The Devil's Contract Lover - Chapter 28

Yao Yuan awoke in the darkness.

Ugh, such a heavy smell of mildew. Where was this? Her eyes moved around the surroundings for a moment, and she was suddenly startled wide awake.

The four walls were empty and old, the floor covered with a layer of uneven cement. Stools and chairs, missing legs and arms, were far apart, and there was nothing else.

The height of the window was close to the low ceiling. It looked more like a warehouse than a residence.

Her arms were tied together with straw rope, knotted tightly around her wrists. Her feet, however, could move. It seemed she had been kidnapped.

Darn it, whom are the criminals planning to ask for ransom from? Yao Yuan had no immediate sense of urgency. The most reliable solution she could think of was to stall for 10 days until Xing kong (Starry Sky) came looking for her.

As long as the Devil was safely out, it wouldn’t matter even if she were transported abroad.

She managed to stay calm, inching her body along the wall toward the door: two sturdy men were squatting at the entrance, and further away, a small hunchbacked old man was resting with his eyes closed under a tree.

“The good merchandise inside should be awake by now,” the man on the left said, scooping rice into his mouth from a chipped porcelain bowl.

“What good merchandise? She’s probably twenty!” the young man on the right, wearing shorts, scoffed with disdain.

“You brat know nothing. Female college students are indeed twenty,” the man on the left put down his bowl and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Female college students are good. They can teach the little ones once they get there.”

“Teach what? Just knowing names and numbers is enough.”

“Heh, you don’t get it. We don’t know how long we can continue this line of work. It’s better for the kids to have a new path. It’s also letting her perform a good deed.”

Yao Yuan was drenched in a cold sweat. She pulled her head back and squatted down: Oh my goodness, I’ve been abducted and trafficked! Was the person who sold her the driver, or… Zou Wenli’s face flashed through her mind.

Was it her? Her intuition said yes, but her logic denied it. There was no reason; the motive was insufficient. She hadn’t even bullied Zou Wenli.

“Oh, you really are awake,” the young man held a small bowl in front of Yao Yuan and commanded, “Eat.”

Yao Yuan looked down at the bowl. Her entire central nervous system recoiled in disgust. The youth’s fingers were half-buried in the leftovers. There were no vegetables or meat bits. It was mixed with what might have been lard residue or soy sauce, emitting a rancid smell.

Ugh! She dry-heaved.

“What’s with the high-and-mighty act? Don’t eat, then,” the man took a handful of rice and smeared it near Yao Yuan’s mouth. The disgusting smell intensified.

Seeing that Yao Yuan truly wouldn’t eat, the young man swore under his breath and walked away with the bowl.

She was tied up in the poorly ventilated warehouse, feeling angry and hungry. The remnants of the drug seemed to still be affecting her, and Yao Yuan fell asleep again.

She didn’t know how much time had passed when a bang sounded.

She opened her eyes and saw a man with a ferocious expression wielding a stick. Is he bringing a stick to beat me?

However, she guessed wrong this time.

“Dare to run! Run, you little troublemaker! You’re nothing but trouble. If you run again, I’ll break your legs.” The stick was swinging near her side.

Yao Yuan followed the stick and looked to the side. Next to her was a girl tied up with ropes everywhere. Even though she was bound like a green worm and gagged, she was still trying to kill the men with her eyes.

The girl looked no older than Yao Yuan, but much thinner, with various crisscrossing scars on her body.

“What are you looking at? Look again, and I’ll gouge your eyes out,” the young man spat.

“You brat, stop scaring her. Just keep her under control. The buyer is coming soon,” the older, sturdy man intervened, holding the wooden stick.

“Then what can I do? Can’t I teach her a lesson?” the young man pointed at the girl on the ground and looked at his companion.

“Teach her a lesson? Don’t take me for a fool,” the sturdy man glared at him unceremoniously. “Stop dragging this out. If you touch her, she won’t be good to sell as a virgin.”

“They aren’t necessarily virgins.”

“If you haven’t touched her, she can be. A virgin doesn’t always bleed.”

The topic of their argument terrified the person on the ground. She shut her eyes tightly and bit her teeth. The young man gave her a harsh kick, then walked out with the sturdy man. The door slammed shut.

Darkness enveloped the two of them. The newly arrived girl was gagged and completely wrapped in ropes. Yao Yuan could neither help her untie the ropes nor communicate with her.

The straw ropes were tied very tightly around her wrists, chafing her skin painfully, with absolutely no slack. She spent a long time rubbing against the room according to her memory but couldn’t find anything sharp enough: the round stool legs and the small wooden bucket used for the toilet were not sufficient. What was worse was that several men were guarding outside.

She eventually grew tired and closed her eyes until the light of dawn and the sound of footsteps woke them up.

The first person to walk in was the hunchbacked old man who had been resting under the tree yesterday. Beside him was a shriveled old woman. The old woman’s skin was wrinkled and yellow, yet only her two eyes flashed with a wicked light. Her cruel gaze swept over Yao Yuan and the other girl, as if she were weighing them on her tongue, assessing their flavor and bone structure.

“How much?” the old woman’s hoarse voice sounded like two branches rubbing against each other.

“No less than this amount,” the hunchbacked old man shook her hand, their knuckles cracking.

“Too expensive. Not worth it,” the old woman’s eyes widened, and her cheeks bulged.

“Hey, don’t try that with us,” the sturdy man behind them pointed at Yao Yuan: “This girl is a college student! And from a good university.”

“I don’t care about good or bad. Look at her skinny frame; she probably won’t bear children well.”

“No matter, she’s pretty, isn’t she!”

The miscellaneous laughter soon died down. The old woman pointed a finger at the girl who was tied up: “What’s going on here? She’s all bruised up.”

“Not really, she’s not broken,” the sturdy man gestured: “I guarantee you can raise her well. If you can’t, then we can talk about whether she’s worth the price.”

“Is she a college student too?”

“Doesn’t look like it for her age,” the man chuckled ingratiatingly. “This little girl is very stubborn. She was brought here, but she still won’t speak properly. We have to rely on your good whipping skills.”

“Too expensive, still too expensive,” the old woman pursed her lower lip over her upper lip, pretending to be displeased.

“I heard you are looking for a daughter-in-law for your blind son?”

The old man’s casual remark darkened her face: “My grandson is marrying a flesh-and-blood woman, not a golden woman.”

“Give us a firm offer. A girl in her early twenties is best for childbearing, and she’s a college student. Take her home, and you’ll hold a great-grandchild within three to five years. If you don’t kick the bucket in 20 years, sister, you’ll see a cultured person emerge from your family.”

“Pah! Cut the price to this amount!”

“That’s not a deal, sister. Your heart isn’t in it.”

Listening to that group haggle over thousands of qian and hundreds of bai, cold sweat rolled down Yao Yuan’s spine like beads.

In all her years of life, this was the first time she understood the thoughts of livestock: pigs fattened up for holidays likely endured the same ordeal.

In the buyer’s eyes, she was no longer human. All her worth—including which university she attended, her age, and her appearance—were merely symbols that could be quantified into tens or hundreds of kuai.

What others saw was a self-feeding uterus, a future grandchild that should never exist, and a “family’s future.”

Every single item was for their benefit, yet it had to be brutally stripped away, layer by layer, from her or any unfamiliar girl! This was their intention: if she, if they, dared to cry out in pain… they would probably be beaten to death and tossed into a pigsty to feed the pigs!

How bizarre. Just a few days ago, she was diligently looking for a job, trying to understand gods and devils, and practicing the foundations of magic. Today, she was being pressed onto a chopping block, with the final accounts being settled because she lacked the ability to protect herself!