Brutality

Kong Youling sat down across the table, clutching her sketchbook, and raised her red eyes.

Under the cold-toned lights, she stared motionlessly at Ji Minghuan, like a penguin from the South Pole staring blankly at a human.

Ji Minghuan could not help laughing. "Excuse me, is there a penguin sitting across from me?"

Only when she saw his smile did she react. She gently placed the sketchbook, with a pencil tucked inside it, onto the table, but her gaze did not leave him for even a second.

Like Ji Minghuan, she now wore a Metal Collar around her neck. It was used to monitor their use of supernatural abilities. If they used their abilities, the researchers could restrain them through the collar at once. If the situation became serious, they could even detonate the collar directly and kill them on the spot.

Kong Youling looked at Ji Minghuan, then at her sketchbook, and lowered her head. Her snow-white bangs covered her eyes.

She picked up the pencil, but when its tip touched the paper, she put it down again. She opened her mouth, wanting to speak in sign language, but did not know what to say.

In the end, she only looked up and watched him quietly.

It had been a long time since she had seen Ji Minghuan. She could not help wanting to look at him a little longer.

Kong Youling's eyes usually seemed veiled in mist, impossible to focus on, but right now they were exceptionally bright.

She arranged the sketchbook and pencil on the table, sat obediently, and quietly waited for Ji Minghuan to speak.

Ji Minghuan said nothing. He carefully examined her from head to toe, checking for injuries.

After confirming that she was unharmed, he still asked in sign language, "Are you hurt?"

Kong Youling shook her head, her snow-white hair swaying slightly.

She wrote in her sketchbook, then turned the page toward him. "I asked many times, but they wouldn't let me see you."

"Me too," Ji Minghuan said.

After thinking for a moment, he added, "Did they ask you to do something before they finally agreed to let you see me? Like questioning me for information?"

She wrote, then raised the sketchbook. "They told me to ask you."

"Ask me what?" Ji Minghuan tilted his head.

"Ask you what your supernatural ability is." The White-haired Girl continued writing.

What she was doing now went against the wishes of the Instructor and the others. They could not possibly have wanted her to ask Ji Minghuan so bluntly about his ability, but Kong Youling did not care whether she would be punished.

Ji Minghuan fell silent for a second, then shook his head.

He silently said, "But even if you ask me like this, I don't know... After all, something that doesn't exist simply doesn't exist."

This was the first time Ji Minghuan had lied to her. He knew that if he revealed his ability, neither of them would ever leave this place.

"Okay," Kong Youling wrote. "I understand."

After a pause, she added several more words to the page with her pencil. This time, she wrote very slowly:

"I miss you very much."

Ji Minghuan looked at those four small black words. Unexpectedly, he said nothing. He merely parted his lips slightly, looked at her for a while, then rose from his chair and leaned forward.

He raised a hand, intending to touch her hair, when a surge of electricity shot from the collar around his neck and instantly spread through his entire body.

His pupils contracted slightly. His body trembled for a while, and his right hand dropped onto the table like a kite with a broken string.

"Physical contact is prohibited." A voice as cold and hard as iron came from the horn-shaped broadcast device. "If there is a second occurrence, you will be electrocuted unconscious."

Ji Minghuan sat back in his chair and nodded slightly. His lowered bangs covered his eyes. He curled his lip, taking a long while to recover from the shock.

Looking down, he saw that his hands were still twitching faintly.

Kong Youling stared at him blankly. The pencil slipped from her hand and softly fell to the floor. Fear hid in her eyes, as though she had done something wrong.

"It's fine. It's not your fault, it's mine," Ji Minghuan said softly. Then he bent down from his chair and picked up the pencil from the floor, his trembling hand grasping at it several times before finally holding it.

Then he took the sketchbook from the table, trying his best not to touch her.

Ji Minghuan returned to his seat, lowered his head, and carefully drew something in the sketchbook with the pencil. After a while, the corner of his lips suddenly curled up. He raised his head and turned the sketchbook toward the girl.

Kong Youling looked at the drawing in the sketchbook. 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 had arrived at the Welfare Home.

Back then, the children at the Welfare Home had adopted a stray Spotted Cat. Kong Youling had liked it very much, but she could only watch from afar as the other children played with it.

Later, the kitten died of illness. The other children were all very sad. At the time, every day before class, Kong Youling would draw a tiny, adorable Spotted Cat in one corner of the classroom blackboard, as though it were still keeping them company.

The children in the classroom giggled with laughter, and the teacher, seeing everyone in a good mood, turned a blind eye.

At first, everyone was curious about who had drawn them.

Until one day, Kong Youling fell ill. When the Spotted Cat no longer appeared on the blackboard, everyone finally learned that she had been the one drawing it.

The little girl missed that cat too. She had wanted to play with it like everyone else, instead of sitting far away with her knees hugged to her chest every time, all alone. But everyone hated her.

After Kong Youling recovered, on the first day she returned to the classroom, she suddenly discovered that the Spotted Cat was still drawn in the corner of the blackboard.

She had been curious about who had drawn it. Everyone pointed at Ji Minghuan with jeering enthusiasm, saying that he had drawn it on the blackboard every day she was gone.

At the time, Ji Minghuan said nothing. He merely rested his chin in his hand and looked out the window, as though he had not cared at all about what was happening in the classroom.

Back in the present, Kong Youling raised her gaze from the Spotted Cat in the sketchbook and met Ji Minghuan's eyes.

"Now we're the same," Ji Minghuan's lips curved slightly as he thought. In every sense of the word... I'm an ability user too, an outcast just like you.

Honestly, he was not sure whether Kong Youling could understand what he wanted to convey through the drawing. It was rather abstract, after all, but that did not matter.

Ji Minghuan tilted his head and stared at her for a long time.

She seemed to still be immersed in the scene of him being electrocuted. Her gaze was slightly vacant, and her pale eye rims had reddened faintly.

"Relax, relax. Electricity can't kill me. I've been zapped plenty of times in here from fooling around. I'm used to it." Ji Minghuan paused, then frowned. "Why are you crying?"

She was silent for a while before writing, "If I hadn't come to see you, this wouldn't have happened."

"Please, are you an elementary school student? How can you blame yourself for this?" Ji Minghuan froze. "Oh, right... We are elementary school students."

He sighed deeply and emphasized, "Even if you hadn't come to see me, I would have come to see you. Understand?"

The girl nodded.

Resting his chin on his hand, Ji Minghuan slowly shifted his gaze away from the girl's face and said casually, "Don't look at me like that. You know I don't like this heavy atmosphere. It might be a long time before we meet again, so why don't we talk about something else... something interesting."

After that, the two chatted idly for a few moments before a group of people in white lab coats entered and said their meeting time was over.

Ji Minghuan sat quietly in his chair, raised a hand to tug at the corner of his mouth, and made a face at Kong Youling. With his other hand, he waved goodbye to her.

Seeing Ji Minghuan's funny face, Kong Youling's lips curled up slightly.

After looking at Ji Minghuan for a long time, she turned around and left with the group in white lab coats.

In the corridor, the Instructor entered from the opposite direction with his hands behind his back, taking Kong Youling's place across from Ji Minghuan.

At that moment, the White-haired Girl's retreating figure was swallowed by layer after layer of isolation doors.

Ji Minghuan withdrew his gaze, crossed one leg over the other, and lowered his head to play with his fingernails.

The Instructor took a sip of tea from his thermos, then said, "If you perform well, you can meet again in the future."

"Oh."

"How was it? Now that you've seen her, do you believe that we truly haven't harmed her?"

Ji Minghuan leaned back in his chair without even looking at the man's face. He mocked him indifferently. "Then you really are... kind-hearted saints. You lock an eleven-year-old girl in here, and you're proud just because you haven't harmed her? Your moral standards are awfully flexible."

The Instructor smiled. "Actually, if you didn't mention it, I often forget that you're only twelve."

"Why?"

"You give me the impression that you're always disguising yourself. What ordinary twelve-year-old boy would think so much?"

"Is there a possibility that I'm so stupid I only seem wise? I'm just an ordinary kid, only stupid enough that you think I might be a little smart."

"If only that were true." The Instructor said, "Today, I listened to the conversation between you two, and I wondered whether there was another possibility—that you have never awakened an ability because the prophet's prophecy was wrong."

Ji Minghuan's eyes lit up. He looked up at the man and asked, "So you believe I'm an ordinary person?"

"No." The Instructor shook his head, drawing out the suspense. "It is indeed possible that you are not an ability user, but that does not mean you are an ordinary person."

"Why?" Ji Minghuan raised an eyebrow and followed his line of thought. "Could it be that there are other superhumans in this world besides ability users?"

"Of course." The Instructor said, "There are two other kinds of superhumans in the world. I was just wondering whether you might actually belong to another Superhuman Species, which would mean all our experiments on you so far have been completely misguided."

"Then what are these other Superhuman Species you speak of?"

"Not today. When you wake up tomorrow, I'll tell you about the other Superhuman Species."

"Fine." Ji Minghuan shrugged. In fact, he had already learned during the Create Game Character stage that there were two other Superhuman Species in the world besides ability users.

But he only knew that one of them was called Anecdote Envoys. He did not know what the other Superhuman Species was called.

If he could learn that information from the Instructor, it would be a good thing. The next time he created a Game Character, it would give him something to consider when choosing between the two character options.

"By the way, can I ask you a question?" Ji Minghuan suddenly asked before the Instructor could stand up.

"Ask."

"Since you know I'll destroy the world..." Ji Minghuan paused and looked the Instructor directly in the eye. "Why not just kill me?"

"We have our reasons."

"Oh..." Ji Minghuan stared at him and said casually, "Taking a step back, if I really have that kind of power, and it goes out of control someday and destroys this laboratory, would you regret it?"

"Do you want to hear the truth?" the Instructor asked, staring at him.

"Go ahead."

"The reason we don't kill you is precisely because of that. Ability users may unleash potential far beyond their own strength when they are near death. No one knows what would happen if we attacked you, so we cannot kill you. We can only try to control you."

"Haha, that's really wonderful." Ji Minghuan rolled his eyes. "Knowing you won't secretly erase me makes me sleep much more soundly at night."

"Heh... That's enough for this conversation. Get some rest." With that, the Instructor quickly left. Soon afterward, the cold-toned lights in the dome went out row by row.

In the pitch-black Imprisonment Room, Ji Minghuan sat quietly for a while before lying back on the bed.

In the darkness, his consciousness gradually sank into a dream.

2020/07/10, 15:30.

China, Li Capital, Gu Yi Mai District, inside a three-story residential building.

Welcome back. Consciousness has been loaded into Game Character No. 1—"Gu Wenyu."

Due to an increase in notoriety, this Game Character's codename has been updated.

Your current codename is—"Black Cocoon"

Hearing the cold prompt, the Young Man in a hoodie opened his eyes in the room.

He stared at the ceiling blankly for a moment, and clarity slowly returned to his eyes.

When he sat up, he found himself in a clean room. Amid the Dead Silence, the electronic screen flickered with alternating black-and-white static. The television crackled, producing faint, fragmented noise.

He turned to look out the window. It was midsummer, with a cloudless sky. The sunlight pouring into the room was slightly dazzling, so bright that it left him momentarily dazed. A warm breeze bearing the scent of summer brushed against the branches, while the irritating cicadas never stopped chirping for even a second.

A moment later, Ji Minghuan came back to himself.

He raised both hands and lowered his eyes. Black Restraint Bands surged from the surface of his body, slipping out through his sleeves like black snakes as they tirelessly coiled around him.

One Restraint Band extended upward on its own, its end sticking to the ceiling. It then lifted his body into the air and spun him around once.

The remaining Restraint Bands began spreading outward in a ring before finally forming a black circle that engulfed his upside-down body. Then, countless Restraint Bands abruptly contracted inward, pressing tightly against Ji Minghuan's body and wrapping him into an enormous "cocoon."

The other Restraint Band remained stuck to the ceiling, securely suspending the "cocoon" upside down beneath it.

Hanging motionlessly beneath the ceiling, the Young Man's body was enveloped by the darkness within the cocoon. After a while, the Restraint Bands covering his head like a mask slowly opened a slit.

Through that narrow gap, his eyes stared motionlessly from within the "cocoon" at the full-length mirror in the room, examining his reflection.

The figure in the mirror was exactly the same as the ability user photo the Instructor had pressed onto the table...

"'Black Cocoon'... They gave me a codename in less than half a day. How interesting."

Ji Minghuan muttered softly, expressionlessly shifting his gaze away from the mirror.

One step at a time. The first priority is finding the exact location of that laboratory. After that, I'll try to get my Main Body and Kong Youling out without anyone noticing.

At that moment, the jet-black Restraint Bands frantically withdrew toward his sleeves like snakes returning to their nest.

Having lost its support, Ji Minghuan's body naturally toppled from the air. With a dull thud, he landed spread-eagled on the soft bed, raised an arm, and slowly covered his forehead and eyes.

As he recalled Kong Youling's face, a savage glint flashed through the corner of his eye.

And finally... if it really doesn't work, I'll slaughter them all.