Chapter 1015: At The End of One’s Rope

That was what Zhang Zian thought of––to have Vladimir call the nearby stray cats and have them urinate at the spectators to drive them away. That could also have been considered a non-lethal weapon.

It was definitely not okay to have the stray cats bite or scratch them directly… There were already undercurrents in Binhai City, and people were very vocal about the spreading of rabies in stray cats and dogs. It was best not to further intensify the situation. In the event that a horde of stray cats started attacking people, the call for an elimination of stray cats could potentially take place.

To urinate on them, however, was fine––the person who got urine on them could only sigh about being unlucky. It was the same as bird dropping falling on one’s head.

Most of the seabirds in the air were also scared away by the strong stench of urine… Not to mention that cats were naturally the enemies of birds. They didn’t want to lose their lives just over a few pecks of whale meat.

Taking the opportunity, Zhang Zian shouted loudly, “These cats may have been attracted by the smell of the whale. They’re probably hungry and want to have some whale meat.”

Although the explanation was a little forced, to the others, there didn’t seem to be a better explanation.

Soon, there was no one left within ten meters of the whale’s body. Whichever direction the wind blew, it carried the smell of urine. Those standing on that particular side would cover their nose and retreat backwards; they were unable to stand the smell.

Zhang Zian looked around, and it seemed as though people were far enough back. He gave Vladimir a look, and Vladimir whistled. Immediately, the cats quickly retreated as they came, and they disappeared into the grass, only leaving the smell of urine behind.

They came like the wind, left like lightning, moved with great efficiency, and left after a successful strike. Zhang Zian was impressed with the group of stray cats; it was just like they were playing guerrilla warfare.

Those who were a little farther away were also amazed at the scene. It was just that the cats came fast and left fast. They just didn’t have the time to record what happened. There were also those who managed to record it, but they were just too far away so the recording was all a blur.

Zhang Zian walked up to Vladimir and said from his heart, “Thank you. They were a really big help.”

Vladimir smiled. “It wasn’t entirely to help you. It was mainly an opportunity to train the soldiers. It’s okay if the soldiers do not participate in a war for a thousand days, but it’s not okay for them to miss a day of practice. It’s rare to get an opportunity to train them, so I should be the one to thank you for thinking of this.”

While they were conversing, several speedboats appeared on the horizon, and they sped towards the shore.

Zhang Zian lifted up his binoculars and took a look. The speedboat was painted with the words “Chinese Administration of Fishery,” and the people on the speedboat were all wearing the same uniforms and life jackets. It was Ke Shaohui and his men rushing towards them with the fastest speed.

At that moment, sirens also sounded behind the sea wall.

Zhang Zian and the people present at the scene turned their heads around. Zian had initially thought that it was the police, but it wasn’t. It was the fire department that had arrived. Two red fire trucks came to the front as the other vehicles on the road gave way.

It made sense after he gave it some thought. It wasn’t convenient for the police to be handling that kind of incident… Firefighters, on the other hand, had special clothes, safety helmets, high-pressure water guns, and a fire ax, so they were more suitable for handling such incidents.

The fire department came slower, probably because of some problems with the communication between the administration of fishery and the firefighting headquarters. It probably took some extra time for the fire department to understand the urgency of the matter.

The speedboat had to slow down and stop the boat, so the slower fire department arrived at the scene first. Before the fire truck came to a complete stop, the firefighters jumped out of the vehicle to set up the isolation belt around the whale and to maintain the order of the scene.

“Comrade, please step back. There may be danger here,” a firefighter said as he pointed to Zhang Zian.

“Wait! He’s one of us. Let him stay!” Ke Shaohui ran over, covered in sweat, and his pants were almost all wet. He didn’t wait for the speedboat to stop. Instead, he had jumped off the boat and waded through the water.

The fireman nodded, and went off to persuade the others to leave.

Although the spectators wouldn’t listen to Zhang Zian’s advice, in the face of the firefighters and fishery officials, they knew better. The two unrelated departments––the firefighters and the administration of fishery––working together, however, piqued the interest of the spectators, and they were curious about what had happened.

Ke Shaohui stared nervously at the whale carcass that wasn’t far away, and explained, embarrassed, “Mr. Zhang, honestly, I’m no expert when it comes to whales. I have gone through several books about whales in response to the call of my superiors recently… But I’m getting on in age, so none of it really goes into my brain. I’d like to ask for your guidance. What should we do right now?”

“I just happened to be here, so I couldn’t just ignore it,” Zhang Zian said, “Nobody knows when the whale’s going to explode, so the first thing that we have to do is evacuate the masses from the scene to avoid having large chunks of whale meat drop from the sky; that could injure someone. The second is to find a way to decompress the whale. If we’re able to let the gas out from its body, it won’t explode.”

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Ke Shaohui took his advice. “Okay, we’ll go with what you said! How far do you think we should evacuate the masses?”

“The further the better.”

However, the situation at the scene was not optimistic. It was a very wide space, and there was not enough manpower, even with the firefighters and fishery officials. Not to mention that the spectators all wanted to get closer to see what was going on, and more spectators were slowly gathering.

The firefighters had put up a cordon with a radius of about 25 meters around the whale carcass, but to Zhang Zian, that distance was only the bare minimum. Huang and Xiao Zhi did heed Zian’s advice––they stood near their car, which was almost 50 meters away from the whale carcass.

“How do we decompress the whale?” Ke Shaohui asked the most critical question.

Regarding that issue, Zhang Zian found it very tricky… There was no good solution. He was not sure there was anyone that would have a good solution to that problem.

In the past, once giant whales that had been washed ashore died and began to rot, the local government would often isolate the area and leave it to perish on its own. Those that were more extreme would use explosives to blow up the whales, but the result from was often worse than if they had just let it explode on its own. The explosives would detonate the high-pressure, flammable gas in the whale’s body, and cause a big explosion.

The current situation didn’t give them the leisure to wait. Sooner or later someone would barge into the cordoned area, driven by curiosity. The natural decaying process of the smelly whale carcass was very slow, and it would cause serious pollution to the area.

A firefighter took a fire ax from the truck and walked up to them. He said, “I’m going to make an opening on the whale’s carcass to let some air out. Would that work?”

Zhang Zian shook his head. “Are you tired of living? Do you know how much air pressure is inside the whale carcass? If you want to use that ax on it, you can only hack at the belly of the whale where it’s soft, easy to hack, and where the gas is gathered. But the moment you make an opening, the whale’s intestines, which can weigh up to tons, would burst out from its body and all smash against your body. Unless you drive a tank to make the opening, it would be life-threatening.”

Zian described the scene as he had imagined it would happen. After listening to him, Ke Shaohui and the firefighter felt the horror of the current situation. They didn’t expect for the whale carcass to be so dangerous… It was something that could not be underestimated.

“We can’t wait, and we also can’t hack it open… What can we do? Why don’t we just ask the police to come over? They could shoot it from a distance to let the air out,” Ke Shaohui suggested anxiously.

Zhang Zian still felt that it wouldn’t work. The biggest problem with that method was that the bullet hole would be too small… Even if the bullet penetrated the whale’s body, the bullet hole would quickly be sealed under the heavy weight of its fat. No matter how big the bullet hole was, it wouldn’t be any bigger than the whale’s chrysanthemum and nostrils. Even its chrysanthemum and nostrils were sealed up by its fat, so realistically, what could a bullet hole do?

If that method was feasible, then countries overseas with no ban on guns wouldn’t be so helpless when it came to the whale carcass. Wouldn’t they just pick up a machine gun and get it over with?

Ke Shaohui also proposed several other methods while the firefighters worked to maintain order. They all brainstormed together, but all their propositions were turned down by Zhang Zian.

“This doesn’t work, that doesn’t work… We can’t just leave the whale carcass here. Why don’t we… drag it back into the sea with our boat? If it explodes out at sea, it would all going to be okay, right? Anyway, whales were originally meant to die in the sea, then its carcass would be eaten up by the fish and shrimp. If that happened, we wouldn’t even have to worry about pollution.” Ke Shaohui was in a hurry to resolve the situation.

As an official of the administration of fishery, he was most worried that the explosion of the whale would implicate the crowd in the vicinity and cause a bad social impact. Therefore, his bottom line was for no one to get hurt. As for the whale carcass itself, that was a secondary problem.

The firefighters had the same thought process.

Zhang Zian turned down the suggestion again. He pointed to the huge whale carcass and said, “Do you think that your speedboats are able to drag the whale, that’s already deep in the sand, out to sea? Let’s take a step back. Even if you do bring over a large tugboat and successfully drag it back into the sea, it’ll still be full of gas, so it will remain afloat on the surface of the sea. We also don’t have sharks here, and the ordinary fish and shrimp wouldn’t be able to penetrate its skin. It’s still going to explode. Also, if a ship is coincidentally passing by the vicinity, someone would still get hurt. In addition, it could also get washed ashore again by the waves.”

Ke Shaohui and the firefighters felt discouraged; they could only sigh.

Zhang Zian frowned. He looked around, and caught a glimpse of something sharp on one of the speedboats.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the object.

“Hm? Oh, that… It’s a homemade harpoon gun that we confiscated from the fishermen. Some fishermen are still using this stuff to fish in the sea during the fishing ban, so we confiscated the harpoons because they just wouldn’t listen. We didn’t have the time to store it in the warehouse because we had to rush down here,” Ke Shaohui explained.

Zhang Zian stared at the harpoon gun, then he remembered the minke whale that was stabbed by the harpoon. He asked, “Does the harpoon also come with barbs?”

“Yeah. Basically all harpoons are barbed.” Ke Shaohui was afraid that Zhang Zian would misunderstand, so he added, “The fisherman didn’t use the harpoon for whaling, otherwise, it wouldn’t end with just the harpoon being confiscated. Also, no one in China consumes whale meat, so even if a whale was captured, it couldn’t be sold…”

Zhang Zian gestured with his hand to prevent him from continuing. “How far is the range of this harpoon?” Zian asked. “This harpoon may just be able to solve our current problem.”