The Ancestral Legacy Begins in the Wild West

Chapter 188 Three moves to make a guard captain lose consciousness and break his neck

Zhang Chang'an took a step back without making a sound. He stumbled, leaned back, as if startled by the suddenly outstretched hand, and almost fell.

But his psychic senses had already detected the presence behind the door a moment before the hand reached out. It was heavy and menacing, so he retreated swiftly and cleanly; the grab brushed past the fabric of his chest, the fingertips touching nothing.

After he regained his footing, he put on a surprised expression, took a half step back, and opened his mouth to call for the guards.

Then, quite by chance, he saw the face inside the door clearly.

He had a long, thin face, high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and his hair was meticulously combed, with the hair wax reflecting light under the lamp.

Captain Louis, in Tower Three, stood in his laboratory, one hand still in a grasping position, the knuckles of his armored glove gleaming coldly under the light.

"Captain Louis?" Zhang Chang'an's surprise subsided, replaced by a puzzled expression: "Why are you here?"

Louis withdrew his hand, letting it hang at his side. His chin was slightly raised, and his gaze held a condescending, scrutinizing quality, as if examining a criminal.

"Where did you just go?" His voice wasn't loud, but he enunciated each word clearly, like a judge questioning a defendant in court.

Zhang Chang'an raised an eyebrow, his mind racing.

Instead of adopting his usual gentle and easy-going demeanor, he straightened his back and replied in a tone that was neither too soft nor too hard: "I work for Warden de Lamotte, so I don't need to report my experimental progress to you, do I?"

"

At the same time, he was thinking to himself, "I knew this kind of trouble would come eventually."

He had come to know Louis somewhat from his time in prison. His title wasn't high, but his lineage was undeniable. He was a quintessentially arrogant and rigid man.

As a nobleman, even if his rank was not high, he considered himself noble and pure. In his eyes, these criminals were the opposite; those tainted by sin were inferior from the moment they entered.

He looked down on every prisoner here, discriminating against everyone equally.

In a sense, he was indeed a very responsible guard, but he was excessively strict. Moreover, because of his mindset, the starting point for his strict management was completely different from that of someone like Antoine.

He wasn't strict to maintain order in the prison; he just couldn't stand seeing the prisoners living so comfortably.

Zhang Chang'an, a prisoner who relied on the warden's trust and the guards' connections to move freely in and out of the prison and had no worries about food and clothing, was a thorn in his side.

Therefore, Zhang Chang'an had long known that his current state would eventually attract Louis's attention. Fortunately, he acted discreetly and wasn't caught red-handed, which meant he still had room to maneuver.

As expected, Louis's expression changed when he heard Zhang Chang'an bring up the warden to pressure him.

The muscles on his thin face tensed, and the shadow beneath his cheekbone deepened. He took a step forward, his boots thudding heavily on the cobblestones.

A figure taller than Zhang Chang'an pressed close to him, looking down at him. "The warden isn't in the prison today. There are no experiments scheduled. What are you doing out there?"

As he said this, Zi Guang quickly looked away from Zhang Chang'an's face and scanned the laboratory.

Several alchemical furnaces were still radiating residual heat. On the workbench were a few vessels that hadn't been put away yet, and on the shelf were several packets of herbs, the paper packets not tightly tied, revealing the dark brown roots and leaves inside.

Louis's lips curled down slightly: "As a nobleman, I've studied the basics of alchemy. Those shouldn't be herbal ingredients used to stabilize someone's condition, right?"

He turned his head back, standing only half a step away from Zhang Chang'an. Looking down at Zhang Chang'an, his gaze was like two unsheathed swords, pressed in their sheaths, but their blades were already drawn.

"Easterner, you're too arrogant! Acting without authorization and manufacturing medicine on your own. As a prisoner, what right do you have?"

Zhang Chang'an stood rooted to the spot, his expression barely changing. He merely raised his eyelids slightly, looking at the long, thin face before him, taut with anger: "Do you have a strong aversion to Easterners?"

Louis's pupils contracted slightly. He raised his chin even higher: "To me, it makes no difference whether you're an Oriental or a Frenchman. Once you're here, you're a prisoner, so you have no right to act arrogantly in front of me."

He paused, then spoke again: "Of course, it was France that accepted you, yet you committed crimes on the very land that accepted you. In that case, Easterners like you are indeed even more repulsive to me!"

The moment he finished speaking, his body tensed up abruptly.

However, this was not his intention. It was because something suddenly pressed down on him from the Eastern man in front of him.

Like an unseen beast raising its head from its slumber, opening its eyes, and glancing at him. Or as if an extremely sharp sword had suddenly been placed against his neck, as if it could take his life in an instant. Louis's pupils dilated abruptly, his breath caught in his throat, and his feet involuntarily took a half step back. But in the next instant, his face tensed with rage, and he immediately braced himself for a kick, swinging his fist forward once more.

"Whoosh!" The fist, encased in iron armor, whistled through the air as it slammed towards Zhang Chang'an's face.

But then, a sharp cracking sound suddenly rang out in the corridor. Before Louis, a fist, seemingly magnified in his vision, struck him directly, colliding with his own.

The next moment, pain exploded from the base of the finger, shooting up the metacarpal bone to the wrist and then to the forearm.

His hand immediately loosened, and several of his finger bones broke on the spot, twisting at impossible angles in various directions. A piece of the metal glove was dented into the knuckles, stuck on the deformed fingers, causing excruciating pain.

"Hiss—" He opened his mouth to shout, but the figure in front of him suddenly blurred. The next moment, a hand covered his mouth and nose from the side, the five fingers tightening and blocking his mouth and nose completely.

At the same time, something exploded around him, and a thick cloud of gray smoke rose from the ground, instantly filling the space in front of the door.

Louis's eyes were stinging from the smoke, and tears streamed down his face.

He only felt a figure so fast he couldn't even catch it flash past him, slipping through the gap in the door frame into the laboratory, and then his body was pulled backward by a tremendous force.

"Whoosh!" His feet left the ground, and he was flung away by the hand covering his mouth, spinning in the air.

"Snap!" His hands flailed wildly in the air, and the still intact arm stopped the other arm that was about to strangle his neck, gripping it tightly.

But he could no longer maintain his balance. The various alchemical equipment on his body was incredibly heavy. He was grabbed by the head and thrown out, and his cervical spine made a chilling cracking sound.

The weight on his head and the centrifugal force of his equipment tore at him in two directions, and his vision went black.

The next moment: "Bang!" Louis's body slammed onto the stone floor, his equipment clanging with a series of metallic sounds. His helmet rolled away, spun twice around the door frame, and came to a stop.

Zhang Chang'an held his breath and pulled the hand that was still tightly gripping his arm off. He calmly raised his hand and gently dispersed the smoke in front of his mouth and nose.

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