute," she said, taking his hand. "I’ll be ready in a second."

This was the first time Li Wei got a direct sense of just how wealthy Anya was—especially when he saw that the sprawling apartment had three living rooms.

He sat in the living room for about ten minutes. The air was filled with a faint, sweet fragrance that clung to Anya—a delicate perfume mixed with her own natural scent.

’She doesn’t have that body odor some Western people get,’ the thought suddenly crossed Li Wei’s mind. ’Not a trace.’

’That made her even more captivating.’

When Anya finally emerged from the bedroom, looking flustered, with a purse in one hand and a pair of ankle boots—tags still attached—in the other, Li Wei stood up and took the purse from her.

"Let’s go. We can just make it if we leave now," Li Wei said softly, his other hand naturally taking hers again. "Do you want to grab something to eat on the way?"

Anya shook her head vigorously.

’Scenes from movies, or maybe some classic rom-coms, began playing in her head again. She worried she’d made a bad impression and that she’d put on too much perfume.’

She snuck glances at Li Wei, searching his face for any sign of displeasure, but found none.

With Anya beside him, Li Wei navigated the somewhat congested streets of Manhattan in his black Cadillac Escalade.

Thanks to the Macy’s parade, traffic in Midtown was already at a near standstill.

They parked a few blocks away from West 77th Street.

The moment the door opened, the late-November New York air, sharp as a blade, rushed down her collar. Anya, who had been cozy in the warm car just a second before, couldn’t help but shiver.

As they left the parking garage, they could already see the giant Snoopy and Pikachu balloons peeking between the skyscrapers in the distance.

The sidewalks were already packed solid. The air was a mixture of smells from street vendors—caramelized almonds and hot dogs—and the buzzing, heated energy of the tens of thousands of New Yorkers and tourists all crammed together.

The sounds of a distant brass band mingled with the shrill, happy shrieks of children.

"Let’s get closer," Li Wei said, taking Anya’s hand. "We can’t see a thing from back here."

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is one of New York’s premier events, drawing hundreds of thousands of live spectators every year. Right now, the crowd on Manhattan’s West 77th Street had coalesced into something resembling a solid, non-Newtonian fluid.

Li Wei didn’t dally at the edges like a typical tourist. He took a firm grip on Anya’s slender wrist, pulled her close, and used his other arm as a wedge, plunging straight into the mass of people.

"’Excuse me, thanks.’ Li Wei’s tone was polite but devoid of any real feeling as he expertly navigated them through the gaps, keeping Anya protectively in his arms."

Anya was practically carried forward, half-enveloped in Li Wei’s embrace. Her cheek was pressed firmly against his chest. With every step he took, she could clearly hear the slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat and feel the furnace-like warmth of his body through his cashmere coat.

Anya’s mind went blank.

Breathing in his warm scent, she felt like a small boat finding refuge in a secure harbor during a storm. The shoving and clamor of the crowd around them seemed to fade away, becoming a distant echo.

This blatant line-cutting, naturally, drew the ire of some people.

"Hey! Where do you think you’re shoving!" a white guy covered in tattoos yelled. "Where are you from? No manners at all!"

Without even turning his head, Li Wei barked out a phrase in a perfectly enunciated, angry-sounding tone:

"BAKA YAROU!"

The self-righteous tone of his voice made everyone around them pause for a second. Before the tattooed man could react, Li Wei had already pushed forward another ten feet with Anya.

"Those Japanese have no damn manners!!!"

Another person, a heavyset woman dressed gaudily, was shoved aside. She shrieked in protest, "Goddammit, don’t you people understand first come, first served?"

Li Wei’s brow furrowed slightly. As he moved past her, he tossed another phrase over his shoulder:

"AISH... SSIBAL SAEKKI!"

"Damn Koreans!!!"

Anya buried her face in Li Wei’s chest, her shoulders shaking violently—she was holding back laughter so hard she was about to suffocate.

And just like that, with a "Baka yarou!" on the left and an "Aish, ssibal!" on the right, Li Wei managed to muscle their way through five blocks of people, squeezing right up to the police barricades at the front of the parade route.

From here, the view was completely unobstructed.

The giant Snoopy balloon drifted slowly past, less than a hundred feet above their heads. Confetti rained down, landing like snowflakes in Anya’s dark hair.