The Ancestral Legacy Begins in the Wild West

Chapter 91 A Live Whale! First Encounter with the Agate Whale

The night in Kyoto remained quiet. The streets were deserted, and there wasn't even a night watchman striking his clapper.

Only the moonlight shone on the stone path, giving it a faint silvery glow.

He moved quickly along the alley, each step shrouded in shadow. Jack the Ripper's gait was indeed suited for nighttime operations, and it's no wonder people nicknamed him the "Steam Ghost"—it was quite fitting in that respect.

Not only was it silent, but it also moved at an astonishing speed; the outline of Kyoto Station soon appeared ahead.

They were several huge wooden and stone structures, simpler than London's train stations, lacking the grandeur of modern steel buildings, and dark in the night.

A few gas lamps were lit in the square in front of the station, and in their dim yellow light, guards on night duty would occasionally walk by.

Zhang Chang'an lay on the roof of a building opposite the station, his gaze sweeping over the buildings: "There are quite a few guards, indeed. But most of them are concentrated in the waiting hall and freight warehouse. The area that actually leads to the unloading and subsequent handling is much quieter."

Under the moonlight, the gas lamps on the station square were dim and yellow, casting the shadows of the night guards long and short. Zhang Chang'an roughly calculated the time, and according to the blank time slots on the schedule, the train should arrive at the station around ten o'clock.

Therefore, he should not have heard any roaring sound.

"Buzz—"

"Then this is something else!?" Zhang Chang'an had just approached the factory when he caught the strange sound through his enhanced senses.

Hearing it again at that moment confirmed his suspicions; it really wasn't a hallucination.

The sound was deep and resonant, like the low groan of some enormous creature, yet also like the panting of a steam engine.

It came from deep within the station, shaking the tiles beneath him.

Zhang Chang'an frowned and looked in the direction of the sound. It was clearly the deepest part of the station, where several huge warehouse-like buildings, presumably housing train carriages, were located.

That sound was coming from one of the buildings.

According to the original plan, he should naturally continue to wait here, but this sound made him have some strange guesses.

He hesitated for a moment, then finally decided to go and take a look.

"Whoosh!" Zhang Chang'an decisively flipped over and slid down from the roof, using the shadows to bypass several guards, and quickly reached the side of the warehouse.

The warehouse walls were made of thick logs, with several gaps that allowed him to peek inside and also provided a good spot for him to grab onto and climb to the ventilation window above the factory.

So he nimbly moved along the factory's outer wall and quickly arrived at the large window.

Here, strange wisps of smoke were clearly rising. Previously, from a distance, it wasn't fully noticeable; one might have assumed it was just a locomotive that hadn't completely shut off, but it had already been stopped and brought in.

Now, upon closer inspection, he realized that the smoke, though black, could somehow refract a few dazzling colors under the moonlight—something he was all too familiar with.

So, Zhang Chang'an, who was clinging to the windowsill, looked inside and then froze in place.

Inside the warehouse, it was brightly lit, with dozens of whale oil lamps illuminating every corner as if it were daytime. But there wasn't a single carriage or locomotive inside, only massive iron chains and enormous iron frames.

Hanging above is a whale.

It wasn't whale carcass parts, nor refined oil; it was an entire whale.

The enormous object was suspended in mid-air by steel cables, its body tilted to the side to maintain an arc-shaped suspension. Its total length was about twenty meters, so large that it was unimaginable and even comparing it to a bus was not entirely appropriate.

Unlike almost all other whales, it has grayish-black skin and looks very similar to a sperm whale, with a huge head that gleams with an oily sheen under the lights.

But that huge head had been completely cut open.

The enormous head was gaping open, bloodied and raw, with internal organs and fat exposed. The air was filled with the pungent smell of blood and the distinctive stench of burning whale oil.

There was no one in the entire factory, but there were clearly chunks of whale fat that had just been cut off, and next to them, in a huge copper cauldron connected by countless pipes, the fat was constantly boiling and churning.

Then some of it turned into smoke and rose up.

As soon as Zhang Chang'an climbed to this spot, his eyes were instantly drawn to the enormous whale.

Looking at him was a huge, cloudy eye, reflecting a hollow light under the lamp. It seemed to have been completely extinguished, but in that unchanging gaze, there was still a clear sense of pain and despair.

"You have discovered the secret of history, the agate whale, a mysterious creature that has disappeared into history. It is named after jade, but that is a great irony. Jade in the world has not disappeared, but they have long been lost in the sea of ​​time."

The oil produced by the agate whale possesses a certain extraordinary quality, which is a manifestation of their life source.

Living in the deep sea year-round, they burn all the nutrients in their bodies after death to create a temperature that their offspring, and even many other creatures there, depend on for survival.

Even if those nutrients were obtained by them over many years from eating the ocean snow that falls from the upper layers or from scavenging for food on the seabed.

Their ancestors spent a long time venturing into the deep sea, while humans, in just a few hundred years, have propelled them to rise alongside the flames of industry, burning brilliantly.

"Time-space fragments +1000!"

"A live whale!"

He looked at the whale's very faint breathing and instantly understood.

These people were even more insane than he had imagined. In pursuit of fresher, higher-quality oil, they went so far as to transport the raw product directly to Kyoto, slaughter and refine it on the spot, and then quickly transport and use it.

This was the first time he had ever seen the origin of these oils, the agate whale. No matter how hard he tried, he could never have imagined that his first encounter with it would be in such a scene.

#..

Zhang Chang'an forced himself to continue observing. Although his emotions were very complicated, he would not forget the purpose of his visit.

The whale in front of us was beyond saving; its body had already been mostly dissected. Many whale bones had been removed, but the basic structure had been preserved to prevent it from falling apart and to keep it hanging there.

The rest of the whale meat, along with a large amount of fat, was stored separately. Some kind of liquid was poured over the fat, and it was already packaged and boxed, seemingly ready to be transported away.

And his goal was naturally among them.

The whale was hanging there, and it was impossible to tell how long it had struggled. The blood and oil from its wounds had been lost in no time, but only now were some of the last things showing.

It was a pure oil that was very similar in texture to blue agate, only a deeper blue, and looked somewhat black. It was slowly rising from the churning liquid in that mechanical cauldron.

"Crackling sound" The factory's large iron gate was slowly pulled open, and an employee, wearing a large apron and carrying a bottle of liquor, walked in from outside.

"Ah, it's done! I knew it. This beast cried 56 times, and it was definitely done. My skills are truly top-notch! Ah!!!"

The enormous fat man turned his head, about to shout, when a gleaming blade pierced his mouth.

A sinister, grotesque face loomed before him, and a tremendous force struck him head-on, sending him flying backward, blood spurting from his wounds.