There were no accidents on the road trip from the west to the east, and it took Jack just over 40 hours to drive the firebird.

It's not that he left too late to make a desperate trip, in fact, there is still a week to go before he officially reports to the FBI office in New York, and Jack plans to use this time to adjust to New Yorker life in advance.

When I first visited the Big Apple, the pace of life here made Jack, a half-Angelenite, quite uncomfortable, and every time I saw those hurried passers-by on the street, it felt as if the whole world was pressed twice as fast as the fast-forward button.

As a result, as soon as he drove into the city limits, the traffic in New York City gave him a solid disadvantage, and although he was often stuck in traffic in Los Angeles, he was able to move two steps every few minutes.

As long as you avoid busy traffic hours, you can drive wherever you want.

And when Jack's firebird turned onto Ninth Avenue, it was blocked in place, and half an hour passed like this, but the destination that should have been close at hand was so far away.

Jack began to reflect on the fact that he might have made a wrong decision to drive the Firebird to New York, no wonder the cop movies he saw in his previous life, especially about New York, where the protagonists drove their cars onto the sidewalk at every turn, and it seemed that there was indeed a basis for reality.

He just saw on the Internet that there is a "Chongqing noodles" in Manhattan's Midwest Side, which is said to taste very authentic, and wants to stop by to feast on Rossi's apartment before going to Rossi's apartment, and also visit the "Hell's Kitchen", one of the meccas of American comics.

But he didn't expect to fall into such a "desperate situation", seeing that the drivers in the cars around him were all accustomed to it, Jack could only sigh silently, took out his mobile phone and took a photo of the long queue in traffic and sent it to Justin.

The girl, who seemed to be in front of the computer forever, replied with an "O(∩_∩)O" almost seconds to show her schadenfreude.

Although the detective has not yet been officially published, Jack can now call himself a "writer" because Justin anonymously uploaded and published the first book, "The President's Indentured Wife".

The sales volume of nearly 5,000 copies a month is not a hit, but it has already touched the threshold of bestsellers.

Considering that Jack and Justin are working together, one writing a detailed outline, the other filling and polishing, and producing at least two similar books a month, Chris is in talks to buy a small publishing house.

Of course, Jack didn't dare to expose the writer's vest, he was too dead, and he hid it from the girls around him, and his discussion with Justin about the manuscript was all carried out in the way of "burning after reading", without leaving any traces on his mobile phone.

The traffic in front of him finally began to move slowly, and when Jack found a parking lot to park his car, he was really shocked by the parking fee here, and 15.4 dollars an hour can only be said to be worthy of the big apple with every inch of land.

Walking out of the parking lot, Jack followed the guidance of the mobile phone map, and quickly found the small noodle restaurant, pushed open the glass door, and a blonde beauty who was doing homework at the desk caught his attention.

"Alexis?" Jack asked tentatively.

In his previous life, when he watched "Spiritual Book Detective", he liked this overly precocious little girl very much, well-behaved and sensible, which is very different from the usual group of troublesome teenagers in American dramas, but he often has to worry about his unconscious father.

"Jack. Uncle? Alexis hesitated a little, but she took the initiative to reach out like a little adult, and her Uncle John was talking about Jack on the phone, she thought she would see a middle-aged man who was nearly 40 years old, but she didn't expect this person in front of her to be so young.

"Uh" Jack was in a trance for a while, uncle or something, the last time someone called himself that, it seemed to be in a previous life, "Please call me Jack!" ”

"Okay, Jack." Alexis sat back down with a smile and began to clean up her homework on the table.

"Are New Yorkers in such a hurry as you are?" Jack glanced at her book, which read "Senior," the fourteenth grade textbook for American middle schools and the final year of high school.

"So all the people in Los Angeles are as unpunctual as you are?" Alexis slyly fought back, "I've been waiting here for almost an hour and a half. ”

In addition to the difference in the concept of time, Los Angeles people will think that the beautiful girls in New York rely on makeup and famous brands, and New Yorkers think that all the beautiful girls in Los Angeles are stuffed with silicone to get botulinum toxin.

"I didn't expect the traffic in New York to be like this, and all my belongings were still in the car, and I went straight here when I entered the city."

Jack sighed silently, there are so many two-way single-lane and two-lane roads, and the streets are so narrow, there must be very few bank robberies, because the robbers can only run away when they grab the money, and they can't run away by driving.

Alexis waved her hand unwillingly, and forgave him very well, took out the menu and began to order, "I thought you would choose to try the bagel circles here first when you first arrived in New York." ”

Bagels are bagels, also known as bagels, and are probably the most popular bread in New York.

When Jack saw her, he ordered a small potsticker, thinking that she was not hungry, after all, it was not yet four o'clock in the afternoon, and it was not a meal, so he ordered a bowl of spicy beef offal noodles and a bowl of fat intestine noodles, and added a xiaolongbao.

Seeing Alexis's eyes widen in surprise, he realized a little, "Is there a problem?" ”

His last meal was breakfast, which he ate in Pennsylvania, and he was already hungry by this time.

"How do you stay in shape? Obviously you look like this," the little girl stammered a little.

It's still a little cool in New York in May, and Jack won't bring the Los Angeles sandals and big pants here, so he changed into a suit on the way here, and he is the type of thin person who wears clothes, which is really surprising compared to the amount of food.

It seems that New Yorkers are quite figure-conscious, and Jack recalls the fair ladies he saw along the way, and the cups are indeed at least two sizes smaller than the girls in Los Angeles.

The little girl is not yet an adult, no wonder she looks at a weak willow and wind, and she looks incompatible with the traditional old beauty, what kind of body management is she doing at a young age, New Yorkers have a lot of problems.

What surprised Alexis even more was still to come, only to see that the young "Uncle Jack" finished the food in front of him, and while wiping the spicy sweat from his forehead, he chatted with the noodle shop owner in some strange-sounding Chinese.

In Jack's previous life, as a native of Suzhou Province, his Sichuan dialect level could only be said to be average, but he could hear the familiar local accent from the mouth of a white-skinned ghost, which was enough to surprise the boss from Sichuan Province.

After a deliberate lucrative tip that was almost equivalent to the cost of the meal, Jack effortlessly hooked up with the old Sichuan, and after a while, he would come back to make more friends, and it would not be a problem to help get some difficult seasoning ingredients or even borrow a stove in the future.

After all, he was going to stay here for a year and a half, and in addition to asking John to help him make an appointment with his little niece as a guide, and planning to use this week to get acquainted with the city, he also had to plan some things in advance.

Filling their stomachs and bidding farewell to the reluctant noodle shop owner, Jack and Alexis lead the two to wander through the neighborhood called "Hell's Kitchen".

The neighborhood, officially known as "Clinton", is located on the southwest corner of Central Park, between 34th and 59th Streets, and Jack is now located in the middle of the 46th Street, also known as "Restaurant Street".

Although Alexis is precocious, she is still a little girl after all, when someone chats with her with an equal attitude towards an adult, and even very humbly asks for common sense of life such as New York subway transportation,

Although the little girl has tried her best to suppress it, the sense of accomplishment of being respected and affirmed still makes her a little fluttery, and the introduction is comprehensive and very detailed.

Thanks to the large police force of the NYPD, which is the largest in the country, New York has good security during the day, and the location of "Hell's Kitchen" is actually not bad.

"Emmett Grant has 20 yards, 15 yards, 10 yards."

"But a big guy is right behind him!"

"But the big guys can't catch up at all, Emmett is going to win, he's going to win, yay!"

Two African-American children, one older and one younger, ran past them as if they were playing a game of football.

Alexis deftly turned around and let them pass, smiling as they stopped at the door of a six-story apartment building, where the older kid shyly greeted another African-American girl.

The two children seemed to be brothers, and the older one was a little embarrassed to urge his younger brother to go upstairs first, as if he wanted to talk more to the girl he liked.

Jack and Alexis were walking and chatting before, and before they knew it, they had walked several streets, Jack raised his hand and looked at the time, feeling that it was not too early, and estimated that there would be a period of time on the way back, and offered to send Alexis home.

"So we're neighbors in the future?" The little girl asked curiously, blinking her long eyelashes.

Coincidentally, the penthouse that Rosie lent to Jack happened to be adjacent to the house of a well-known writer, Rick Cassel, and although they belonged to two different buildings, they were of the same height, and they could barely be regarded as neighbors, the kind of people who could stand on the rooftop and wave to each other.

"yes, that's why I'm trying to please." Before Jack's words fell, his eyes suddenly froze, and his heart was alarmed, and he pulled Alexis and protected her behind him.

"Boom!" A loud explosion was heard, and screams rang out.

(End of chapter)