Reborn in 1878: America's Number One Bandit

Chapter 1 New Life Amidst the Bones

The twilight, like thin, rusty water, soaked every inch of the railway construction site in Strawberry Town.

In the simple wooden shed, a dim kerosene lamp struggled to burn.

It smelled of sweat, cheap tobacco, and horse manure all mixed together.

“Boss Liang, it’s written clearly in the accounts. I haven’t taken a single day off this month. I have a perfect attendance record. I get 50 cents a day, which should be $15.”

A thin young man glared angrily at the foreman, Liang Kuan.

Liang Kuan had a greasy, shiny braid, and his two mustaches twitched as he picked at his teeth with his little fingernail.

"Here's thirteen yuan, take it and get out of here. The other two yuan are for you to learn a lesson."

"lesson?"

Lawson trembled with rage: "Ah Gou was beaten to death, and you didn't dare utter a sound! I can't even mention it? Those Irishmen are the ones who deserved to be taught a lesson!"

Several Chinese laborers nearby, who were about to collect their wages, instinctively shrank back and silently took a step back.

"You fucking dare to say that?"

Liang Kuan slammed his hand on the table, causing the flame of the kerosene lamp to flicker wildly.

He suddenly stood up.

He pointed at Lawson's nose, spitting as he spoke: "I warned you bunch of greenhorns long ago not to mess with those white mad dogs. They're blind, who can they blame? You still want to seek revenge?"
I'm deducting two yuan from your pay to teach you a lesson: on this land, we yellow-skinned people have to keep a low profile!

"you……"

Lawson was so angry that he trembled all over, his chest heaving violently.

"What do you mean, 'you'? You're not convinced?"

Liang Kuan grabbed Lawson's thin collar and roughly pushed him out of the shed.

"Get out of here! Don't get in my way!"

Lawson was already weak and unable to resist Liang Kuan's brute force.

He was staggered out of the work shed, his foot slipped, and the back of his head hit a sharp rock hard.

The world spun around me, and everything before my eyes turned into blurry blocks of color.

A sharp pain shot through him, followed by an overwhelming darkness that engulfed him.

Lawson collapsed on the muddy ground at the entrance of the workers' shed.

The Chinese laborers coming and going avoided it as if it were a plague.

No one dared to step forward to help, fearing they might anger Liang Kuan, who was already in a rage, and bring trouble upon themselves.

A night wind began to rise, stirring up sand and dust from the ground.

Half an hour later, the fingers of the motionless body suddenly twitched.

Then, he sat up, clutching the back of his head which was throbbing with pain.

"Damn it, where am I?"

"Wasn't I just in a private club in Moscow, studying human anatomy and the chemical reactions of vodka with three tall, blonde Russian women...?"

The person is still the same. But their eyes have changed.

The confusion was fleeting, quickly transforming into a profound depth that seemed completely out of place for someone of his age.

A memory that didn't belong to him surged into his mind.

"1878... Strawberry, Marin County, California, USA... Railroad construction site..."

In just a few breaths, he had already sorted out the brief memories of the original owner of this body.

Lawson, seventeen years old, three months ago, followed his fellow countrymen across the ocean to California after being lured by the lie that America was full of "gold mines".

He didn't come here to pan for gold; he came here to risk his life.

The Southern Pacific Railroad is frantically spreading its steel tentacles across California.

Lawson was just an insignificant laborer on this tentacle.

There are more than 400 people at this construction site.

The composition of the workforce is extremely complex.

There were approximately 220 Chinese laborers.

Besides Chinese laborers, the largest group consisted of Irish people, numbering about 150, most of whom had fled from the east coast due to the famine.

The remaining small group consisted of local white Americans, a few taciturn, burly Russian men, and even a few darker-skinned Mexicans.

In this temporary kingdom, Chinese laborers were undoubtedly at the bottom of the food chain.

A white laborer could earn $1 to $2 a day, while a Chinese laborer earned only half that, 50 cents.

Even so, Chinese laborers remained a thorn in the side of those white foreigners.

They believed that these Chinese men with queues and speaking gibberish were stealing their jobs and lowering industry wage standards. Conflicts therefore became commonplace.

Especially the Irish foreigners, who vented their dissatisfaction with reality on the Chinese laborers who were even more vulnerable than themselves.

They wantonly provoked and beat up lone Chinese laborers.

Lawson's childhood friend, Ah Gou, was surrounded and beaten to death by six drunk Irish men just a few days ago.

When the body was discovered, it was no longer recognizable as a human.

Liang Kuan, the foreman of the Chinese laborers, was a coward who bullied the weak and feared the strong, and only dared to bully his own people.

He warned all his fellow villagers against any conflict with white people and even took the initiative to befriend the Irish.

Today, because Lawson mentioned avenging Ah Gou again, Liang Kuan took it as a challenge to his authority and withheld two Eagle Yang tokens from him.

After figuring out the whole story, Lawson's eyes grew increasingly gloomy.

1878...

That year, Emperor Guangxu was only eight years old, and the Empress Dowager ruled from behind the curtain.

The smoke of the four-year-long American Civil War had not long since cleared.

The war with the Native Americans was also nearing its end.

In 1878, Idea King Duch and River Shrimp had just founded the Van der Linde gang.

Arthur Morgan at this point should still be a little kid peeing and getting muddy.

This is an era where heroes and villains dance together.

He was a lowly Chinese laborer, not even a person in the legal sense.

With the impending enactment of the Exclusion Act, the deaths of Chinese laborers would not even leave a trace of their names in any official archives.

Their remains were disposed of cheaply and buried under the railway lines they themselves had laid.

"What the hell is this starting position?"

Lawson muttered a curse under his breath and began to examine the wretched body.

An unexpected discovery surprised him slightly.

The body appears to be over 1.8 meters tall.

In this era, the average height of Chinese laborers was just over 1.6 meters, and even the average height of white foreigners was only a little over 1.7 meters.

His height is definitely outstanding.

However, he is too thin, probably weighing less than 100 pounds, and is completely skin and bones.

Just then, his brain suddenly went blank.

Deep within his spiritual world, a circular fragment quietly emerged.

Lawson was stunned.

Isn't this the mysterious fragment he bought at an underground auction for a sky-high price?
According to the seller, this is a core extracted from a meteorite that crashed in Siberia, and its composition cannot be determined.

He brought it into this era before he had a chance to study it in depth.

Before he could think it through, a futuristic, semi-transparent panel unfolded out of thin air above the fragment:

[System: Core for Creating Suicide Bombers]

[Level: 1] (One assassin can be automatically generated daily, whose physique is 1.1 times that of a normal adult male)
[Upgrade Requirements: Consume 1 unit of Earth Energy]

[Current host physical condition: 7] (The standard for a normal adult male is 10)

[Earthwork Energy Reserve: 0] (Consuming 1 unit of earthwork energy will generate 1 assassin)
Current number of assassins: 0

[Currently Unlocked Features]:
[Inter-consciousness Communication]: You can instantly access all the information perceived by your subordinates. What you see, I see; what you think, I know.

[Consciousness Takeover]: Your consciousness can descend upon and take over the body of any assassin at any time, gaining full sensory experience and controlling all their actions.

[Skill Sharing]: You can share and use all the skills possessed by any assassin without restriction.

Lawson stared blankly at the panel, his breathing becoming rapid.

"Can you spawn absolutely loyal assassins just by digging in the dirt?"

What's abundant here is soil and stones.

He felt his headache had subsided and he had regained some strength.

Lawson walked to the corner at the edge of the camp where tools were piled up and picked up two shovels from the wall.

No one noticed the tall, thin figure carrying two shovels, disappearing into the boundless wilderness.

No one cared about his departure.

(End of this chapter)