Chapter 690 — The Ties of Past and Present Lives

Yet Shi Jin had, for no discernible reason, fallen unconscious, and no one could wake him. Nor did anyone know what had happened to him.

Strangely, while Shi Jin was unconscious, the contract continued, without end.

With no other options, the others could only choose to wait.

"We can't go on like this." Though Lin was deeply afraid of the Empress, she still spoke with grave seriousness: "The backlash on us... it's growing worse."

"What on earth has happened to him?"

If it were merely a month of unconsciousness, the pet beasts could still wait.

But throughout this process, a terrible backlash was acting upon them.

As time passed, they were all forgetting their memories of Jue.

Were it not for Susu's Memory Water Droplets, they might by now have completely forgotten Shi Jin.

Even someone as composed as Lin had begun to grow anxious over the course of a month.

The current situation was far too bizarre.

This phenomenon filled Eleven and the other beasts with dread—dread of completely forgetting Shi Jin.

For now, they could still recall him thanks to Susu, but as time stretched on, there was no telling what might happen.

Now the pet beasts somewhat regretted letting Empress Shi Yan sign the contract. Had they known this would happen, they should have listened to Qi and never let Shi Jin touch this risky contract.

But now, saying anything was too late. Even Chaoneng Zhao, with cosmic-level spiritual attainments, could not understand what exactly had happened to Shi Jin, or what state he was in.

"I will..." At that moment, the Empress had just begun to speak when she suddenly felt the contract stir. Then her face filled with shock, because even she, a cosmic-level being, could not withstand the contract's backlash. All at once, her mind spun with dizziness.

Immediately after, under the astonished gazes of Lin and the others, Chaoneng Zhao, just like Shi Shuo at the time of the earlier contract, fell unconscious.

"Squeak!!!"

"Whimper!!!" At this, all the pet beasts panicked, especially Susu. At this stage, the memories they had forgotten were extremely difficult to recover with ordinary memory water drops. The moment they recalled something, they would immediately forget it again, as if some deeper power were involved.

During this time, it had always been the Empress who helped strengthen the water drops, which was the only reason they succeeded in recovering each time.

But now, even the Empress had met with trouble, and Susu and the others immediately had no idea what to do.

...

The world of past-life memories.

The young cubs of Empress Shi Yan were now each receiving their inheritances.

Countless pieces of knowledge about time and space poured into Shi Jin's mind, deepening his comprehension of spacetime power by another layer.

"I was originally worried that my attainments in time and space would not be enough to break through to the cosmic level, but now that I have recovered this inheritance memory, it should be enough." Shi Jin took a deep breath.

"Tutu, how are you doing?"

At this moment, Shi Jin looked toward the Jade Rabbit, who had finished receiving the alchemy inheritance.

However, what left Shi Jin stunned was that at this time, the Big White Rabbit was staring at him with a look of utter shock.

"Shi Jin, where is this?"

Shi Jin: ???

The familiar voice made Shi Jin freeze in astonishment.

"Holy crap, you came in too???" Shi Ying's words made the Empress frown.

Soon, a memory that should originally have belonged to her surfaced in her mind.

"Is this the memory of my past life?"

At this moment, Chaoneng Zhao was extremely surprised.

But seeing her reaction, Shi Jin opposite her felt his heart lurch.

Damn, this is bad.

From the Empress's perspective, she experienced her own birth, her injury, and the time she had nearly become someone's food, forced to eke out a living by acting cute.

Chaoneng Zhao: What is this???

At that moment, the Empress was utterly shocked.

She had never imagined that at the very beginning of her past life, she had actually been nothing but an ordinary rabbit, and had even nearly become a meal for a certain familiar face.

"I want an explanation." Before the Empress's words had even faded, Shi Jin, whose heart had lurched opposite her, now had many memories surface together with the Empress.

The memories that surfaced for both sides were not those they had just experienced.

Rather, they seemed to have truly happened.

The little white rabbit had been adopted by Shi Jin. The two encountered the revival of spiritual energy. Shi Jin changed class to become a Beast Tamer and formed a partnership with the little white rabbit. Together they began to roam a brand-new transcendent world, exploring ruins.

Until they came to these Ruins of the Time Spirits, where both received inheritances and soared to the heavens from then on.

Shi Jin was responsible for earning money to buy medicinal herbs, while the Jade Rabbit was responsible for refining pills, helping Shi Jin temper his body and helping herself grow stronger. The rise of their combination was so rapid that even some ancient powerhouses who had revived were greatly astonished.

But a tree that stands out in the forest will be destroyed by the wind. Soon the Empress's ability was exposed, and on top of that, while exploring ancient ruins and gaining many treasures, they offended many factions. They suffered their most dangerous siege, and people far stronger than them took part.

This time, it could truly be called a dead end. It was the closest the two had ever come to death. Yet heaven never seals off all paths. At the critical moment when the powerful enemies descended, Shi Jin and the others fled to a spacetime dragon vein...

Shi Jin directly used his ability to activate the spacetime dragon vein, evading the enemies by traveling through time and space.

The memory ended here.

Empress Shi Yan—both of them felt as if they had experienced a long dream, and having just awakened, they were still dazed.

"Is this my past life?" Chaoneng Zhao felt complicated inside.

As the black-clad Empress, she suddenly somewhat understood why Baihe alone cared so much about Shi Jin.

Because in their past lives, they had originally been Shi Ying's contract beasts.

Although she still did not know what they had experienced after triggering the spacetime dragon vein, there was no doubt that the earliest part of her growth had been spent together with Shi Jin on that planet called Earth.

"So that is how it is. Not much different from what we experienced before."

At this moment, Shi Jin recovered. After his daze, he scratched his head with a laugh and looked at the Empress. "Birds of a feather flock together. Whether in the past life or this life, it seems we are the best partners."

"It's been a long time, Rabbit."

Chaoneng Zhao: ?

Chaoneng Zhao said, "Rather than reminiscing, you should be thinking of a way to leave this wretched place."

The Empress had a thousand things she wanted to say.

But when they reached her lips, they would not come out; instead, she reminded Shi Jin of the crisis before him.

The contract was not yet complete, the crisis had not yet dissipated—and now even she herself was caught up in it.

"Hm??"

"In the outside world, a month has already passed. Since the very start of the contract, you have been unconscious. Are you trapped here?"

"No matter how we tried to wake you, you would not awaken. Even I could not rouse you."

"Of course, if that were all, it would be nothing much. But during this process, your pets have been continuously forgetting memories related to you."

"As if you should never have belonged to that universe at all."

"What?" Hearing the Empress's words, Shi Su froze. "Eleven and the others are forgetting me too?"

Shi Jin hurriedly told the Empress how, after entering this place, he had forgotten everything about her—clean, utterly—and then gradually begun forgetting his other memories as well.