My Avatar Is Becoming the Final Boss-Chapter 18: Brutality

Kong Youling sat down across the table, holding her sketchbook, and lifted her red eyes.
Under the cold-toned lighting, she stared at Ji Minghuan without moving, like a penguin from Antarctica dumbly studying a human.
Ji Minghuan couldn’t help but laugh: “Excuse me, is there a penguin sitting across from me?”
Seeing his smile, she finally reacted, gently setting the sketchbook with the pencil tucked inside onto the table, though her gaze never wavered for a second.
Just like Ji Minghuan, she too wore a metal collar around her neck. The collar was used to monitor their Esper ability usage—if they activated their power, the researchers could immediately restrain them through it. In severe situations, it could even detonate and kill them on the spot.
Kong Youling looked at Ji Minghuan, then at her sketchbook, and lowered her head, her snow-white bangs covering her eyes.
She picked up the pencil, let its tip touch the paper, then set it down again; opened her mouth to try lip-speaking, but didn’t know what to say.
In the end, she simply lifted her eyes and quietly watched him.
It had been so long since she last saw Ji Minghuan, she couldn’t help wanting to look a bit longer.
Kong Youling’s eyes usually seemed to be covered in mist, unfocused, but right now they were very, very clear.
She arranged the sketchbook and pencil neatly on the table, sat obediently upright, and waited quietly for Ji Minghuan to speak first.
Ji Minghuan said nothing, carefully scanning her from head to toe to see if she had any injuries.
After confirming she wasn’t hurt, he lip-spoke: “Are you injured?”
Kong Youling shook her head, her snow-white hair swaying gently.
She wrote in the sketchbook, then turned the page to him: “I said it so many times, but they wouldn’t let me see you.”
Ji Minghuan said: “Me too.”
After thinking for a moment, he added: “Did they end up making you do something? Like asking me questions, and only then would they let you see me?”
She wrote and held up the sketchbook: “They told me to ask you.”
“Ask me what?” Ji Minghuan tilted his head.
“Ask you what your Esper ability is.” The white-haired girl kept writing.
What she was doing now went against what the Instructor and the others wanted. There was no way they would let her ask such a direct question about Ji Minghuan’s Esper ability. But Kong Youling didn’t care whether she’d be punished.
Ji Minghuan paused for a second, then shook his head.
He lip-spoke silently: “Even if you ask me like that, I still don’t know… I mean, something that doesn’t exist just doesn’t exist.”
This was the first time Ji Minghuan had lied to her. Deep down, he knew—if he told her what his ability was, the two of them would never leave this place again.
“Okay,” Kong Youling wrote, “got it.”
After a moment’s pause, she added a few more words to the page with her pencil, writing slowly this time:
“I miss you very much.”
Ji Minghuan looked at those four small black words on the page and, surprisingly, didn’t say anything. He just slightly opened his mouth, stared at her for a while, then stood up from his chair and leaned forward.
He raised his hand, just about to touch her hair, when the collar around his neck suddenly sparked with electricity, surging instantly through his body.
His pupils shrank, his body trembled for a moment, and his right hand dropped onto the table like a cut string.
“Physical contact is prohibited.” A cold, iron-hard voice came from the speaker horn. “If it happens again, you will be stunned.”
Ji Minghuan sat back down, gave a slight nod, and lowered his head, his bangs covering his eyes. He curled his lips and took a while to recover from the electric jolt.
He glanced down and saw that both his hands were still twitching faintly.
Kong Youling stared at him, stunned. Her pencil slipped from her fingers and dropped lightly onto the floor. Her eyes were filled with fear, as if she’d done something wrong.
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault—it’s mine.” Ji Minghuan said softly, then bent down from his chair and picked up the pencil from the ground. His trembling hand had to try several times before it could hold it properly.
Then he grabbed the sketchbook from the table, carefully avoiding touching her.
Back in his seat, Ji Minghuan lowered his head, focused, and started drawing something with the pencil. After a while, the corners of his mouth curved slightly, and he looked up, turning the sketchbook toward the girl.
Kong Youling looked at the drawing in the notebook. It was a sketch of a very well-behaved, adorable spotted cat.
Looking at the familiar little cat, she recalled something that had happened three years ago, not long after she arrived at the Orphanage.
Back then, the kids at the Orphanage had adopted a stray spotted cat. Kong Youling liked it very much, but could only watch from afar as the other children played with it.
Later, the cat passed away from illness. The other kids were heartbroken. That was when Kong Youling, every morning before class, would draw a small, cute spotted cat in the corner of the blackboard, as if it were still with them.
The kids would giggle in class. The teacher, seeing how happy everyone was, let it slide.
At first, everyone was curious who kept drawing it.
Until one day, Kong Youling got sick, and the cat stopped appearing on the blackboard. That’s when they realized the drawings had been hers.
The little girl missed the cat too. She had wanted to play with it like everyone else, not always sitting alone hugging her knees from afar. But the others all disliked her.
When Kong Youling recovered and came back to class, she was surprised to find the little spotted cat still drawn on the corner of the blackboard.
She was curious who had drawn it. The kids all burst out laughing and pointed at Ji Minghuan, saying he drew it every day she was gone.
Ji Minghuan hadn’t said anything then. He just propped his chin on his hand and gazed out the window, as if he didn’t care what was happening in the classroom.
Back to the present, Kong Youling looked up from the sketch of the spotted cat and met Ji Minghuan’s gaze.
“Now we’re the same,” Ji Minghuan thought with a faint smile, “in every sense of the word… I’m an Esper now too. A freak, just like you.”
To be honest, he wasn’t sure if Kong Youling could fully grasp what he meant through the drawing. It was a bit abstract. But that didn’t matter.
Ji Minghuan tilted his head and stared at her for a while.
She still seemed stuck in the moment when he got shocked, her expression dazed, pale eye rims tinged red.
“Chill out, chill out. That zap won’t kill me. I’ve been shocked so many times in here I’m used to it.” Ji Minghuan paused, then frowned. “Why are you crying?”
She was silent for a moment, then wrote: “If I didn’t come to see you, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Oh, come on. Are you a grade-schooler? You really blaming yourself for this?” Ji Minghuan froze. “Oh wait… we are grade-schoolers.”
He let out a deep sigh and said firmly: “Even if you didn’t come see me, I would’ve gone to see you. Got it?”
The girl nodded.
Ji Minghuan rested his chin on his hand, his gaze drifting away from her face, and said casually: “Don’t look at me like that. You know I hate heavy atmospheres. Next time we meet could be a long time from now, so how about we talk about something else… hmm, something fun.”
After that, the two chatted idly for a few minutes before a group of people in white coats entered and announced the visit was over.
Ji Minghuan sat quietly in his chair, pulled at the corner of his mouth, and made a goofy face at Kong Youling, waving one hand to say goodbye.
Seeing his silly face, Kong Youling gently lifted the corners of her mouth.
She looked at Ji Minghuan for a long moment, then turned and left with the group of people in white coats.
In the corridor, the Instructor walked in with his hands clasped behind his back, coming from the opposite direction. He sat down across from Ji Minghuan, taking the seat Kong Youling had just left.
At that moment, the white-haired girl’s silhouette was swallowed by the overlapping isolation doors.
Ji Minghuan withdrew his gaze, crossed one leg over the other, and looked down, idly picking at his fingernails.
The Instructor took a sip from his thermos, then said, “If you behave well, you’ll get to see her again in the future.”
“Oh.”
“Well? Now that you’ve seen her, do you believe us? We really didn’t hurt her.”
Ji Minghuan leaned back in the chair, didn’t even bother looking at his face, and sneered indifferently: “Wow, how saintly of you guys. You locked up an eleven-year-old girl here, and you’re proud just because you didn’t hurt her? That’s really something. Your moral baseline must be real flexible.”
The Instructor chuckled. “Honestly, if you hadn’t brought it up, I’d forget sometimes that you’re only twelve.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re always putting up a front. What normal twelve-year-old thinks like this?”
“Or maybe, just maybe, I’m an idiot who comes off as smart. Just a regular kid—only really dumb, and that makes you think I’m clever.”
“If only that were true,” the Instructor said. “After listening to your conversation with her today, I started thinking—what if the reason you haven’t awakened your Esper ability is because the Prophet’s prediction was wrong?”
Ji Minghuan’s eyes lit up. He looked up and asked, “So you’re saying you believe I’m just a normal person?”
“No,” the Instructor shook his head, playing coy. “You might not be an Esper, but that doesn’t mean you’re normal.”
“Why not?” Ji Minghuan raised an eyebrow and followed his lead, “Are you saying there are other types of superhumans besides Espers in this world?”
“Of course there are.” The Instructor said casually. “What I suspect is that you might actually belong to a different superhuman species. All our experiments so far have been way off target.”
“So, what’s this other superhuman species you’re talking about?”
“Not today. I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow—after you’ve had some rest.”
“Fine.” Ji Minghuan shrugged. He already knew, from when he created his Game Character, that there were two other superhuman species in this world besides Espers.
But he only knew the name of one—Anecdote Envoy. He still didn’t know what the other one was called.
If he could get intel from the Instructor, that’d be great. It’d help him decide more wisely next time he created a Game Character.
“Oh, can I ask you something?” Ji Minghuan suddenly asked while the Instructor was still seated.
“Go ahead.”
“Since you all know I’m destined to destroy the world…” Ji Minghuan paused and looked him straight in the eye, “why haven’t you just killed me?”
“We have our reasons.”
“Oh…” Ji Minghuan stared at him and said carelessly, “Even if we back things up a mile—if I really do have that kind of power, and I end up losing control and destroy this facility, won’t you regret it?”
“You want the truth?” The Instructor looked at him.
“Say it.”
“The reason we haven’t killed you is exactly that. Espers under extreme near-death conditions can unleash powers far beyond their known limits. No one knows what might happen if we make a move on you. So no—we won’t kill you. We’ll just try to keep you under control.”
“Haha, well that’s just great,” Ji Minghuan rolled his eyes. “Knowing I won’t get quietly wiped out in my sleep makes it so much easier to rest at night.”
“Heh… that’s enough for today. Get some rest.” With that, the Instructor left quickly, and the cold ceiling lights shut off row by row.
In the pitch-black confinement room, Ji Minghuan sat quietly for a while, then lay back down on the bed.
In the dark, his consciousness gradually sank—into a dream.
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July 10, 2020, 3:30 PM
China, Lijing, Guyimai Neighborhood, inside a three-story residential building.
【Welcome back. Consciousness loaded into Game Character No. 1 — “Gu Wenyu.”】
【Due to increased notoriety, this Game Character’s codename has been updated.】
【Your current codename is — “Black Cocoon.”】
As the cold prompt rang out, a teenager in a hoodie opened his eyes inside the room.
Staring at the ceiling, he zoned out for a moment before clarity returned to his gaze.
Sitting up, he saw a clean room around him. In the stillness, the electronic screen crackled with black-and-white snow. The TV buzzed softly, emitting faint, fragmented static.
Turning to the window—mid-summer sky, completely clear. The sunlight streaming in was slightly blinding, dazzling enough to throw you off for a second.
The warm breeze of summer rustled the branches. The shrill buzz of cicadas hadn’t paused for even a second.
After a moment, Ji Minghuan snapped out of it.
He raised both hands and lowered his eyes. From his body surged black Binding Restraints, slithering out from his hoodie sleeves like black snakes, tirelessly coiling around him.
One of the restraints extended straight up and stuck to the ceiling. Then it lifted his body, flipping him in midair.
The rest of the restraints spread outward, forming a ring, enveloping his inverted body in a black sphere. Then, countless restraints contracted inward, tightly wrapping around Ji Minghuan’s body, forming a massive “cocoon.”
That lone restraint still stuck to the ceiling, holding the “cocoon” suspended below it.
Hanging motionless beneath the ceiling, the boy’s body was wrapped in the cocoon’s darkness. After a moment, the restraint covering his head like a mask slowly split open a narrow gap.
Through that gap, his eyes peered out of the “cocoon,” unmoving, staring at the full-body mirror in the room, examining his own reflection.
The image in the mirror was identical—down to every detail—to the Esper photo the Instructor had slapped on the desk.
“‘Black Cocoon’... they managed to give me a codename in less than half a day. Impressive.”
Ji Minghuan murmured softly, expressionless, shifting his gaze away from the mirror.
“One step at a time. First priority—find out where that facility is. After that, I’ll see about getting my ‘main body’ and Kong Youling out—without tipping them off.”
At that moment, the black Binding Restraints frantically recoiled into his sleeves, like snakes returning to their nest.
Without support, Ji Minghuan’s body inevitably dropped from midair. With a dull thud, he landed in a sprawled-out shape on the soft bed. He raised an arm and slowly covered his forehead and eyes.
Thinking of Kong Youling’s face, a flash of violent light glinted at the corner of his eye.
“And if it really comes to it… I’ll just kill them all.”