Chapter 174: Chapter 111: The Asian’s Exam Cheat Sheet

Li Wei and Anya spent a few short, inseparable days together.

The only unfortunate part was that to keep Anya’s bodyguard and housekeeper, Auntie Kaja, from getting suspicious that her young mistress was secretly spending the night with a man, Anya had to make up a different excuse each time, claiming she was staying over at a different friend’s house.

But she couldn’t use that excuse too often, or Auntie Kaja would definitely become suspicious.

’So you’re telling me you didn’t make any friends for the first six months you were in New York, but as soon as you get a boyfriend, you suddenly have all these best friends you need to have sleepovers with?’

Still, Anya was currently quite pleased with herself. She thought she was hiding it all pretty well; at least, Auntie Kaja didn’t seem suspicious yet.

A week flew by in a flash.

Don Quixote had been studying for the agent exam for a month, and today was his day of reckoning.

He’d been anxious since the morning, pacing restlessly around the house.

"Hey," Li Wei said, stirring his coffee as he watched him. "Do you really need to be this nervous?"

"I think I underestimated how hard this exam is," Don Quixote said, tapping his head. "Is my brain really getting old and slow? Twenty years ago, I definitely could have memorized over 400 pages of material in a month."

"Don’t worry about that now," Li Wei sighed. "You’re the one who insisted on juggling your other business. You only just finished handing everything off last week."

"I had to sort out the status issues for Jose and the others," Don Quixote said, scratching his head. "Isn’t that why they came to the United States of America from Mexico in the first place?"

"How about this," Li Wei said after a moment’s thought. "Come over here. I’ll teach you a few tricks."

"What tricks?" Don Quixote’s eyes lit up. "Are you going to teach me the ultimate Asian test-taking secret?"

"Yes," Li Wei said with a serious expression. "Memorize this chant."

He cleared his throat and began, "Three short, one long, pick the long one. Three long, one short, pick the short one. If the lengths don’t match, the answer is B. If they’re all a mess, just pick D."

"What?" Don Quixote scratched his ear. "What kind of spell is that?"

"Come here," Li Wei beckoned. "Let me explain."

"So, when I say ’three short, one long, pick the long one’..." As he spoke, he took advantage of Don Quixote’s distraction to "accidentally" spill his coffee, then quickly grabbed a napkin and dabbed at Don Quixote’s shirt.

"Watch it!" Don Quixote jumped to his feet, looking at the stain on his shirt. "Doing laundry is a pain."

"Sorry," Li Wei smiled. "Did you get all that?"

His gaze casually flickered to Don Quixote’s hand, where a ring, visible only to him, was faintly glowing.

’The description for the [Ring of Good Fortune] only mentions the ’holder,’ and since Don Quixote the Knight is a system-recognized NPC, I can boldly assume the ring should work on him too.’

"I got it," Don Quixote grumbled. "But is this stuff really going to work?"

He didn’t know why, but after Li Wei finished speaking, he felt inexplicably calmer. The sense of panic vanished completely.

"We’ll see if it works or not," Li Wei said. Seeing Lily looking eager to try the coffee, he poured her a cup too. "You’ll find out when you get to the testing center, won’t you?"

"I hope so," Don Quixote mused. "That damn Catherine has been bragging to me about her life in Hawaii. It’ll be humiliating if I don’t pass this exam."

Lily looked at the coffee in her milk cup, took a curious sip, and immediately scrunched up her face, spitting it out. "BLECH!"

"This is so gross!" she said. "It’s not sweet at all!"

"Oh, sorry, I forgot to put ice in it for you," Li Wei said with a laugh. "That’s a hot Americano—even grosser than an iced Americano. Want me to add some ice?"

Lily hopped off the table, made a face at Li Wei, and ran off hugging her Barbie doll.

Don Quixote’s beat-up old Toyota was at the shop for a major overhaul.

Li Wei had suggested many times that he just sell the car—which probably wouldn’t even fetch 3,000 USD—and get a more decent replacement.

But Don Quixote refused. He would rather spend several thousand USD to get the car serviced and overhauled than replace it.

Now, while it was being fixed, he had to drive Li Wei’s Cadillac Escalade to take Lily to school and run his errands.

The Cadillac Escalade did bring some conveniences, though. For example, Lily always made Don Quixote drop her off right at the school gate, then would take her sweet time getting out.

The little girl didn’t know how much the car was worth, but she knew that ever since her dad started driving it to pick her up and drop her off, not only her classmates, but even the teachers and the security guard had become much nicer to her.

After dropping Lily off at school, Don Quixote drove to a building in Manhattan. He submitted his driver’s license, exam registration, and other documents, passed through a scanner, and entered a computer lab to begin his exam.

The NFL agent certification exam was notorious for its high volume of questions and difficulty. Test-takers had to answer over 200 multiple-choice questions in an hour and a half, including various calculation problems. The pass rate was often less than 15%.

This professional exam was even harder than getting into college.

When Don Quixote started, he first scanned through the questions and immediately felt a bit more confident:

Of the more than 200 questions, he was sure about over two-thirds of them. It looked like passing wouldn’t be a problem.

After the starting prompt sounded, Don Quixote sat in front of the computer screen and its camera, clicking away with his mouse.

A camera was pointed right at him, making it impossible to even try to peek at the answers of the young man next to him. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

After about 30 minutes, he had finished all the questions he was confident about. That left over 80 that he was completely unsure of.

For the remaining questions, he began to silently chant the test-taking secret Li Wei had told him:

’Three long, one short, pick the short one...’

’Three short, one long, pick the long one...’

Then, to his surprise, he found that quite a few questions actually followed this pattern.

This allowed him to clear another 40-plus questions.

Now there were nearly 40 questions left, but only half an hour remained.

As a prompt sounded in his headset, Don Quixote took a deep breath. He decided to go for broke.

He started to quickly scan the questions and then just picked answers that looked right:

’No, I can’t have five C’s in a row. That doesn’t look right. I’ll change one.’

’I think I picked too many A’s. Maybe I should adjust the ratio and make the four options more balanced?’

With just a few minutes left, Don Quixote finished the entire test, having guessed on about half of it.

With 10 seconds remaining, Don Quixote clicked the [Submit] button with a heart full of anxiety.

As he was leaving the exam room, he seemed to overhear two people in front of him comparing answers.

"Jason," one of the two young men in front of him said, apparently knowing the other, "what did you pick for question 43? What’s the salary cap for a rookie player?"

"Kevin," the one called Jason replied confidently after a moment’s thought, "I remember it clearly. I chose A. What about you?"

’Crap,’ Don Quixote immediately began to doubt himself, because he had just chosen C.

"Exactly right," Kevin said, high-fiving Jason. "I picked A too."

"Awesome," Jason beamed. "So what did you get for question 36? The one about how many team regulations, if violated, would lead to a player being cut?"

"I remember putting D," Kevin said, thinking. "It should be 14, if I recall correctly."

"Here, high-five," Jason said, overjoyed. "I remember it being 14 too. I also picked D."

Don Quixote’s heart sank to the bottom. He had chosen B.

He walked behind Jason and Kevin, listening distractedly as they compared answers. The more he heard, the less confident he felt.

After starting up the Cadillac Escalade and driving home, Don Quixote flopped onto his bed, feeling like all hope was lost.

He was completely oblivious to the invisible ring on his hand, let alone the faint glow it was emitting.

...

「Three days later.」

"Isn’t today the day scores are released?" Li Wei asked suddenly. "Want to check your results together?"

"Maybe not," Don Quixote said dejectedly. "I have a really bad feeling about it."

"Did you answer every question?" Li Wei asked. "If you filled everything in, there’s always a chance you passed."

"Yeah, Daddy!" Lily chimed in from the side. "I’m sure you did great!"

Don Quixote thought for a moment, but with Li Wei and Lily urging him on, he reluctantly sat down at the computer and opened the results website.

He took a deep breath and hit the Enter key.

He immediately squeezed his eyes shut.

"How is it?" he shouted. "Did I pass?"

"Uh..." Li Wei said. "The screen is frozen."

"What?" Don Quixote’s eyes flew open. "How could this website—"

He froze.

The screen wasn’t frozen. It was clearly displaying his results.

Status: PASS

Score: 93/100 (Passing Score: 70)

"Daddy, you’re amazing! You got over 90!" Lily threw herself into Don Quixote’s arms. "I knew you could do it."

"Congratulations," Li Wei clapped. "You’ve officially joined the million-dollar-a-year club now. With a score like that, you must be number one, right? I mean, this exam is so hard."

"This is impossible..." Don Quixote muttered to himself. "But... I guessed on almost half the questions. I originally estimated my score would be right around the passing line..."

Hearing this, Li Wei glanced down at his own left hand. The [Ring of Good Fortune] was glowing faintly, as if asking for praise.

"It’s because you were well-prepared enough," he said with a shrug. "Getting the rest of the questions right was just destiny giving you a hand."

"Could that Asian test-taking secret actually be real? But... I heard those guys in front of me comparing answers, and I didn’t get a single one of theirs right." Don Quixote leaned forward and started frantically refreshing the page, checking the list of those who passed. "What were their names again? Jason and Kevin."

Unexpectedly, neither Jason nor Kevin was on the list of people who passed.

Don Quixote was furious. Those two hacks! They didn’t even pass, yet they’d made him, a high-scorer, anxious for days!

"Believe in the Asian test-taking secret," Li Wei said with a smile. "Stop looking. The Giants are wiring the money tomorrow, and I need to go open a bank account."

"That’s over 2.4 million USD," he said. "I think it’s about time we go look at some houses."