Endless Debt Chapter 684 - 195: A Worthwhile Trip

"Whale?"

Ewen thought he had misheard, but looking at the girl’s serious expression, she wasn’t joking.

But... whale?

The encounter at the train station, the battle with the Demon, then the crazy feast on the Paradise; the world of common sense gradually collapsed, chaos became eternal.

To enter such a world, everyone needs immense courage and willpower, along with an undeniable reason.

Ewen ventured into danger for immortality, while the girl in front of him did it just for... just to see a whale.

"Oh my god..."

For a moment, Ewen felt the pain on his body disappear, leaving only an absurd joy. He leaned his head against the cabinet behind him, laughing until he was out of breath.

The oppressive atmosphere of danger was gone, Ewen felt he was back at Daisy Castle, sitting by the fireplace with a friend, telling jokes.

"Are you serious?" Ewen doubted, "You’re not tricking me again, are you?"

Cinderella’s gaze was solemn, this time she wasn’t lying. In her life built on deceit and disguise, this was one of the rare truths.

"Why?"

Ewen found it hard not to laugh and cry, "Going all out for such a reason is too strange."

The feeling was wonderful, like amidst a group of death-defying, heavily armed desperados, suddenly there’s a girl-next-door.

They fight for deep vengeance, for unspeakable desires, for power drenched in blood, while this girl just wants to see a whale, a reason as absurd as finding a lost cat.

"Do you have the habit of reading newspapers?"

The tremors from outside were constant, as if there were monsters dancing above their heads. Cinderella’s voice was very low, like telling a ghost story from under the covers, afraid of attracting the monsters’ attention.

"Yes."

Ewen nodded, life at Daisy Castle was isolated from the world; newspapers and radio were his only connections to the outside world.

His body relaxed, even though he was in such a dangerous situation, Ewen wasn’t particularly anxious. Instead, he enjoyed the momentary peace amidst the crisis.

Cinderella then asked, "Do you know the whale named Char?"

Ewen tried to recall, remembering he had read about it in the newspapers before.

"It’s a strange whale; it left its pod, unafraid of the threat from whaling ships, lingering near the Free Port."

Cinderella began to tell Char’s story.

"One day, Char took advantage of the high tide to rush ashore. It wasn’t a mistake but rather premeditated. It went far, almost crossing the beach, touching the dense forest...

People wanted to save it, watered it, tried to drag it back to the sea, but it stubbornly moved forward, its soft skin rubbing against the sand, blood flowing like a river.

Char died.

A whale shouldn’t be on land; the Whaler dismantled its corpse, and aside from the words in the newspaper, nothing of it remained in this world."

Cinderella’s voice grew smaller as she spoke, until she fell completely silent.

Ewen said, "Is it because of Char that you want to see a whale?"

Cinderella nodded, "Ever since I learned Char’s story, there’s always a whale repeatedly crashing against the shore in my mind."

"I’ve read a lot of books about whales; they say whales actually possess a certain degree of intelligence, they know what they’re doing."

Sharing one’s inner story is never easy. Cinderella took a deep breath; to her, she only knew Ewen for a few days, and because of a series of sudden incidents, they ended up like this.

Cinderella candidly said, "I started wondering, what was Char thinking then?"

"When it was stranded on the beach, when the sun gradually dried the moisture in its body, when its massive body crushed its own bones, when its internal organs ruptured into bloody mess, when people walked around it, when the Whaler cut open its body with sharp knives...

What was Char thinking?"

Cinderella felt a suffocating sensation, and in a trance, she imagined herself as Char, lying on the scorching sand, struck by the agonizing pain of being cut.

"Char had intelligence; it knew doing this would lead to death, yet it still did it."

Perplexed, Cinderella asked Ewen, "Was it committing suicide? Did it understand ’life’ and ’death’?"

Cinderella wasn’t a whale, nor was she Char; to her, all of this was an unsolvable puzzle.

Ewen murmured, "You have curiosity towards Char, you want to know Char’s story, want to know what this whale was thinking, and then you traveled miles to get to Free Port..."

"Hmm... I want to see whales with my own eyes, see Char’s kindred, maybe that way, I can unravel the mystery in my heart."

"Then you came to the wrong place, Cinderella," Ewen laughed, "Whale pods usually live in distant seas, only fools like Char would come to the dangerous coastal waters. At Free Port, all you can see are whale corpses dragged back by the whaling ships."

"Fool?" Cinderella’s voice was light; she laughed self-deprecatingly, "This reason really is foolish, isn’t it, Ewen."

"Very foolish," Ewen agreed with a nod, "But I don’t dislike it."

"Why?"

"People always revere the correct choices, assigning meaning to everything, as if incorrect and meaningless choices or things are wrong and shouldn’t exist."

Ewen spoke in a light tone, as if telling an unfunny joke, "Has the world improved because of this? No, right? Look around us, damn, is this ship going to sink?"