The Ancestral Legacy Begins in the Wild West

Chapter 180 The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

They froze in place, slowly retracting their outstretched claws and large mouths.

Zhang Chang'an felt as if he were watching a pack of wild beasts preparing to ambush someone.

At that moment, something that could completely overwhelm them appeared, so they glanced into the depths of darkness with their grayish-white pupils, and then began to retreat rapidly.

At first, they took a few steps, then turned and ran. Their hunched bodies rolled and crawled on the rammed earth, some bumping into each other, some trampling their companions, but no one looked back, and no one dared to stop.

They didn't even dare to venture deep into the main tomb passage, but instead decisively squeezed into the scattered caves around them, even though they were extremely crowded.

Zhang Chang'an stood frozen in place. His right hand still gripped the knife, while his left hand was already prepared to activate the overclocking mode of the external clamp, causing the countless ghouls in front of him to vanish without a trace in that short period of time.

Staring into the darkness, a thought suddenly came to Zhang Chang'an's mind.

A few days ago, René's brother said when he went out that as long as the outside world knew about his situation, they would find a way to contact him.

And now, what could his current situation be?

The most noteworthy thing is that he was helping the warden conduct secret experiments. This information was written in a secret letter, and unsurprisingly, it has already been sent.

And now—he's been in this underground laboratory for so many days, and there's never been any unusual activity in the large tomb outside. Why is there such a big reaction today?

"That noise—"

The low-frequency humming continued around him, but because it was so deep that it had entered the realm of what people found unpleasant to hear, Zhang Chang'an was no longer as uncomfortable.

Furthermore, those things were driven further and further away, and the various sounds grew fainter and fainter until they finally disappeared completely.

In the depths of darkness, only one last footstep could be heard.

It was heavy and slow, completely different from the light, hurried footsteps of the ghouls earlier. Although there was still a slight imbalance between the left and right sides, each step was firmly planted.

The rammed earth trembled slightly from being stepped on, and this tremor, combined with the low-frequency hum, seemed to push towards them from the depths of darkness, rather than receding.

Zhang Chang'an gripped the hilt of his sword, the tip of Bingzi Jiaolin's blade pointing forward, ready to face the darkness.

The footsteps grew closer. A figure emerged from the darkness.

The black, tattered cloak hung from the shoulders to the feet, covering the person from head to toe. The edges were frayed and torn in several places, revealing the dusty lining underneath.

The man, shrouded in a black robe, leaned on a long wooden staff in his right hand. The staff was taller than him, and a copper bell was attached to the end of the staff. The bell was rusted green and swayed gently with the rhythm of his walk.

It was this strange bell that emitted those dull, not-so-crisp tinkling sounds.

However, Zhang Chang'an, unusually, did not focus on the powerful equipment in the hands of others, because that person was obviously even stranger than that equipment.

The figure beneath the black robe was clearly not tall; in fact, she was shorter than many women of that era.

Although the cloak obscured the person's outline, Zhang Chang'an could still easily discern the person's physique.

With each step he took, he would veer to the left, as if one leg was shorter than the other, and his upper body was completely uncoordinated.

Zhang Chang'an frowned. His observation skills were amazing, so he could easily make a judgment. This person's body was definitely twisted, and he was likely to have a physical deformity or disability, or even both.

The hand exposed beneath the cloak had short, thick fingers, swollen joints, and thick, yellow nails, making it look almost like an animal's claw.

But even that couldn't compare to the person slightly raising their head. The brim of their cloak slid back, revealing half of their face.

Zhang Chang'an's eyes froze, his gaze filled not only with deep thought but also with a sudden surge of shock.

It was a geometric face. A square nose, wide and flat, with a collapsed bridge, leaving only two dark nostrils pointing forward.

The mouth is horseshoe-shaped, with the corners curving downwards. The lips are thick and crooked, unable to close completely, revealing teeth that are jagged and of different sizes, like battlements.

One of his eyes was completely covered by an unsightly, dark red tumor covered with protruding blood vessels.

The other eye was sunken deep beneath his bristle-like red eyebrows, with a deep-set socket and the color of his pupil was not very clear, but it was at least still moving normally and looking at him.

Hunchback, lameness, contorted body, and uncoordinated limbs. This person's appearance encompasses most of the factors that could make someone ugly, and yet, all of these have been singled out and placed upon this one person.

Even the well-informed Zhang Chang'an was taken aback.

But as Zhang Chang'an stared at that face, a part of his memories was suddenly triggered.

Without much thought, he murmured a name.

"Quasimodo—?"

Quasimodo bowed silently to him.

"A sage from the East." The voice squeezed out of that horseshoe-shaped mouth, hoarse and turbid, like a rusty piece of iron scraping against rough stone, each word accompanied by a gurgling sound from deep within the throat.

"I have appeared here at your request."

The pages of the genealogy book popped open at the edge of my field of vision, and the words emerged one by one like ashes scattered by the wind.

Quasimodo, or the Hunchback of Notre Dame, was later recorded by Victor Hugo, the French Shakespeare, the conscience of France, as the central figure in the story of Notre Dame.

God seemed to have bestowed all misfortune upon him, making him a monster despised and feared by the world. Yet, He also made him the only virtuous being in the story.

Zhang Chang'an knew all this because, although he didn't know much about foreign classics, when he was searching for information that might be related to Lan Gong, he had also watched some Notre Dame musicals for entertainment.

This is considered a top-tier product in the international musical theater scene.

"In 1482 Paris, Esmeralda, a girl from another race, arrives in the city with wanderers. At that time, the city was in its most ignorant period. The handsome captain of the guard was narrow-minded and frivolous, and the archdeacon was hypocritical and twisted. Quasimodo, however, was ugly but had a heart of gold."

The genealogy records continue.

"In the original story, the archdeacon, driven by his twisted love, framed a girl from another race for assassinating the captain of the guard, which led to her death."

Of the three twisted individuals who harbored feelings for her, only Quasimodo, with his intellectual and physical deformities, remained truly devoted to Esmeralda. He vanished into dust along with the girl's body.

"And now, he appears before you, and has arrived at the end of the eighteenth century as Quasimodo, foreshadowing a different fate for him on this timeline—"

Spacetime Fragments +450.

19

Zhang Chang'an stared at the hunched figure in front of him, his mind buzzing.

He had long wondered if he would encounter many influential historical figures or characters from various stories in this era.

After all, Paris is a place of great upheaval these days.

But he never expected that the first person he would meet would be someone like this. Just like Oliver, the young gentleman from London, a character recounted in novels and plays.

Quasimodo bowed slowly before him: "You have intelligent and bright eyes; perhaps you have heard of my legend. The ugly bell ringer of a hundred years ago, the ghost that lingers beneath the Parisian earth—"

He shook his head, a movement that seemed particularly clumsy on his deformed body, as if something was stuck between his neck and shoulders, making it difficult to turn.

"I went underground hundreds of years ago to guard the body of my beloved, whom I buried here."

Perhaps it is because when I saw her being executed, my body and soul had already died once.

Having lived underground for so long, I show no signs of aging; I simply travel between the underground tombs, driving away the demons that dwell there for her.

He raised his head, his eyes, deep beneath his red eyebrows, looking at Zhang Chang'an with considerable restraint and caution.

His eyes and movements were filled with a heavy sense of clumsiness and unnaturalness, as if he hadn't spoken to anyone in a long time and was no longer used to focusing his gaze on another person's face.

"Until a year or two ago." He paused here, then sighed.

"The current Archbishop of the Fourteenth Diocese, under the decree of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, had the idea of ​​renovating the crypt and turning it into a crypt for their enjoyment or a wine cellar."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Chang'an suddenly realized something. Lord Lan—no way?

Quasimodo then said, "It was you who saved the bishop from complete depravity due to his wife and daughter's serious illness, allowing him to regain his faith and instead protect the underground cemetery. Therefore, when I heard that you needed help..."

He moved his slightly deformed body and slowly bowed to Zhang Chang'an.

"I have come here personally to deliver this message to you."

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