These two are supposed to be scouting for Dutch, right? How did scouting turn into hanging out at a saloon?

  Stephen, curious, walked up and patted Lenny on the shoulder. "Hey, kid, what are you doing here?"

  Lenny turned around, a look of surprise and joy on his face. "Stephen! What are you doing here?"

  "As you can see, just having a drink."

  Stephen raised his glass, looking curiously at Micah, who was sitting at the table, dead drunk. "What about you guys? What's up with him being so wasted?"

  Lenny looked exasperated. "We came out here to scout, like Dutch asked. But this guy's just been drinking everywhere we go…"

  Stephen pulled Lenny over to his spot and poured him a drink. "Take it easy, tell me slowly."

  Lenny downed the drink in one gulp, then started coughing. "Oh… damn, was that gunpowder I just drank? Cough cough…"

  Stephen patted him on the back. After catching his breath, Lenny started complaining to Stephen.

  "After we split up on the mountain, we headed west. My plan was to follow the boss's orders and take a look around Blackwater, see when we could go back."

  "But this guy, ever since we came down from the mountains, he's been acting crazy, looking for drinks everywhere."

  "I've tried to talk to him, but he never listens. Man…"

  Lenny said with a frustrated look, "What am I supposed to do?"

  Stephen took a slow sip of his drink, listening to Lenny's complaints, and then looked over at Micah, lost in his drunken stupor.

  "What can you do? Go back," he said definitively.

  "But the mission the boss gave me… I can't say I didn't do it! I haven't even started yet!" Lenny said, close to despair.

  "Actually, you don't have to worry about it too much." Stephen looked at Lenny. "I just came back from Blackwater a couple of days ago…"

  Stephen told Lenny everything he saw and heard in Blackwater. Lenny listened in silence.

  "Sean, Mac… my God," Lenny said, covering his face, seeming to mourn for his friends.

  "So, we can't go back to the West anytime soon?" Lenny said quietly. "Is it really that bad?"

  Stephen nodded. "It's even worse than I'm telling you."

  "So, you don't need to keep going there. Go back sooner," Stephen advised Lenny. "It's just wasting time and could be dangerous."

  After listening to Stephen, Lenny nodded. "Yeah, guess that's it."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  He suddenly looked up, glancing at Micah, still drinking. "Then what about him?"

  Lenny's eyes were full of disgust as he looked at Micah. "How am I supposed to get this guy back? I don't want to be around him for another second."

  "Why do you care about him? He's not an idiot… although he's pretty close to being one," Stephen said with a chuckle. "Just leave him here to wallow in his drunken dreams."

  "That's not right, I came with him…" Lenny said hesitantly. "Even though I hate him, he's still part of the gang…"

  "Ha, you treat him like a friend, but does he treat you like one?" Stephen said with a sneer. "I don't think so. If he really considered you a friend, he wouldn't be acting like this."

  "Maybe I'll talk to him and see what he says?" Lenny said uncertainly. "If he keeps acting this way, I'll leave him behind."

  "Go ahead, I'll wait here."

  Stephen didn't like Micah at all.

  The main reason, of course, was Mrs. Sadie. That disgusting Micah had tried to take advantage of her when she was at her lowest.

  And then there was Stephen's judgment of character.

  Honestly, guys like Micah weren't uncommon in the West. To be more specific, people like him were the norm.

  Shameless, cruel, ruthless, but when faced with so-called power and someone stronger than them, they became cowards.

  These kinds of people had no bottom line and would sell out anything they could.

  Stephen had seen too many people like this in the past two years; they weren't anything special.

  On the other hand, people like Arthur from the Van der Linde gang, who had some principles and genuinely treated the people in the gang like family and friends, were rare.

  That's why Stephen was willing to work with them, so he wouldn't have to worry about being sold out.

  As Stephen was pondering this, a loud commotion interrupted his thoughts.

  He looked up and saw Micah yelling angrily at Lenny, looking like he was about to throw a punch.

  Stephen downed the rest of his strong drink. The alcohol surged through his body, making him feel a bit tipsy.

  He walked over and pulled Lenny behind him, looking at Micah, who was swaying on his feet.

  "Hehe, look who it is, the mighty bounty hunter!" Micah looked at Stephen and grinned, showing what he thought was a menacing smile.

  Unfortunately, the toothless mouth only made Stephen laugh.

  "Micah, who's this?" a guy who was drinking with Micah asked curiously.

  "Hehe, just some busybody."

  As Micah finished speaking, Stephen said with a cold smile, "Why don't you tell them that I'm the one who knocked all your teeth out?"

  The room fell silent, then burst into raucous laughter, almost shaking the floor.

  "Hahaha, Micah, didn't you say you lost your teeth falling off a horse?"

  "He told me they fell out while he was eating! Hahaha!!"

  "This is hilarious, so they were knocked out by someone!!"

  The mocking laughter around him deeply affected Micah, making his face, already red from the alcohol, turn even redder.

  He roared with rage and charged straight at Stephen.

  Stephen sidestepped slightly, letting Micah run past him.

  Then, he gently raised his right foot, tripping him into a face-first fall.

  Stephen shook his head in disappointment as he looked at Micah, who was lying on the ground in a mess.

  That's all this guy's got.

  Micah's friends laughed, but they were ready to come over and lend a hand.

  One of them clenched his fist and threw a punch at Stephen. Stephen slightly tilted his head again to avoid the punch.

  Then, he darted forward, followed by a swift upward thrust of his right elbow, slamming it hard into the guy's chest.

  The strike caused the man's heart and lungs to stop instantly, and he collapsed on the ground.

  The remaining guy looked at the two who had been taken down almost instantly and didn't know what to do.

  The fist he had raised high, he wasn't sure whether to put it down or keep coming forward to be beaten.

  Stephen gave a derisive smile. He suddenly remembered the assignment Welen Ike had given him. Wasn't this guy right in front of him?

  He decisively pulled out his camera and took a close-up photo of Micah, who had fallen and was dazed.

  Micah happened to look up at this time, staring at the camera with a pair of eyes filled with hatred.

  "Hehe, Welen Ike is going to love this," Stephen said to Micah with a smile. "Your expression is pretty good."

  Lenny couldn't stand it any longer; he didn't want to see this idiot for another second.

  He walked forward, grabbed Stephen, and pulled him out of the saloon.