The Devil's Contract Lover - Chapter 54

“You are my [Meaning]?” The beautiful older sister in front of her didn’t seem to belong with the surrounding scenery; even kneeling on one knee, she exuded a suffocating pressure.

Little Yao Yuan, clutching a snack bag, retreated a few steps, lost her balance, and fell towards the grass. Somehow, she was suddenly scooped up by the neck and held.

“Your name is Xiaoyuan?” The black-haired beauty frowned, her gaze seemingly fixed on something more distant.

Yao Yuan shook her head then nodded: “My name is Yao Yuan. Do you know me, big sister?” The first rule when encountering strangers is not to accept candy, but the big sister in front of her didn’t seem interested in offering any. Does that mean she’s safe?

The black-haired beauty held Yao Yuan with one arm, crumpled a piece of paper with the other, threw it into a trash can, and walked straight towards the gate: “Where are your parents?”

“…” She was stunned. Is this like the kidnapping plots in legal TV shows?! Snatching a child alone from an amusement park, then calling the parents to demand a ransom. Sob, sob, why am I so unlucky!

“They’re not here?” The big sister was still heading towards the amusement park entrance.

Yao Yuan quickly grabbed her collar: “Big sister, why are you looking for my mommy and daddy? I don’t know you.” Her two little legs struggled, trying to jump down.

The black-haired beauty stopped, and her clear eyes met hers: “The note says my name is Xing Kong (Starry Sky). You can call me by that name.”

“What note?” Completely unable to process what was happening, Yao Yuan, still in her arms, continued moving forward: “Sister Xing Kong, my parents don’t have money…”

[Click, click, click.] The sound of the clock hands snapping forward. She didn’t know why, but when she thought of her parents, her mind went completely blank.

“I don’t need money, I just need to see them.” Xing Kong kept walking, then turned her head and noticed Yao Yuan’s unfocused eyes.

Xing Kong immediately crouched down, turning Yao Yuan to face her: “What’s wrong?”

The floating light spots in her eyes gradually dissipated: “I can’t remember… I can’t remember where Mommy and Daddy are.” A profound sense of bewilderment clutched at her heart. Would asking the teacher help? But where was the teacher?

In the short lapse of time, memories rapidly vanished.

“Who do you remember now?” Deep, dark eyes stared directly at her. This gaze was definitely not one reserved for children.

“I don’t know… Shanshan?” The name that came out was one she had just heard others say, and a blurry figure now became the clearest image in her mind.

“Do you know where she is?”

[“I’ll wait for you by the little dinosaur.”]

“She… is waiting for me by the little dinosaur.” Yao Yuan blinked, and a tear inexplicably rolled down. It was as if a great deal of regret was frozen in her heart, yet unable to break free due to her ignorance.

Her vision suddenly lifted, and Yao Yuan clung in surprise to Xing Kong’s neck. A moment later, she realized that the sister named Xing Kong was climbing the tallest decorative tower nearby: calling it climbing was an understatement—she was practically taking steps sideways up the structure as if walking on flat ground!

The wooden building couldn’t stop her agile movements. In an instant, she propped herself up with one hand on the tower’s peak, overlooking the ground below.

“It’s over there.” Xing Kong unilaterally locked onto the location, ripped off her jacket, and the jacket acted like a wing, assisting their glide in the wind. The two landed steadily beside the dinosaur decoration at the end of the path.

“How remarkable~ A devil like you who doesn’t exist in this world~” A pair of boots suddenly appeared on the little dinosaur’s head. The boots slowly extended into the form of a succubus, who tilted her head slightly towards Xing Kong: “In a distorted space that is part of the Divine, you shouldn’t have memories of the outside world, should you?”

“It’s too easy to see through your disguise.” Xing Kong punched the succubus, slamming her three meters away amidst the other’s shock. The attack didn’t stop after retracting the fist; a sliding kick narrowly missed.

“Cough, cough, how is that possible.” The succubus’s body flickered between transparent and solid: “Why can you use magic in this space?”

“You call this magic?” The devil’s second wave of attacks arrived without delay, displaying inhuman strength and agility in combat moves far beyond human capability.

“I was careless, it’s actually inherent physical ability…” The succubus rose from the fragments of the shattered decoration. There was no one else visible around them, and Yao Yuan, terrified, turned and ran.

She didn’t understand why two very pretty sisters were fighting, but even a primary school student knows that people who can snap steel and take a heavy iron punch without breaking bones must be very dangerous!

She stretched her little legs, running across the unusually wide lawn, her heart pounding as if it would burst from her chest. Before stumbling, she staggered back to her original position. Crossing a thin barrier, the noise of people surged back into her eardrums.

She cautiously looked behind her; the direction was empty. Was she just sleeping and dreaming? Yao Yuan patted her small backpack, ready to meet up with her classmates.

Where were her classmates? Why were all the people around her unfamiliar adults? She spun around in a daze, unable to find anyone she knew.

Oh no, did she miss the meeting time? At that thought, the image of the school bus driving away surged into her mind. Even though she felt it was still early, she frantically rushed out to find the amusement park gate.

If she ran fast enough, she definitely wouldn’t be delayed, right? The fleeting image of the vehicle driving away was repeatedly etched in her mind.

“I got you.” A very clear little girl’s voice. Why did she think of the term ‘little girl’? Her emotions popped like a bubble.

Yao Yuan merely turned around stiffly, looking at the [stranger] smiling brightly in front of her. This stranger wasn’t her classmate, and this stranger… shouldn’t feel familiar.

But why did she feel like crying when she was grabbed by the back of her collar and heard the voice?

“Yuanyuan?” The girl wearing the headband nervously shook her little hand: “I didn’t scare you, did I?”

“No, you…” Who are you? Her tongue was stiff, unable to utter a sound, allowing the other girl to lead her by the hand further inside.

Now, Yao Yuan didn’t want to leave the amusement park at all. Even if the bus drove away backward fifty times in front of her, she’d still rather follow the girl in front of her back into the park.

[It was as if she had regretted this hundreds of times already.]

“Where are we going now?” She quickly adjusted her state of mind. The ‘stranger girl’ holding her hand walked briskly. Did she want to go on the bumper cars, stroll through the garden, or feed the pigeons?

Her head ached, and blurry phantoms kept floating around her. For instance, there was a spiraling shadow on a distant hillside, reminding her of the racing car tracks shown on TV.

“To the museum, of course,” the girl with the headband replied, smiling, her voice lilting: “If you want to ride the bumper cars, I’ll go with you later.”

[Are there bumper cars here?]

Of course there are. The hesitation lasted only a moment, and she nodded then shook her head: “I don’t want to ride the bumper cars. If we still have time when we come out, let’s ride the spinning teacups.”

“Okay~” Hand-in-hand, the two entered the small venue one after the other.

A “museum” built within a small amusement park naturally couldn’t compare to a genuine one, with no valuable treasures placed inside.

The exhibits, based purely on appearance, looked like they were from just last week. Their main purpose, perhaps, was more to sell beautifully packaged souvenirs to visitors rather than showcasing the passage of history.

Despite her headache, Yao Yuan’s senses remained sharp, and she quickly noticed something unusual. It was too quiet here. This silence was because only the two of them were wandering inside.

While one could argue that other visitors were on exciting rides, why wasn’t even the sales clerk behind the counter present?

“Shan…” The forgotten name was on the tip of her tongue, and the light spot in her heart rotated suddenly!

“Shanshan!” A terrified cry that didn’t belong to a young girl pierced through the years, erupting from Yao Yuan’s chest. At this intersection of time and space, she was finally able to [see] the past that had been layered over!

However, Shanshan was not by her side. The girl wearing the headband was examining the glass coffin in the center of the museum with keen interest: “Yuanyuan, come look quickly, this seems to be—” [Run! This shouldn’t be here at all—] Yao Yuan lunged forward with her entire body, but the predetermined history still mercilessly rolled over her.

Right in front of her, a slender dagger [once again] pierced her friend’s body.

And so, Shanshan’s age would end at this year, and countless light spots spilled out from the shattered heart.

A rope descended from the void, and the succubus, who had been toying with several daggers, descended from above. The daggers vanished from her hand, replaced by a glass bottle.

“It’s finally over. Sure enough, the Divine in this time-space is pathetically weak~ Oh dear, what’s going on?” The succubus’s finger, pinching the bottle, paused: the light spots drifted outwards with the wind, and a flash of a skirt disappeared behind the door.

The succubus instantly leaped up without hesitation, floating across the ground as if on a swing. Her feet exchanged positions in the air, shattering the door that was forcefully struck.

“Little one, come to big sister quickly, sleep will be very pleasant~” Pink magic surged, and it would soon envelop the perpetually running little girl.

However, the power of the Divine was faster than her magic. Golden light spots near the grass merged into her heart, beginning to respond to all the inheritor’s wishes.

[I want to escape, I want to run out, I want to live!]

[I want to live, no matter what—]

“I can’t let you really run away. My range of activity is limited, you know~” The succubus narrowed her eyes. No one understood the unfairness of the Divine Power better than her. The Divine is the Law, and thankfully, the unawakened embryo lacked self-preservation ability.

She swiftly swooped in front of Yao Yuan, completely blocking the possibility of her getting onto the school bus. Divine Power could compel the world it touched to obey, but the prerequisite was still touching it.

“Good girl, sleep, oops!” A large mouthful of fresh blood gushed from her mouth. This was a sight that only happened when a physical body suffered severe trauma! But why… The succubus completely failed to understand.

She soon understood, because an unrestricted number of shadows were tearing apart the small hole she had previously penetrated. The succubus instantly grasped the entire reason.

“So that’s it. I am in an earlier time point, and the future me at some point…” She broke off her sentence and leaped away without a hint of reluctance.

Only a lunatic would attempt to fight an unknown and powerful enemy at an already faulty time point.

“Ah…” The fortunate inheritor let out a wail. Memories from different times simultaneously returned and compressed into her mind. Countless fragments were tearing apart her will.

She remembered the [Inheritance], but still couldn’t see the [True Past]. In one fragment, she had a beautiful younger sister; in another, she was an only child; in one, her family was wealthy; in another, she was alone…

These partially non-mutually exclusive fragments seemed to declare: perhaps she has always been Yao Yuan, possessing a true past and real experiences, but perhaps [Yao Yuan] is not a truly existing individual, but a symbol created for the sake of inheriting power: the world and the Divine needed her to appear on that day, and so she took the hand of the Divine.

A profound sense of nihilism enveloped her until the shadows completely isolated the radiance.