Chapter 727: Hunting Gear 3

Chapter 727: Chapter 314: Hunting Gear 3

Li Younan noticed quite a few local Texas Hunters, the cowboy-hat-wearing kind, all grinning at those words, then heading off toward the stables looking excited.

But there were also plenty of Hunters who didn’t have riding skills. They just stood where they were, though they didn’t exactly look lost or helpless.

Only one Hunter protested with some dissatisfaction: “This is unfair, I don’t know how to ride.”

The staffer said bluntly, “That’s your problem, sir. Maybe you should say you don’t know how to use a gun yet either.”

That sentence immediately made the Hunter’s expression turn awkward.

Seeing this, Li Younan also got ready to head to the stables, but just then one of the organizers’ cowboys lifted a brow slightly and said, “The horses we’ve got here don’t exactly have good tempers.”

The meaning was already very clear.

Li Younan snorted inwardly. Little punk, looking down on me, huh? I’ll show you later what it means to be Li Younan on horseback.

…

By the time Li Younan reached the stables, the cowboy suddenly realized something: Li Younan was the only solo Hunter among the twenty teams.

He asked in some surprise, “Where’s your partner?”

Li Younan said, “It’s just me. But the good news is, I’m about to get a partner very soon.”

“You’re from China?” the cowboy asked again.

Li Younan nodded.

By now someone up ahead in line had already led a horse out. The rule was that each team could only choose one horse, which actually wasn’t very convenient for the other teams.

After all, two people sharing one horse was quite a burden on the animal, but it was different for Li Younan—his team only had him.

The cowboy asked again, “Do you have ranches like this in China?”

Li Younan shook his head honestly and said, “We do have ranches, actually, but they’re still a bit different from ranches in the United States.”

“So you can ride horses on your ranches?”

“Of course. We have the Inner Mongolia Plateau, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the Western Sichuan Plateau. All those places have vast grasslands, with environments very suitable for horses to live in.”

Hearing this, a hint of surprise appeared on the cowboy’s face.

Li Younan understood at heart: in reality, people from the United States know far less about China than Chinese people know about the United States, and that gap is even bigger out in the countryside.

Then the cowboy asked the most important question: “Can you ride?”

Li Younan answered confidently, “Without a doubt.”

By now the door had already been opened, and from a distance he could hear the horses neighing inside.

But because Li Younan had come in relatively late, there weren’t many horses left for him to choose from.

Among the many horses waiting to be picked, Li Younan immediately spotted a tall, big black stallion.

Seeing that his attention was drawn to that horse, the cowboy’s expression instantly grew serious. He shook his head and said, “I don’t recommend you choose that one. It’s not an easy horse to break.”

Standing in front of the stall, Li Younan found that the horse’s height was greater than his own.

Feeling his gaze, the black horse suddenly looked over, its eyes seeming to hold a provocative anger.

In the adjacent stall there was a white horse curled in the corner, keeping far away from the black one, looking absolutely terrified of it. Judging from size, the white horse was also much smaller than the black.

Li Younan sneered, “What a coward.”

Right at that moment, the black horse suddenly thrust its head forward and, across the wooden rail, let out a shrill neigh at Li Younan, hot air snorting from its nostrils.

The cowboy said again from the side, “You can tell, it doesn’t like you.”

Li Younan shook his head. “No, he’ll come to like me. I’ll break him.”

The cowboy hesitated for a moment, then warned solemnly, “If you insist on choosing this horse, according to the rules, I won’t stop you. But if any accident happens, we won’t bear any responsibility.”

Li Younan pointed at the cowboy hat on his head and said, “Listen, a cowboy doesn’t scare that easy.”

Hearing him call himself a cowboy, the real cowboy’s expression turned a bit odd. He chuckled, “All right then, good luck.”

He opened the stall door.

Li Younan slipped inside in a flash.

As soon as he went in, the black horse backed up two steps and glared angrily at him.

Fearless, Li Younan just stood there and locked eyes with the black horse.

They held like that for a good ten-plus seconds before the black horse retreated by half a step.

A smile appeared at the corner of Li Younan’s lips. He slowly moved to the horse’s side, crossed his hands one high, one low: one hand gripping the saddle, the lower hand bracing against the horse’s belly.

Seeing this posture, the cowboy’s expression instantly turned puzzled—he couldn’t figure out what exactly Li Younan was about to do.

He knew the answer in the very next second.

Instead of stepping into the stirrup like usual to mount, Li Younan suddenly pushed off with the arm braced against the horse’s belly, his body doing a backward somersault, and then he landed easily on the horse’s back.

The cowboy stared, dumbfounded, unable to help blurting out, “Cool!”

Yet in the very instant that Li Younan got into the saddle, something unexpected happened.

The black horse he’d thought was already broken suddenly turned restless, driving hard with both front and rear legs, its whole body bucking in a wave-like motion, clearly trying to throw Li Younan off its back.

The cowboy was shocked, instantly, and opened the door to rush in and grab the reins—but the next second, he froze.

Because at the very first moment, Li Younan had moved with the horse’s struggling, adjusting his posture, his center of gravity welded firmly to the horse’s back. That level of bucking didn’t affect him at all.