Chapter 634 Chewing Tobacco and Lucky Horseshoe (End)
As for this time, the situation was quite special. Zhang Heng completed the main task ahead of schedule before the given deadline.
The task of looking for the Lucky Horseshoes was automatically completed after meeting Cook and Matthew. Other than that, the task of settling down in Lincoln County was completed two weeks after he owned the ranch.
In other words, he did not need to worry about his quest anymore, and he could do whatever he wanted. And his life in the west had just begun. After redeeming his extra 24 hours, his time in the quest was extended to 520 days. Soon after taming Bad Boy, he also received the bounty that he was supposed to receive after killing Cook.
In total, killing Cook granted him ten thousand dollars. And the twenty Cook Gang members that he killed contributed another eight thousand dollars to him. In total, he bagged a satisfying eighteen thousand dollars.
Undoubtedly, such an amount was a huge sum of wealth in the 19th-century United States.
It took less than 500 yuan to pay for the cost of building materials, and whatever money that remained was enough for Zhang Heng to spend the rest of his life here, as free as the wind.
The old cowboy and the drunk sheriff looked for Zhang Heng that day and gave him information about the remaining Cook gang members. Those farmers and miners were poor marksmen, but with the help of the old cowboy and young deputy sheriff, they managed to hunt down a few of them after a night’s pursuit. In the end, only four gang members managed to get away. In other words, they could no longer do any more evil. To ensure that Matthew’s family was 100% safe, Zhang Heng went on an excursion, hunting down Cook gang remnants. And it took him two months to find all four of them. Zhang Heng handed two of them over to the local sheriff, and he killed the other two when they attempted to retaliate.
At this point, the incident had officially ended.
However, Zhang Heng did not just idle and do nothing throughout the day. There were a myriad skills to learn and master in this dungeon, and in addition to horsemanship, tending to cattle and rapid-shooting were skills that Zhang Heng was interested in delving into. Among those, rapid shooting was the skill he had to master. That said, he hoped that he could further improve his marksmanship through rapid-fire practice. As for tending to the cattle… it was actually a niche job.
Especially the use of a lasso. A skillful cowboy could rope in a target with ease. When a herd of cattle went out of control, the cowboy’s skill and mind would be put to the test—they would need to catch up with the cows in the shortest time possible and toss the lasso to rein in the herd.
This trick could also be used on people. Without employing deadly weapons, a lasso could be used to incapacitate the target. Zhang Heng also paid attention to the whereabouts of game items in this round of the game. Unfortunately, he heard nothing about the existence of game items in this dungeon.
Now, he had a better understanding of these game items’ origins. Basically, every game item was related to a god, just like those gods behind each occurrence. However, the gods may stay in more than one instance. According to Miss Bartender, there were even cases where a dungeon held no game items at all.
Zhang Heng did not know which god he would encounter in this quest. Could it be the god of the west? The cowboy-god? The god of the wilderness and the god of liberty seemed to make sense in this context. However, since the god in charge of this dungeon did not show up like the gods he encountered in the previous one, it was clear that this god wanted no further communication with him.
Naturally, he didn’t want to provoke the god.
Nonetheless, his peaceful life was short-lived. Six months later, he was involved in the war in Lincoln County. Lasting five months, it was a dispute between Major Murphy, Lincoln County’s most influential man, and the town’s ranchers. During the early phase of this county war, they harassed and assassinated each other.
It was not until the fifth month that the war became a full-blown battle. After Zhang Heng picked up arms to help with the war effort, the ranchers began to overwhelmingly. Eventually, the two parties decided to come to a new agreement. After seeing his hired gunmen getting killed and wounded, Major Murphy promised to reduce the price on items purchased from the East Coast by half. And he also promised that he would never raise prices again. At the same time, he sold off two pastures and swore never to get involved in Lincoln County’s livestock business.
The five-month-long Lincoln County war had finally come to an end.
And Zhang Heng’s biggest gain in this county war was not the ranch that he bought from Major Murphy at a low price. After all, he could not stay here forever. The wealth that he possessed in this world meant nothing.
What he was really interested in was a shooter named Billy.
If Zhang Heng remembered correctly, this man appeared most frequently in western movies, and there were many stories about him.
Contrary to the wild and unruly character the actor brought to the silver screen, Billy was a relatively young and timid man. Having arrived at Lincoln County recently, he was hired by a rancher and joined the county war in Lincoln County not too long after that.
Zhang Heng had fought by his side several times. Billy was certainly nowhere as amazing as portrayed in the films and television series, but he was indeed a quick shooter. With only a pint of beer, Zhang Heng managed to make Billy teach him the secrets of becoming a ‘fast-gun.’
The last two months saw Zhang Heng practically do nothing but practice drawing his gun and shooting. In the end, he managed to improve his shooting skills to Lv.3. With that being said, he was now an expert in long-range sniping and close-range shooting.
Other than that, he combined the horseback riding skill and cattle-tending skill and came up with a Lv.2 skill called ‘cowboy.’
Before leaving, Zhang Heng divided the remaining fifteen-thousand dollars into two bags.
One was buried under the fence of Matthew’s house, and another under his own fence.
After that, he chose a good day and brought Wendy for hunting.
The two returned to the woods where Zhang Heng fought with the Cook Gang. Some time had passed, and peace was once again restored in the place. The bailiffs took away the dead bodies that night, and the hunter’s hut was rebuilt and cleaned. There was even some chopped firewood courtesy of hunters who had stayed there.
The only trace that proved that a battle had taken place here was the bullet marks on the door.
Zhang Heng and Wendy returned to the hut before sunset with the rabbits and deer that they killed. After that, Zhang Heng started a fire and begun dealing with their prey.
Wendy sat in front of the campfire and watched him getting busy. “You haven’t told me where you’re from.”
“Is that important?” Zhang Heng asked rhetorically without looking back.
“Well… if I want to tell my future child your story, how am I supposed to tell him where you’re, why you were here, then met me, and we both set off on a journey together?”
“It’s not my origin that allowed us to embark on this journey, but your persistence at that time. You are the most stubborn kid I have ever seen. You knocked on my door before dawn. I was still awake back then. When I looked into your eyes, I knew that if I didn’t say yes, you would continue to bug me into the
week.”
“Hmm, was I that annoying?” Wendy flushed.
“10,000 times more annoying than you can imagine.” Zhang Heng reached out and touched her hair. “But, you saved your mother and father that night. It was really… brave. Although you are a girl, you are stronger than most men I have ever met.”
Wendy looked embarrassed after Zhang Heng praised her, “You saved my family that night.”
“Yes, but if it weren’t for the time you bought me some time by pointing the shotgun at Cook, I would not be able to get there in time before Cook killed your mother.” Zhang Heng said, “That means you have a played a part in changing your destiny, kid.”