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On the streets of Chicago in the evening, Josh stood in the wind, dazed.
He had only been home for a few hours, and the car he had just bought had already been stolen.
This was something he had never experienced before.
Mainly because in his previous life in the safest country, Xia, car theft was something he had never encountered, and had rarely even heard of.
But America was different. Just in New York alone, over two thousand car thefts occurred between January and March of 2022...
If things were like that in 2022, one could imagine how rampant car theft was in the earlier 1940s.
So it was completely normal that Josh, who had let his guard down after buying the car, ended up falling victim.
Then what should he do now that he discovered his car was stolen?
Call the police?
Josh looked at a patrol officer on the roadside in the distance and shook his head.
Don't be ridiculous. Even after the 1960s, the clearance rate for car theft in America was low—let alone in this era?
Moreover, police corruption was rampant during this time in the U.S. Without money or power, you couldn't expect them to do anything.
And, most importantly, Josh hadn't even had time to register the car he bought at noon...
So even if he was frustrated, he could only chalk it up to bad luck.
No car? Then walk!
Originally, Josh had planned to drive around and see what kind of "fun" places Chicago had at night. Now he could only grab a bite nearby and go straight home to sleep.
Without a car, Josh would absolutely not wander aimlessly through American streets at night during this era—not even with a gun.
Soon, the next day arrived.
After tidying up and heading out again, he didn't walk this time. Instead, he booked a taxi in advance and returned to the grocery store he had visited yesterday.
Upon entering, he noticed that the person behind the counter was not Old Hawk, but a young girl around twenty.
"Good morning! Can I help you with something?" the young girl greeted Josh warmly as he walked in.
"Is Old Hawk not here?" Josh asked instead of stating his purpose.
After all, Old Hawk was the shop owner. When it came to selling gold, the girl in front of him couldn't possibly make that call.
"You're looking for my grandpa? Hold on, he's working in the back. I'll go get him."
The girl wasn't bothered by Josh's bluntness and turned to go into the back of the store.
She was Old Hawk's granddaughter and often came by to help. She'd seen plenty of mysterious customers like Josh and wasn't surprised at all.
Soon, Old Hawk came out. Seeing Josh again, he looked rather surprised.
"We meet again, young man. Still gold?"
"Yes. Your price was fair yesterday, so I've decided to exchange a bit more. I just don't know if you can take it all," Josh nodded.
"Heh, young man, I know what you're worried about, but don't underestimate Old Hawk. This shop has been here for decades. It may not look like much, but there are quite a few priceless items inside. See that? Even though they're secondhand, just the little bit of gold you exchanged yesterday wouldn't be enough to trade for a random watch in that cabinet," Old Hawk said, pointing at a watch display case.
If Old Hawk hadn't mentioned it, Josh wouldn't have noticed. But after taking a closer look, he realized Old Hawk wasn't exaggerating.
There weren't many watches in the case—just seven or eight—but each one was in excellent condition.
Although Josh didn't know much about watches—he couldn't afford high-end ones in his past life—he still recognized the brands.
Patek Philippe, Rolex, Breguet… Even though it was the 1940s, these name-brand watches were still worth at least a thousand dollars—assuming they were real.
Even if only half of them were authentic, their value would far exceed the gold Josh had.
Josh could only silently acknowledge his own lack of knowledge.
"120 ounces, purity should be about the same!" Since Old Hawk was so confident, Josh didn't hesitate. Just like yesterday, he pulled out a small pouch and placed it on the counter.
Twelve gold bars, totaling more than 3.4 kilograms. It sounded like a lot.
But volume-wise, it wasn't that much—after all, gold was dense.
Each 10-ounce gold bar was smaller than a Snickers bar.
So even though Josh took it out from the system, it didn't raise any suspicions.
"Nice stuff. I'll take it all. Same price as yesterday—how about that?" Old Hawk said with a smile as he weighed one of the bars in his hand.
"Deal!" Since the offer was fair, Josh had no objections.
Soon, the 120 ounces of gold were exchanged for $4,800.
Holding the money, Josh felt a surge of excitement.
He stuffed the thick wad of bills into his pocket—actually, directly into the system storage—said goodbye to Old Hawk, and walked out of the grocery store.
After turning two corners and making sure no one was following or watching him, he planned to call a taxi to go buy another car.
After all, as the third-largest city in the U.S., Chicago was huge and American public transportation was notoriously bad. Without a car, life was inconvenient.
As for the stolen car, Josh had already thought it through: when parking, he'd find an empty spot and just store the car in the system. That way, how could it possibly get stolen again?
But hailing a taxi wasn't so easy. Yesterday, he'd gotten lucky and found one right away, but today he waited more than ten minutes without seeing a single available cab.
Just as he was growing impatient, a Ford car sped past him.
Even though cars from this era mostly looked the same, Josh instantly recognized the one that just drove by—it was the exact same one that had been stolen the day before.
Because there was a very noticeable scratch on the rear of the car when he bought it, and this one had the exact same mark.
Without thinking, he dashed after it.
Even though cars of that time could go over 70 miles per hour, since this was the city and wartime restrictions were in place, Roosevelt had banned high-speed driving—even on highways, the speed limit was only 35 mph.
So the car wasn't moving fast, only around 20 mph.
Fueled by youth and a sense of justice, Josh managed to keep up for a short while but as the car turned a corner up ahead, Josh came to a stop.
Because ahead was no friendly place—it was the immigrant district known as Little Italy, and just two more streets over was Chinatown.
Unfortunately, unlike the famous tourist attractions and bustling markets that Little Italy's and Chinatowns would become in later generations, these areas during this era were still synonymous with slums, barely any better than the segregated Black neighborhoods.
From his predecessor's memories, Josh recalled that his parents had repeatedly warned him not to go near Little Italy or Chinatown.
So now, Josh was quite hesitant.