Dai Li was moved by Alan's experience. He was even surprised after hearing that the surgery fee needed by Alan's youngest sister was almost 1 million American dollars.
What Alan mentioned was a lot of US dollars! Dai Li knew the surgery for congenital heart disease was very expensive. In China, it would cost anywhere between 100 thousand Yuan to a few hundred thousand Yuan. By contrast, 1 million dollars was really an astronomical sum.
In the United States, a guy who could earn 50,000 to 80,000 dollars was regarded as being in the middle class. Therefore, the middle class in the United States still needed to save money for nearly 20 years, without eating or drinking anything beside the bare minimums, before they could finally accumulate 1 million dollars. As for the low-income group and poor people, it was impossible for them to earn 1 million dollars. Hence, the only way Alan could save his youngest sister was to play hard and become an NBA star player.