The Ancestral Legacy Begins in the Wild West

All eyes were on him.

Hijikata didn't look up, still staring at the wound on his arm:

"He arrived halfway through the fight and tried to mediate. Those people wouldn't listen, but he still stood alone between the two groups, saying that there was no point in continuing the fight and telling them to retreat, saying that he was there to talk to us."

"Those people heard that?" Harada's eyes widened.

"I heard it." Hijikata finally raised his head, a mocking smile curving his lips: "Although not at first."

We're patrolling and doing our jobs in Kyoto. If it really came to blows, they definitely wouldn't come out on top, but they won't listen. They only listen when Sakamoto Ryoma says a few words.

Okita silently drank his tea. Saito Kazuya kept his head down, his expression unreadable.

Harada scratched his head: "That guy, isn't he also from the Zunrang faction? What exactly is he trying to do?"

"Who knows?" Hijikata sneered.

"He probably doesn't even know what he's trying to do. He shouts slogans but still stands in the middle. I don't believe someone whose stance is so unclear. Even if his swordsmanship is quite good."

"His swordsmanship is indeed quite good." Okita said, recalling the past. "I've fought him before, and among those who practice the Hokushin Itto-ryu style, he's considered a master."

Sakamoto Ryoma is still a member of the Zunyao faction, and naturally had interacted with them more than once before.

However, after hearing this, Harada opened his mouth strangely, and after a long while, he finally spoke: "The one who fought him tonight was the vice-commander..."

The atmosphere in the room suddenly became somewhat strange.

Hijikata's hand was still pressed against the knife wound, and his face looked much worse: "He was lucky, and protecting the factory was the priority, otherwise I would have definitely brought him back."

It's obvious that his current disheveled state is inextricably linked to Sakamoto Ryoma.

Okita coughed lightly, concealing the smile on his lips.

Saito Hajime, still keeping his head down, spoke up at this moment: "Alright, you only suffered an injury to half of your body, isn't that also because of him?"

Before Okita could ask, Harada Sanosuke turned slightly and explained in a low voice, "When the vice-commander and Sakamoto faced off tonight, someone ambushed him from behind, and that's how the vice-commander got his injuries."

But there was more than one person attacking; the other half of the attacks were blocked by Sakamoto.

The room fell silent again. Hijikata looked around, but in the end, he couldn't say a word. He could only slowly look away, lower his head, and continue wiping his hands, his tone cold and hard: "I won't thank him. He's the person we need to catch, no matter what."

"I didn't say I wanted you to be grateful." Saito Hajime kept his head down. "It's just that he didn't do anything wrong tonight."

After that, no one in the room responded, except for the sound of Okita placing his teacup on the table.

Zhang Chang'an listened to the whole thing with his head down, but his hands didn't stop working. He had already disassembled the deformed gearbox and was using the tools he brought to measure the dimensions, preparing to go back and get a new one.

"A power struggle within a small organization? That's quite interesting..." Not long after Zhang Chang'an returned from the factory, he was summoned here by the members of the Shinsengumi.

He had a premonition that he would be getting more involved in many things about this era, but he didn't expect it to be so direct.

Hijikata Toshizo, as they say, is the vice-commander of the Shinsengumi. Like Okita, he practices the Tennen Rishin-ryu swordsmanship and is at the level of Menkyo Kaiden, meaning he has fully mastered it and can go out and teach it himself.

However, his actual combat strength is not limited to this. In addition, he has also learned some other sword techniques, and his fighting style is just as fierce and aggressive as his personality.

After various changes within the Shinsengumi, he left the group and even abandoned his haori (traditional Japanese jacket) to wear modern military uniform, and began to focus on firearms training. He brought his strong command abilities, which were different from his personality, to the actual battlefield.

Harada Sanosuke was the 10th captain of the Shinsengumi and the successor of Hozoin's spear technique. In an era when the average height of people in this island nation was less than 1.6 meters, he was a full 1.8 meters tall, a strong and forthright man.

Once, after being mocked by a superior samurai for not knowing the proper etiquette of seppuku, he stabbed himself in public, earning him the nickname "the immortal Sanosuke."

Apart from the two of them.

The last captain of the third division, Saito Hajime, had an even richer personal history than the others.

He was currently a spy in the Shinsengumi, responsible for intelligence gathering. Even after the Shinsengumi disintegrated, he would still be alive and would directly join the Kyoto Metropolitan Police Department, where he lived until his death in 1915.

"If I remember correctly, the island nation has undergone a complete transformation in just these past few years. These people are key figures, and just sitting here listening to them talk is quite a strange feeling."

Zhang Chang'an pondered, grabbed a few parts, and looked up, only to find Okita Souji looking at him.

"Can this equipment be repaired?"

Zhang Chang'an looked down at the parts in his hand and nodded: "It can be repaired. The gearbox needs to be replaced, and the oil tank needs to be replaced too. It should be done by tomorrow afternoon. We're short of parts here, so I might have to take them back to repair it."

Hijikata nodded without saying anything.

Okita smiled, stood up, and saw him to the door: "Our vice-commander wouldn't speak up at a time like this. Thank you for your trouble, sir. It's late, take care on your way."

Zhang Chang'an remained very calm about this. When the Japanese are not facing someone who has turned hostile, they generally behave very well.

Besides, Zhang Chang'an had just returned from London. Compared to the British hooligans there, what was a sullen face to him?

"Click..." The sliding door slowly closed, and the corridor was dark, with only the light of a few lanterns in the distance.

Okita Souji bowed slightly to him: "Mr. Tesshu, please don't tell anyone what you heard tonight. What you heard about Sakamoto Ryoma isn't a secret, but it's mainly our own internal conflicts. It's best not to spread them and embarrass ourselves."

Zhang Chang'an nodded: "Understood."

Okita smiled, but the smile seemed strangely weary.

"Since the Shinsengumi was established, things have indeed become more and more complicated. In the past, Saito-san respected Vice-Commander Hijikata the most, but perhaps because we've had more contact with him and faced more complex situations, we no longer know who is right and who is wrong."

………………

The following morning, sunlight streamed through the lattice windows into the workshop, illuminating the floor with neat, sculpted blocks of light.

Zhang Chang'an sat on the worn-out bench behind the counter, a pile of odds and ends in front of him. Many things had been disassembled into pieces and then reassembled according to some logic that only he could understand.

Gradually, a strange device, about the size of a palm and resembling both a syringe and a gas cylinder, was pieced together. That was naturally the prototype of the siphon sludge removal device.

After returning from the factory last night, he was quickly called to the Shinsengumi, so he only slept for two hours before getting up at dawn to continue tinkering.

Fortunately, my physical condition is already exceptional, so not sleeping for too long isn't a big problem.

By now, most of the morning had passed, and he had pieced together the outer shell, with several key pipes already connected.

Although the internal filtration structure is still undecided, at least it looks like something.

"Gah..."

He used tweezers to pick up a thin copper tube and carefully inserted it into a hole in the outer casing.

The copper pipe went in halfway and got stuck.

He frowned, gently turned it, adjusted the angle, and pushed it in again: "Click..."

Perfectly fitted.

Zhang Chang'an's brows immediately relaxed, and just as he was about to continue, he saw the light spot in front of him change:

The words "[London Steam Technology Knowledge]" and "[Japanese Whale Oil Technology Basics]" gradually blurred, and soon, a new line of text was pieced together:

"Acquired: [Steam Mastery] (Good)..."