Orginally Chinese version was published on May 3rd, 2021, 5:06 AM, translated by Claude
It’s 5:06 AM on May 3rd, 2021, and I just experienced a brief, unforgettable, and dramatic Western story in Red Dead Online. For the first time in a long while, I feel an urgent desire to record something, right here, right now. I haven’t felt this way in a very long time.
Everything happened so quickly that I haven’t had enough time to process it fully. My cigarette pack is empty, and I desperately want to go downstairs to buy more. But a friend is staying over at my place, seemingly not sleeping well, so leaving isn’t the best option right now. So here I am, sitting at my computer, recalling the events while typing away.
This happened slightly earlier, about an hour ago, though I can’t remember exactly. That couple, or lovers, seem to still be in the session. It all started when I had just completed a legendary bounty mission and returned to free roam mode in Annesburg—a small town built around coal mining resources. The screen prompt in the upper left corner told me that I could now perform tricks with my revolver while holstering it (that is, during the double-tap Tab holstering process, hold right-click to spin the gun, then hold 2 to spin it in reverse). After learning this, I was quite excited and wanted to show off my *new tricks* to another player. Luckily, there was a player near the Annesburg gunsmith, so I walked over while spinning my gun, hoping they would appreciate my newly learned *tricks*.
It all happened in the alley left of the gun shop
He didn’t seem impressed and even spoke up with an accent that only natives would have, expressing that he was *really fucking not interested* and telling me to *fuck off*. When my friendly gesture was met with such a response, I became annoyed, especially since I couldn’t find the push-to-talk key in the game. That’s when I did something that made everything spiral out of control: I drew my pistol from its holster and pointed it at his behind. It was a LeMat revolver, 9 rounds plus 1 shotgun shell, well-maintained, with no extra modifications. I don’t know if I meant to kill him, continue showing off my tricks, or just point it at him. But he didn’t hesitate for a moment, and before I could react, he used his semi-automatic shotgun to send me flying three meters back. That’s when I saw his ID: August_Invictus, belonging to Belle_Brighton’s team. My first impression of this ID was August, only later did I realize it was a name—presumably his actual name. And this Belle_Brighton was his girlfriend, or wife.
I was filled with complex emotions. Partly anger at being gunned down without warning, partly regret for not taking action against him earlier. If I had given him a taste of my pump-action shotgun then and there, riding away on horseback, I could have both avenged his earlier rudeness and left him with an unspeakable humiliation. What was I hesitating for? Whatever I was hesitating about before, I wouldn’t hesitate anymore. After respawning, I called my recently purchased mount—a red Arabian horse, suitable for newcomers as a transition mount.
It’s just turned 6 AM as I write this, and I need to take my friend to the subway station, plus make a trip to the bank to deposit some money. On the way, my friend mentioned this incident, saying he heard me cursing in English in the middle of the night. I briefly told him about what happened and mentioned that I planned to write an article about it. He gave me a perfunctory word of encouragement: “Good luck.” After watching him descend into the subway station, I turned toward the bank, buying a pack of cigarettes along the way. I lit one up while Spotify played “Tiger King” by British Sea Power, constantly pulling my thoughts back to the woodlands and ranches of New Hanover. At this moment, it seemed only my physical body remained in Soochow; my soul still wandered in the northern and central parts of New Hanover. That was the area where everything happened: from Annesburg all the way to Emerald Ranch.
Taking my bolt-action rifle from my mount, I was ready for a tough fight. As his red dot grew closer, I became increasingly anxious, opening my scope and constantly scanning in the direction of the dot, trying to find his silhouette. His voice reached me first, saying: “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I didn’t mean to kill you.” Hearing these words, I wanted to respond, but I couldn’t. I still didn’t know which key controlled push-to-talk. I opened the menu to look in the key bindings, pressed the down arrow countless times but couldn’t find it, growing increasingly anxious and impatient with the controls. After much fiddling, I finally figured out it was Mouse 4, the side mouse button, that controlled push-to-talk. I returned to the game, but could no longer see the red dot—he had run off somewhere. This deflated me considerably, giving me a sense that all my efforts had been wasted.
I walked south with a “might as well try” attitude, almost reaching Van Horn Trading Post. I heard gunfire and saw three blue dots on the map, one was a cross, meaning they were a team leader. I rode toward one of the players, hoping for friendliness and peace, carrying no weapons. That player turned out to be August_Invictus, and unexpectedly, he shot me dead again, after having already explained his reason for killing me the first time.
This time I was truly angry. I also didn’t plan to just hand over my life to him anymore. No matter what he said, I would kill him. My horse was dying for some unknown reason, but at this moment I couldn’t care less about it. I wanted to kill this player, I wanted him to pay for his words and actions. My horse would no longer respond to my calls, so now I could only travel on foot. I quickly approached that red dot and noticed another blue dot nearby that hadn’t turned red along with August’s dot after he killed me, probably engaged in combat. This suited me perfectly. I first approached the player represented by the blue dot, and sure enough, they had weapons drawn and were in a standoff with August. August threw some dynamite sticks that could only exist in the 19th century, but didn’t blast either of us. I switched to my pump-action shotgun, moving in close to give him a big hit, but as I climbed onto the rocks, the blue player had already lassoed him to the ground and was binding him. I still don’t understand how they managed to do that, but at that moment I didn’t care about such details. Bang, bang, two shots, and the bound body became a corpse. Revenge achieved, I quickly turned on voice chat to vent my anger with English expletives. Killing and taunting are inseparable in games like this, flowing naturally together. After killing someone, you have to taunt, you have to crouch repeatedly, you have to spray paint—these are the privileges of the victor and winner.
After that crude and primitive moment, he questioned why I killed him, as if everything he had done was perfectly reasonable. Now calmer, I told him that regardless, I had done what I needed to do, and now I was leaving, whether he wanted revenge was his business. But I heard only silence. I thought he didn’t plan to continue this matter, so I whistled for the skinny old horse that comes when no other mount is available, and rode toward Van Horn Trading Post.
Van Horn Trading Post is quite an interesting small town. If you upset one local resident here, all NPCs will draw their guns and attack you. I switched back to my red Arabian horse at the Van Horn stables, and just as I left the stable, I noticed two blue dots heading my way, probably the squad members coming to deal with me. “So now you’re gonna revenge,” I said over the mic, dismounting and running into a building to seek cover for the upcoming fight, readying my pump-action shotgun for close-quarter combat.
It’s now 6:57 PM on May 3rd, and I’ve woken up from a nap. With a clearer mind reflecting back, I discovered a regrettable fact: I hadn’t used Dead Eye in any of the battles. Dead Eye allows you to place accurate marks on enemies and shoot at the marked positions, but somehow, I hadn’t used this convenient ability once during the entire pre-dawn battle, which might explain my poor performance afterward.
August hadn’t spoken for a long time. He quickly approached my cover; I was outside the back door of the house, while he was outside the front door. I leaned out to shoot at him with my shotgun, but I wasn’t yet used to RDOL’s shotguns. After shooting, you need to manually operate the reload, unlike other games. I fired several shots at him, but only one hit, and due to the distance, it wasn’t fatal. Taking advantage of my reload time, he rushed in and tackled me to the ground. I could only frantically press F to struggle. But even breaking free was futile; I was quickly killed by him again.
After respawning, I didn’t have much room for resistance. I had completed the offline mode a year ago but barely touched online mode, now at level 24. As for them—I didn’t know their levels, but from their guns, clothes, and horses, I could tell they weren’t newcomers like me. And I was very aware of this. But I wasn’t anxious; knowing the gap between us and having mentally prepared for it, I didn’t mind how many times I would die. I had completed my revenge; I no longer hated him. But I wouldn’t surrender either. I wouldn’t flee on horseback, wouldn’t enable defensive mode, and certainly wouldn’t leave the session. I believed I could learn a lot from such combat.
August didn’t think the same way. After successfully killing me several more times, he finally spoke again: this time with classic American-style taunting in declarative sentences, something like *can’t tough now* or other similar phrases. His tone was smug but still angry. I was no longer controlled by emotions, even managing to converse with him during combat and successfully killing him a few times. Notably, the team leader Belle_Brighton never directly engaged with me and maintained silence throughout. Although she might occasionally kill me unexpectedly with a Carcano rifle, she generally didn’t interfere much in my combat with August. August skillfully switched between dual revolvers, rifles, shotguns, and explosives, always using the most appropriate weapon for the current situation. In contrast, I had no explosives, and my ammunition was running low, putting me at a severe disadvantage in all aspects.
I couldn’t help but compliment his skill over the mic, and my words were sincere. When I occasionally managed to kill him, he would blame it on lag or luck. That was probably true. When I asked about his level, he said *level means shit* and *It’s only about skill* and such, but I couldn’t agree. Level doesn’t directly represent skill, but it at least represents playing time, and playing time to some degree represents skill level. The difference between level 100 and 200 players in PvP might not be very obvious, but when a level 100 player faces a level 1 player, the gap becomes immediately apparent. In GTAO, my friends and I had chased newcomers in an APC around the session before, and now the tables seemed turned.
During our casual chat amid the fighting, I noticed he used “She” when referring to his teammate. Just after being headshot by the Carcano again, I couldn’t help but ask, “That was your girlfriend?”
“Yes she’s my girlfriend.”
“She’s a good sniper I assume.”
“Yes she is. She killed me a lot of times though.”
Our three figures weaved through the bushes and woods southwest of Van Horn, one figure shooting while retreating, the other two in close pursuit. Accompanied by my constant deaths. When I respawned and looked up again, we had reached Fort Brennand, situated on the east bank of the Kamassa River, an abandoned, dilapidated fortress now reclaimed by nature.
On May 8, 1863, under the leadership of General Quincy Harris, Confederate forces attacked this fortress at night. Soldiers climbed trees near the fortification and began shooting at Union soldiers inside the walls. Eventually, when the surviving Union soldiers fought to protect the fortress, the Confederates broke through the north gate, but their numbers were overwhelmed by the massive Confederate force. Union soldiers who surrendered or were captured were executed and burned.
In the New Hanover Gazette, a U.S. Army veteran who survived the massacre remembered this event. Additionally, the newspaper noted that details of the massacre remained disputed, and plans to build a memorial at the site had not begun since 1907. —Excerpt from Red Dead Fandom Wiki
I crawled through a small hole into the fortress, climbed the tower, and kept peeking out the window with my bolt-action rifle, but my gun was blocked by the wall. If my character had been 10 centimeters taller, I could have shot him directly from here. But now, even though I could see August, I couldn’t shoot at him. August hopped around between rocks and trees like a rabbit, and he couldn’t hit me either. We were at a stalemate here for about 5 minutes until Belle_Brighton threw something through the window. I heard what sounded like breaking glass, and the tower was instantly filled with some kind of gas. My character almost immediately started coughing, the screen began to distort and shake, and my health was dropping rapidly. Later I learned it was Toxic Moonshine, a throwable weapon from the Moonshiner update that creates a poison cloud, causing enemies to suffocate and lose directional control; in other words, a gas grenade. Having only completed the offline mode, I didn’t know such a weapon existed and was momentarily at a loss. A few seconds later, I was poisoned to death.
Afterward, it was more fighting while retreating, and unconsciously I ran into another dense forest. The mini-map showed a stranger mission point, and I thought if someone lived there, there should be a house for cover. That’s what I thought. I ran over and found indeed a lonely cabin standing there. I leaned against the wall of the cabin, preparing for another battle. But I saw August walking over step by step holding a lamp, without any weapons. I was confused and shot at him once. “Don’t shoot, god damn it!” he said, probably wanting to end this one-sided battle. So I stopped shooting and walked toward him, putting away my weapon. At this point, their character models suddenly disappeared, leaving me confused and staying in place. Moments later they reappeared, probably having just entered this stranger’s cutscene. August and his girlfriend exchanged a few words about the stranger, then turned to me.
“Listen, the reason why I shoot you is because you drew your gun in the back of me. We don’t kill people for no reason, we ain’t that kind of people.”
“But you told me to fuck off. And I just wanna showing some of my new tricks. That piss me off.”
“That’s fine, that’s fine. I am sorry for say that to you. So are we good now?”
“Though you guys did teached me something anyway, about how to play this game, really appreciate that. So I think we’re good.”
I wanted to add them as friends, but they politely declined, saying they don’t just play RDOL but many other games, and they appreciated the thought. Well, okay.
Since that was the case, things were officially over, time for everyone to go their separate ways. I opened my mic and said to him: “Guess…we’re done here?”
“Ok.” After saying this, he made his character punch me. I didn’t understand what was happening but returned the attack. However, he didn’t raise his hands to block, instead letting me punch him several times. “Good, kick my ass.” I realized he was letting me vent my anger, but I didn’t want him to do it this way. “That’s enough, that’s enough.” I indicated it was enough, controlling my character to leave, my character stepped back a few steps but still maintained a fighting stance without exiting. He insisted I continue, and to respond to his gesture, I continued punching him one blow after another until he fell to the ground.
I picked up his corpse, wanting to put it on his horse to take away, but couldn’t place it there. The respawned version of him had already returned. “Well. Seems you can’t put corpse on other’s horseback,” he said. Since that was the case, I had to put it on my horse instead. Mounting up, I bid farewell to him and his girlfriend, wishing each other to Have fun. We parted ways on a dirt road.
I spurred my horse’s flanks, and the red Arabian galloped away, while I never looked back. The two dots moving in the opposite direction had turned blue by then.
Emerging from the dense forest, a prairie stretched before me. I didn’t know where to go, I hadn’t yet recovered from what had just happened. Looking up, my horse seemed to have brought me to Emerald Ranch, still carrying his corpse on its back. To those NPCs, there was a desperado before them, standing still with a fresh corpse on horseback, lost in thought. The NPCs wouldn’t understand my feelings, nor would they know that this killer was standing there motionless because the person behind the screen was also staring blankly while smoking, seemingly contemplative, yet perhaps thinking nothing at all. My heart—some part of it, was touched somewhere by what I had just experienced, though I didn’t know why myself. And I hadn’t felt such a strong urge to write in a long time, and urgently, immediately so. I stubbed out my cigarette, opened Chrome, opened the blog I share with friends, and began typing.
Afterword:
Two days later, I finally had the chance to make a relatively objective assessment of what I had experienced. Why, when gunfights are commonplace in the West, did I choose to write about this particular one? Because it had a clear cause: purely personal grudges, individuals using the most primitive means to resolve conflicts through violent catharsis. And it had a not-bad ending, not petering out with one side being killed until they left the session. August, after venting his emotions, also considered his enemy’s feelings—me, a mere level 24 rookie. Hand on heart, if the roles were reversed, would I have done the same? I wouldn’t have. In fact, very few people would. Most players are only loyal to their own circles and wouldn’t care about any feelings from outside their small groups. None are more united than they are.
Today, such pure conflicts are rare. I seldom see players nowadays who curse without bringing up others’ nationality and mothers. And such a fight, stemming purely from personal grudges, is rare and coincidental. This seems to be a reemergence of the old Western spirit, its last sigh.
