My avatar is becoming the final boss

Chapter 405 Moonlight, Confession, Su Zimai's Questions (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

The time is 01:30 on August 26, Beijing, China.

It was late at night, and the Lijing Iron Tower was brightly lit, but the exhibition hall on the top floor was empty, and Gu Wenyu and Su Zimai were nowhere to be seen.

At that very moment, a bolt of dark lightning was rapidly moving through the city.

It moved so fast without making a sound—this was because when Gu Qiye used this lightning, the lightning would swallow up the roar along with it as it moved.

Black lightning bolts raced upwards along the surface of the skyscraper.

In the next instant, Gu Qiye arrived at the rooftop of the tall building.

He crouched slightly on the fence, his lightning-bright pupils scanning the entire city. But in those brightly lit areas, there were only laughing and talking crowds, and couples on late-night dates.

There wasn't a single thing that looked even slightly strange or out of place.

Just like what happened at the train station, it was nothing but a dream.

Her deceased younger brother suddenly reappeared two weeks later? And even kidnapped his sister? This was utterly absurd, leaving Gu Qiye's mind in complete disarray.

He lowered his head, silently watching the lights around Lijing slowly dim. After one or two o'clock, the number of people on the streets would only decrease, and the whole city was slowly falling asleep.

Gradually, night enveloped the city like a curtain.

In just ten minutes, Gu Qiye had searched almost the entire city within a few kilometers, even running around it several times. He had searched every place where Black Chrysalis had liked to stay, not even missing the exhibition stand at the top of the Lijing Iron Tower.

No matter what, he couldn't find Hei Yong and Su Zimai.

After a while, Gu Qiye fell from the top of the building and arrived at the most prosperous central street, where there was still a bustling crowd all around.

Gu Qiye stood blankly in the center of the crossroads, watching the surging crowd gradually engulf him. Strangers came and went, but no one noticed his presence.

"Mai, Wenyu..."

He slowly lowered his head and murmured softly. Just then, someone dialed his number.

Gu Qiye silently picked up the phone, glanced at the caller's name, clicked to answer, and put it to her ear.

"Still haven't found it?" Gu Zhuo asked in a deep voice.

“Yes… I couldn’t find them,” Gu Qiye said softly.

"That's it..."

“Dad, I’m thinking…maybe he really is Wen Yu, maybe something just went wrong with him.” Gu Qiye thought for a moment and comforted him, “I think you can rest assured, if he is Wen Yu, he will definitely not let Xiaomai be in any danger.”

Gu Zhuo remained silent for a long, long time, then took a deep breath. Completely perplexed, he asked:

"But if he is Wen Yu, how could he possibly threaten us with Xiao Mai's life?"

Upon hearing this, Gu Qiye fell silent. He lowered his head and pondered for a while, then shook his head and murmured, "Perhaps he just has some unspeakable secret?"

On the other end of the phone, Gu Zhuo said in a deep voice, "No... I don't believe my son would do such a thing... He would never joke about Xiaomai's safety, absolutely not."

Gu Qiye was speechless; he also couldn't believe that Gu Wenyu would do something so absurd.

He lowered his head, his eyes shifting slightly.

To be honest, when Gu Qiye saw Hei Yong binding Su Zimai with restraints at the train station, he suddenly thought of the corpse puppets controlled by the Father of Puppetry.

So at that time, his mind was filled with this thought: Could it be that someone in the Salvation Society turned Gu Wenyu into a puppet and then made him kidnap Su Zimai in order to threaten and lure them into the Salvation Society's trap?

But for both Gu Zhuo's case and Su Zimai, this was far too cruel—who could accept that their beloved family member was turned into a puppet after death?
Therefore, Gu Qiye, who had this thought at the time, did not voice this possibility immediately.

Suddenly, Gu Qiye thought of the words that the dark figure had drawn on the drawing board.

Black Chrysalis wrote so fast back then. In almost a second, the words on the drawing board changed several times.

Gu Qiye couldn't understand what he was trying to say at all. She was just slightly stunned by the frenzied scene and couldn't even utter a single word.

For some reason, when Gu Qiye looked at the figure wrapped in the giant cocoon, he seemed to feel his unease, pain, and anxiety, as if... he was running away from something, but had to force himself to face it.

So at that moment, Gu Qiye just stood there, looking up at the chaotic and disordered words on the drawing board, fearing that something might happen to his sister, while trying his best to understand what he wanted to express.

“If you really are Wenyu, what exactly did you want to say to us back then... Why did you look so pained? I don’t understand, I really don’t understand... I’m such a stupid and useless brother.”

Gu Qiye stood hunched over, silently on the zebra crossing, murmuring to himself.

But then, the words that Hei Yong had written on the drawing board suddenly flashed into Gu Qiye's mind.

He only vaguely remembered a few names at the time, but one name stuck with him.

"Ji...Minghuan?"

He murmured to himself. For some reason, Gu Qiye felt a strange sense of familiarity with the name. So familiar that it felt somewhat unsettling.

He should have never heard of this name before, but Gu Qiye couldn't explain where this strange sense of familiarity came from.

"Qiye... come back first, it's not safe outside... wait until Ke Qirui and your grandfather come back, then we'll discuss what to do with them."

After a long while, Gu Zhuoan on the other end of the phone spoke, interrupting Gu Qiye's thoughts.

"Okay, I'll be right back." With that, Gu Qiye hung up the phone.

He stared blankly at the zebra crossing for a while. After a while, the traffic light changed colors, and when Gu Qiye looked up, he suddenly realized that he was the only person on the zebra crossing.

The oncoming headlights illuminated his bewildered profile.

The traffic light turned red, horns blared urgently, and vehicles on both sides urged him to cross the zebra crossing. Some drivers were already rolling down their windows and swearing at him.

Gu Qiye was about to take a step forward when she suddenly saw a figure on the other side of the road.

He paused for a moment, then suddenly raised his head and looked ahead.

She was a girl wearing a blue jumpsuit, with cool, clear hair and icy blue eyes that seemed to freeze.

A white-haired girl stood amidst the crowd, her hair shrouded in neon lights, but her pupils only reflected the figures on the zebra crossing.

“Yu Ruier…” Gu Qiye was stunned.

She looked at him silently, and suddenly, slowly and quietly uttered two words:
"Iceland."

Yuriel wanted to remind him that because her conversation with Black Chrysalis a few hours earlier had been eavesdropped on, the people of Rainbow Wing already knew that Gu Qiye was going to Iceland.

If Gu Qiye really went to Iceland on that day in September, he would be caught by the people of Rainbow Wing.

"Iceland?"

At this moment, Gu Qiye also understood the meaning behind Yu Ruier's lip reading.

He paused for a moment, then suddenly remembered that Black Chrysalis had also mentioned the word "Iceland" in the abandoned train station earlier.

“Yes…he told us to go to Iceland to find out the truth about all of this,” Gu Qiye thought.

Thinking of this, he exchanged a glance with Yuriel from afar. Then he lowered his head, and his figure suddenly transformed into a bolt of black lightning, hurtling back towards the street he had come from.

After a while, the cars passing by on both sides of the zebra crossing covered up the lingering arc of electricity in the air. Yuriel lowered her head and remained silent for a while before raising her head.

She took one last look at the empty zebra crossing before turning and leaving.

Ten minutes earlier, in the city center, on the exhibition stand of the Lijing Eiffel Tower.

"How long are you going to cry? You're going to degenerate from a diaper demon into a crybaby demon..."

Gu Wenyu looked up into the distance and said irritably. But the girl in his arms did not respond; she just kept hugging him, burying her head in his chest, and sniffling softly.

In the dead silence, her sobs grew softer and softer, as if she had slowly calmed down.

"Comrade Xiaomai, may I ask if you can let go of me now?" Gu Wenyu asked tentatively.

"No... I'll never let go of you again," Su Zimai whispered, her eyes still red.

"Are you a three-year-old?"

"I won't let you get away," she said in a hoarse voice after a moment of silence.

"I'm not going to run away."

"I do not believe."

"If you don't believe me, then try letting go first."

"I don't believe it."

Su Zimai's voice still trembled with tears. She mumbled softly, like a child arguing, and then hugged him even tighter.

It was as if she wanted to bury her cheeks into his clothes.

Gu Wenyu was silent for a moment, recalling some familiar memories. When Su Zimai was a child, if she was wronged at school, she would run home and hug him, burying her face in his clothes and crying loudly.

However, these were all false memories, products of distorted history, and he never took them seriously.

“Okay, then you can stay here for now.” Gu Wenyu said, looking down at the city.

At that moment, he saw a bolt of black lightning flashing through the city.

Before graduating from the mecha, he wouldn't have been able to see Gu Qiye's running trajectory at all. But now he could; his dynamic vision was so strong that he could see that bolt of lightning clearly.

"The older brother is here to see us... Let's go somewhere else."

After saying that, Gu Wenyu put his arm around Su Zimai's back and stretched out his right hand in the moonlight.

The black restraints extended from the ends of the gloves, easily wrapping around the very top of the Lijing Iron Tower.

He grabbed the restraints and leaped from the exhibition stand, soaring over the fence as lightly as a bird, then floating in the night sky. Su Zimai remained quiet throughout; she leaned against his chest, and when she looked up, she could see the moonlight.

After a while, Gu Wenyu carried her down to the top of a long-abandoned overpass.

He released Su Zimai.

The boy and girl sat down on the railing. The evening breeze blew in, scattering Su Zimai's ponytail. Her hair clip was lost, lost in the sky above the city.

Gu Wenyu suddenly reached out and untied the restraints covering his palm, revealing an orange-shaped hair clip. He reached out and gently placed the hair clip on the top of her head.

"So...where are we going next?" Su Zimai asked softly after thinking for a long time.

“To Iceland,” Gu Wenyu replied quickly.

What are some fun things to do in Iceland?

"The Salvation Society's base is there."

"As expected... it's the Salvation Society again."

“Yes, every time it’s a salvation movement,” Gu Wenyu said with a sigh.

Su Zimai was silent for a moment: "What you wrote in your notebook at the train station just now, was it true?"

“Yes, my name is Ji Minghuan, and I am a twelve-year-old primary school student,” Gu Wenyu said.

"Oh."

Gu Wenyu thought for a moment, then turned to look at her, "Don't you want to question me? Or suspect that I've damaged my brain with a fever? Or that I'm being mind-controlled by someone?"

“I told you, no matter who you are, you’re my brother,” Su Zimai said softly. “Besides, and besides, if you really are some 12-year-old elementary school student, then wouldn’t you be…”

"Isn't it?"

"Doesn't that mean he'll become my younger brother?"

As she spoke, Su Zimai turned her head and met Gu Wenyu's eyes. Her eyes were still red, but she made a joke at him.

Ji Minghuan stared at her blankly. She burst into laughter through her tears, winking smugly.

On the overpass, the two looked at each other quietly for a while.

“Okay… if you say so, then so be it.” Gu Wenyu shrugged and looked away from her face.

Su Zimai lowered her head and chuckled softly twice, then remained silent for a moment before asking in a low voice:
"Are we... really not going home?"

Gu Wenyu nodded and said softly, "I need to go to the Salvation Society to save someone, otherwise I won't be able to go home... and it will be useless to go back."

The Salvation Society's cyborg project is nearing completion.

The mentor whose personality has changed, the android made from his brother's genes—these are all things that 1001 mentioned did not appear in the previous timeline.

He couldn't guarantee that leaving his physical body behind to save the world wouldn't be dangerous.

Therefore, Ji Minghuan must be aware of the crisis; he cannot simply turn a blind eye and stay in the Salvation Society forever.

He knew in his heart that as long as he didn't rescue his original self from the Salvation Society, no matter how much he missed the people around the game machine, he was just indulging in a fantasy.

For those people, he too would one day suddenly vanish without a trace. Ji Minghuan is dead. His mecha will naturally disappear as well, perhaps along with the memories gained from the mecha's alteration of history.

No one will remember him then, as if he had never existed.

After a long, long silence, Su Zimai murmured, "You want to save someone, so you're leading my brother and father to Iceland?"

"Correct."

"Then why don't you talk to them nicely?" Su Zimai lowered her head and thought for a moment. "When Dad and my older brother saw what you wrote, they must have thought something was wrong with you."

She paused, then added, "Also, they don't believe you would do that to me, which is why they don't believe you."

"I just don't want to lie to you anymore."

"what?"

"I just feel that since I've been using you all from the beginning anyway, I might as well be more honest. That way, at least I'll feel less guilty."

As Gu Wenyu spoke, he suddenly thought of the kimono-clad girl's empty and pale expression, like that of a doll, in the underground bar in Haifan City.

Both remained silent for a moment, then one of them spoke, breaking the deathly silence that enveloped the overpass.

"Whatever you're thinking, explain it clearly to your dad and brother," Su Zimai said.

“I told you,” Gu Wenyu said. “I told you everything, but you didn’t believe me.”

"you have not."

"I said that."

"You clearly didn't explain it properly!"

"Then tell me what I should do, teach me..." Gu Wenyu said in a low voice, "How can I properly express this kind of thing? I've clearly thought it through, but when I finally say it, it's all a mess."

"So, you're the one who's my brother..."

Su Zimai lowered her head and spoke casually. Gu Wenyu paused slightly, turned his head, and looked at her silently, puzzled.

“It’s because my brother likes to talk nonsense and say one thing but mean another. He likes to keep a lot of things on his mind and let others guess… I know him better than anyone else. He’s just such an awkward person,” Su Zimai said softly.

She turned her head and stared straight into his eyes: "So, if you're not my brother, then who are you?"

Looking into her eyes, he remained silent for a long, long time before his lips suddenly moved slightly.

"I'm sorry." He lowered his head.

Su Zimai asked, puzzled, "Apologize for what?"

"I've been lying to you for so long, and I've always been two-faced. I even used your safety to threaten Dad and my brother in front of them."

Su Zimai remained silent for a while, and the evening breeze blew the strands of hair at the tips of her ears.

"So, do you consider me your sister or not?" she asked.

"No. I hate you so much," Gu Wenyu complained. "You always make me worry about you and want me to save you. I've warned you before, but you won't listen to reason."

He sighed, "If you hadn't gone with the train group to the tour group to look for the red light that time, you wouldn't have been targeted by the Salvation Society."

"See, you really do treat me like a little sister!"

"Where have I ever treated you like a younger sister?"

"If you don't treat me like a sister, why are you worried about me?"

"It was all a lie. I actually hate you."

"Then I hate you too."

"Then I hate you."

"Then I hate you too."

"Oh."

"I really, really, really hate you! Can you hear me?"

Su Zimai wrinkled her nose, speaking fiercely, but rested her head on his shoulder. Her eyes were still red, and soft sobs could be heard from time to time.

Gu Wenyu lowered his head and silently watched the train rumble past on the viaduct in the distance, wondering who was going to what distant place.

"Tell me everything, what exactly happened?" Su Zimai whispered, leaning against his shoulder.

"Sure, but can you really understand it with your brain capacity?"

"I am angry."

Gu Wenyu thought for a moment: "Let me think about where to start."

"You mentioned the name 'Xia Pingzhou' at the train station just now..." Su Zimai lowered her eyes, hesitating to speak.

"Yes, what's wrong?" Gu Wenyu asked.

“But isn’t he one of the White Raven Brigade?” Su Zimai looked up and finally couldn’t help but ask.

"It was true before, but it's not anymore."

"What do you mean?" Su Zimai asked, puzzled.

"Xia Pingzhou has defected from the brigade."

Su Zimai was stunned.

"Let's not worry about all this nonsense for now." Su Zimai shook her head. "Why did you say he was you? At first, I thought I misheard."

"Do you really want to hear it?" Gu Wenyu asked after a moment of silence.

"Well, otherwise what would be the point of you kidnapping me? With my strength, I could have broken free long ago if I wanted to." Su Zimai joked, "That's what you call going deep into enemy territory."

"Okay, okay, you're the best."

"Good to know, now answer my question."

Gu Wenyu said, "Xia Pingzhou is just one of my bodies."

"Body?"

Su Zimai was taken aback. She turned her head and stared at Gu Wenyu's face, slowly recalling her previous meetings with Xia Pingzhou.

The first time was at the Tokyo auction. If Xia Pingzhou hadn't gone easy on her, she might have been dead. If Xia Pingzhou hadn't been watching her, that ninja from the Phantom Troupe would have been, and she was no match for him.

The second time was in an underground bar in London, where she met the children from the Salvation Society and escaped with Xia Pingzhou in the Jurassic world.

Similarly, if it weren't for Xia Pingzhou's help, she might have been swallowed by that blond kid's dinosaur.

Then, after the London incident, the Ghost Train crew became the target of the Salvation Society, which led to Lin Zhengquan's death...

Su Zimai suddenly recalled that the night before she was to leave, Gu Wenyu had become very emotional and insisted that she stay. But she didn't listen.

“It really is you…” she murmured.

Gu Wenyu then asked, "Do you remember those children you saw in London back then?"

"Ah."

Su Zimai nodded slowly.

Gu Wenyu continued, "One of the children among them was me."

"what?"

Su Zimai was stunned.

"It's that one... who was with a little girl with white hair, who looked like she couldn't even kill a chicken..." After thinking for a moment, Gu Wenyu gave up describing it. "Never mind, I was the one who looked the weakest among them."

Su Zimai blinked, completely stunned, unable to utter a single word.

She slowly lowered her head, recalling the faces of the children in hospital gowns in the underground bar. Her memory was already very vague, but she did remember that there was a boy who was holding a little girl with white hair, his eyes wary like those of a wolf cub.

After a long pause, Gu Wenyu sighed softly.

He hung his head, feeling agitated. "I already told you, you're not smart enough to understand the situation. I'd rather not tell you; it'll make things easier for me."

Su Zimai paused for a moment, then frowned and said seriously:

"No, I want to hear it."

"There's nothing good to hear, just give up."

Su Zimai remained silent, and so did Gu Wenyu.

Slowly, Su Zimai's eyes reddened again.

"You always do this."

In the silence, she spoke softly.

"What do you mean by this and that?" Gu Wenyu turned around and saw a line of tears streaming down her face, and suddenly froze.

Su Zimai said slowly, "You always keep things to yourself and are unwilling to explain them clearly, which always makes me sad."

She lowered her voice and said haltingly, "Yes, I am very stupid... I am not as smart as you... You have bullied me since I was a child. But... as long as you talk to me properly, I will definitely understand."

Gu Wenyu paused for a moment, then lowered his eyes and looked at the brightly lit city.

He said, "If there were a very powerful superhuman in the world whose ability was to create a dummy that people would remember and accept, and the people around him would have false memories of him because of him, what would you think?"

Su Zimai shook her head.

Gu Wenyu continued, "Gu Wenyu is a dummy, a product of superpowers. In fact, your brother never existed in the first place."

Su Zimai frowned slightly, instinctively wanting to refute his statement.

But she held back in the end.

Gu Wenyu remained silent for a moment, then slowly raised his eyes.

He looked at the carp kite rising into the sky from the long street, swaying and disappearing into the night sky under the neon lights.

"In short, it all started with a twelve-year-old child being taken to a laboratory."

"Restricted-level ability user, number 1002 - Ji Minghuan, your mentor is visiting. Prepare quickly."

That night, Ji Minghuan heard the familiar, chilling notification tone once again. He yawned, slowly opened his eyes, and stared blankly at the ceiling for a while.

The deadline is fast approaching, but he doesn't know what the Salvation Society will do. They might even resort to desperate measures and try to attack his physical body.

His situation is no longer safe.

Thinking of this, Ji Minghuan slowly sat up from the bed and turned to look at the exit of the prison cell.

The metal door was slowly opening, and the bright light from the corridor flooded into this silvery-white world.

At this moment, a blurry figure is standing in the light screen. He is wearing a white coat, with his hands behind his back, and his glasses reflect a faint light.

A moment later, the instructor slowly walked in, and the door to the detention cell closed behind him.

The professor's expression was slightly somber, unlike his usual warm and gentle demeanor. He pulled up a chair and sat down at the table.

"what's up?"

"You sit first."

"How annoying, can you not disturb my sleep?" Ji Minghuan said, getting out of bed barefoot and pulling up a chair to sit down.

The mentor remained silent.

Ji Minghuan quietly tapped the table with her fingers, glancing at her tutor every now and then.

He thought to himself that the reason his mentor hadn't mentioned the Lake Hunt to him was because his mentor was guilty of "using Kong Youling's abilities to brainwash Zhou Jiuya and Zhong Wujiu of the Lake Hunt."

Thinking of this, Ji Minghuan couldn't help but chuckle softly and asked with concern:

"What's wrong with you? You haven't said anything for so long. Did something good happen this time?"

"Ji Minghuan, the artificial human project we mentioned before has been successful," the mentor suddenly said.

"The androids... were successful?"

Ji Minghuan raised an eyebrow and slowly looked up to meet his gaze.

(End of this chapter)