48 Hours a Day

Gazing at the small town from a distance, Zhang Heng said, “Did your father tell you that he came here to talk business?”

“Yes, he said that before he left.” Wendy nodded, hesitating before she continued, “Do you think he lied?”

“It’s unlikely. Didn’t you send a telegram to the sheriff here? He did say your father had left.”

“Okay.”

“At least it tells us that he has something to do with all this. Let’s head to the town to check it out.”

As Zhang Heng and Wendy rode on, they passed a crop field that wasn’t growing very well. It seemed the weather was not the only reason that caused the plantation to fail. All the crops were wilting, and the strangest thing was that there was not one farmer around.

Zhang Heng asked Wendy to wait. As for him, he got off his horse, walked towards a house, and knocked on the door. Nobody answered it, and after a couple of times trying, Zhang Heng drew the revolver from his waist, opened the door, and quickly dashed to the side. He waited for a few seconds, but no one came out of the house.

Zhang Heng raised his head, took a quick look at the house, then put away the revolver.

“How is it?” Wendy asked from behind.

“Safe. There is no one in the house,” Zhang Heng said. Unlike the uninhabited town he passed by at the start of this quest, there was no sign of evacuation here. Zhang Heng even saw a half-flipped book placed upside down on the table.

Wooden toys were also strewn all over the ground.

At that time, Wendy had dismounted the horse and walked into the house, “Where has everyone gone to?”

“I don’t know,” Zhang Heng said. He walked around the house but saw no blood, nor was there anything else suspicious.

“Let’s leave.”

The two then left the farmhouse and closed the door.

Wendy glanced at the nearby fields again and muttered, “How did the crops grow so badly? Perhaps nobody looked after them? I wonder what the annual harvest looks like?”

“I’m afraid not.” Zhang Heng said, “Have you noticed, other plants along the way are not growing well too.”

“How did that happen?”

Zhang Heng turned and looked at the well next to him. Scooping a bucket of water from it, he found the water to be muddier than the ordinary well water, and it tasted salty as well.

One sip was all it took for Zhang Heng to pour the rest away. “The water here is polluted. That’s why the plants are not growing well.” “Do people cause it, or is it natural?”

“For now, I’ve no idea, but the townsfolk should have an explanation.” Zhang Heng mounted Radish again. “Let’s go. I see smoke coming from the town. I think there should be someone we can talk to.”

Wendy and Zhang Heng entered the town about a quarter of an hour later. The small town named Bliss looked no different from any other western hamlet of the era.

Although somewhat deserted, there were at least some people living here. Zhang Heng went to the hotel and booked two rooms first. He left his luggage and miscellaneous items too inconvenient to be brought to the room at the lobby. This time, he didn’t let Wendy go alone to ask for more information about the place.

The latter stood at the window and looked at the street below.

“Am I seeing it, right? I feel everyone we’ve met along the way has been all but very hostile

to us.”

“Really, I’m Chinese. People are very hostile to me no matter where I go,” Zhang Heng said, counting the bullets in his bag at the same time. Meanwhile, Wendy was trying her hardest, convincing him to teach her the right way to fire a gun. In the end, Zhang Heng succumbed to Wendy’s persuasion, finally teaching her everything about shooting, pistols, and rifles. He had to admit, Wendy was indeed quite a talented shooter, not to mention how fast of a learner she was—a lot better than Zhang Heng’s mediocre horsemanship.

Each time they stopped to rest by the road, she would ask Zhang Heng to lend her his gun for some target practice. And she even managed to hunt down two hares for dinner.

“I also noticed the thing that you told me earlier.”

“I don’t like the look in their eyes,” Wendy said. She saw the woman on the balcony across the street hanging her clothes. The woman hastily retreated into her house, slamming the door and shutting all the windows, giving the most nervous of glances. “Is that an outbreak here? Chickenpox, or perhaps something more terrible like leprosy... When I was born, there was a chickenpox outbreak in the town that I lived in. I heard from my father that they would gather all the sick in one room to prevent them from infecting the healthy. Every day, they would send someone to deliver food and water to them until...” Wendy paused, “...the people inside were all dead. That was no treatment! It was murder.”

Zhang Heng had also heard all about leprosy, the infamous disease. Let alone the 19th century, countering this disease in the modern-day was still a daunting task. Those living in the countryside were terrified when they heard about this disease. In this era, where medical know-how was still in its infancy, apart from isolation, there was almost no other way to tackle leprosy.

“Be careful. This town is indeed unusual.”

“We leave as soon as we find my father. So where should we go next?”.

“Let’s look for the sheriff since no one wants to talk to us. But before that, we have to go to the grocery store to replenish supplies.”

The owner of the grocery store was cleaning the shelves. When he saw Zhang Heng and Wendy walking towards him, he immediately came down the ladder and hung up the closed sign. Within seconds, he, too, like the others, shut and locked the door.

But right before the door latched, a hand-stretched into the crack of the door, blocking it from closing.

“Sorry, sir, we are closed,” the owner said while attempting to close the door with increased strength. However, he wasn’t nearly as strong as Zhang Heng. In the end, the door was slowly pushed open from the outside.

“It seems we are lucky enough to get here before the shop closed.” Zhang Heng walked into the shop with Wendy before the owner could argue with them.

Leaving with no other options, the owner could only serve them and hoped they would leave his shop as soon as possible. He then wiped away the sweat from his forehead. “Anything I can help you with?”

“I want to buy four... no, six boxes of bullets.”

“Caliber?”

“Two boxes of 44-40 Winchester, four boxes of 0.45-inch Colt long bullets, thank you.”

“That’s a lot of ammo... going hunting by any chance?” While taking the ammunition from the shelf, the owner reluctantly tried to strike up a conversation with them.

“Are there any hunting grounds around here?”

“Not as far as I know. If you want to hunt, you’ll have to go further.”

“Well, looks like we won’t be going hunting then,” Zhang Heng said. He then turned and looked at Wendy beside him. “You want some licorice?”

“I’m not a kid anymore!” Wendy frowned.

“It doesn’t mean that you are a child if you like to eat sweets. I know a guy, and I honestly don’t know how old he is. Anyway, he is older than anyone you have ever met. He has a sweet tooth, and he can devour all kinds of sweets like a bottomless pit.”