【Yo Deng】Badger and Snake

Hai opened her arms and propped herself on the table in front of her: "I'll say this beforehand—once this news is made public, Rudolf Goldstein will never be able to compete with you again. So," she narrowed her eyes, "you have to Get something of the same value in exchange."

"I know what you want, Qihai," Aldridge smiled, "If you can really come up with the material to kill Goldstein, Gryffindor's vote will be yours."

Qihai raised the corner of her mouth without emotion: "I need a paper contract."

"That's not a problem," Aldridge leaned forward impatiently, "It just depends on how big your material is."

"Okay," Qihai looked directly at him, and slowly pulled out two stapled white papers from his cuffs, "Goldstein was born as a Muggle, and this is his file left in the Muggle Orphanage."

Aldrich's eyes widened.After a while, he reached out and grabbed the two thin papers on the table, and quickly scanned them: "Admitted to the hospital in 1998, unknown father and unknown mother, released on guarantee in 2009, guarantor Minerva McGonagall... Hahaha!" He slapped his legs and laughed, "He lied... he said he was pure blood! A Mudblood got sorted into Slytherin! Hahaha! And became a prefect - that's so funny!"

After laughing, he folded the paper: "Where did you get it, Qihai?"

"This has nothing to do with you," the brunette woman folded her arms, "write it, the contract."

Aldridge stared at her, his eyes dim.He took out his wand, moved his lips, and a parchment and a quill landed on the table out of nowhere.Qihai Dengzi looked at the man licking the tip of the quill with the tip of his tongue, pursed his lips, and asked casually: "Speaking of which, is there someone named Koito Yu in your Gryffindor?"

"Yu Koito?" Aldrich raised his head, "Ah, yes, she is our Quidditch team's Seeker. What's wrong?"

"She said something very interesting to me today," Qihai looked at Aldrich's expression, "I was thinking, if you taught it, it would be too stupid."

The man glanced at her: "What did she say?"

"You don't know? That's interesting," Qihai smiled slightly, "Do I still have to check Hufflepuff? You Gryffindors won't be colluding with Slytherin, right?"

Aldridge sat up straight: "She is not mine. Since you have been in contact with her, you still can't see that the other party is a master of oil and salt? It's not that I haven't thought of wooing her, but you want to completely control the situation." It is impossible to breed people, I advise you not to waste your efforts."

Qihai rolled her eyes.Aldrich thought she was testing him, which showed that Koito Yu's behavior today had nothing to do with Aldrich.

——Then, who is behind Koito Yuu?Or, is there really no such person?

After thinking about this question all the way, she knocked on the eagle-headed bronze door of the Ravenclaw common room.There was a crisp clacking sound, and a female voice as soft as singing came out from the eagle's beak:

"How do dreamers find themselves in a dream?"

"What?" Qihai froze for a moment.

She searched quickly in her mind, but couldn't think of an answer for a moment.

The question of the eagle head door knocker is never simple, and most of the time you need to see through its essence to get the answer.Even so, it was the first time Qihai encountered a problem that made her stuck——

"How do dreamers find themselves in a dream?"

As if afraid that she might not hear clearly, the melodious female voice repeated it softly.

Qihai's complexion gradually became unsightly.If she couldn't answer the question, she had to stand at the door of the common room until someone could.

After struggling for a while, she tentatively replied: "...when the dream woke up."

The door knocker didn't respond, Qihai's heart sank.

——Where can a person who is completely in a dream have the consciousness that he is dreaming?This is like "how do you prove that you are not dreaming at this moment", it is a question that cannot be proved by itself.

She closed her eyes, thinking of what Koito Yu said during the day.If her story is true—how did she find out that she was "in a dream"?

"How do dreamers find themselves in a dream?"

The question of the eagle head knocker was repeated a third time.Qihai opened her eyes suddenly, and found a small girl holding a book coming beside her.

"This question is essentially unsolvable." Ye Li shook the book in his arms, "People in dreams will not feel that they are in a dream. But if you consciously discern, you can try to recall how you came to Here-dreams tend to start very suddenly and lack detail."

"Very practical advice." The tone of the eagle-head door knocker was stained with a smile, and the copper door was slowly unscrewed.

Facing Ye Li's gaze, Qi Hai felt extremely embarrassed for a moment: "Uh, I..."

As a Ravenclaw prefect, to be found unable to answer the door knocker's question...

She touched her chin in embarrassment, Ye Li took this action into consideration, and smiled clearly: "It's okay, I will keep it a secret for senior."

"Thank you... Thank you." Qihai breathed a sigh of relief.Although she didn't have much contact with this girl, she knew that she was a trustworthy and reliable person.

Perhaps affected by this question, even though Qihai followed Ye Li into the common room and up the escalator leading to the girls' dormitory, Koito Yu's face was still entrenched in her mind.

Touching the exquisitely carved eagle feathers on the armrest, Qihai tried to recall how she woke up in the morning.After confirming that there was no gap in her memory, her thoughts jumped to yesterday, the day before yesterday, the day before yesterday... The gradually blurred daily life seemed nothing strange to her.

—Then she shuddered.

Everyday, yes.No one can clearly remember what meal they ate, whether they drank any beverages, how many people they met, and whether they made detours during class, but every day should not be such a daily routine—— Maybe one day I lost a game of wizard chess with my friends, maybe one day my proposal was not adopted at the prefect meeting, or maybe when she went to Hogsmeade village... none of these.

Her memory seemed to be nothing but daily life.

The creepy feeling rushed from the tailbone to the brainstem, forcing Nanami to stop stiffly.She frantically searched her memory, forcing herself to remember the things that stood out the most - how she had been elected a Ravenclaw prefect, for example.

She remembered that day, completely, but there were only words in her mind, no pictures.The silence, the applause and congratulations as Minerva McGonagall read the list, and the speech she delivered—these things emerged like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but faintly shrouded in fog and lacking the necessary realism.

Qihai Dengzi closed the door vigorously, looked at herself in the dressing mirror with a pale face, hesitantly untied the blue tie, took off the coat with the copper eagle embroidered on the chest, and then——

The double-sided mirror that she had randomly stuffed in her pocket fell out, reflecting light on the ground.

※※※

Before the knock on the door sounded, Koito Yu didn't realize that the double-sided mirror on the table was switched on.The knock on the door seemed to be knocking through cotton cloth, weak and muffled, so at first she thought that some small animal had come to knock on the door—it turned out that Qihai Dengzi was knocking on the mirror frame at the other end of the mirror.

When the pretty face that she thought she would never see again—at least not within today—appeared in front of her eyes, Koito Yu didn't react at all.She stammered and called out: "Senior, senior?" Then she followed the other party's gaze and lowered her gaze to the open collar of her pajamas.She hastily tugged at the collar, stretched out her hand unnaturally to smooth the messy hair on the bed twice, and said awkwardly: "What's wrong?"

"Disturbed your rest?" Qi Hai on the other side of the mirror tilted her head, her expression was indifferent and calm, and she couldn't find the slightest gaffe in the daytime.You couldn't figure out why she came, so she shook her head and said, "No, I'm not sleeping."

Qihai looked behind her from her body, and saw the stone basin on the bed sharply: "Did you move that Pensieve back to the dormitory?"

"...Yes," Yu's heart tightened, and he replied with some hesitation, "there are...some things on it, I'm researching."

"I thought playing with my props thoroughly was the first step in preparing to cheat." The brunette woman said with a half-smile.

——She really thought about it.Yoo bit her lower lip, and pushed back stubbornly: "That's not my prop, and I never lie—"

— especially to you.

She swallowed the second half of the sentence.

Qi Hai in the mirror raised her eyebrows and put her fingertips together: "Well, I've heard a lot about you today, and you really don't seem like someone who would do such a thing."

Yu twitched the corner of his mouth: "Is that so. You have been asking for a day, but you still can't find the non-existent person behind me, so you came to interrogate me yourself, right?"

"I wouldn't call it an 'interrogation'," Qihai corrected lightly, "but I do have some questions I want to ask you."

"Please." Yu looked up at the window, and found that it was open, and the curtains were moving, indicating that there was wind coming in.

——But damn it, why is this room so stuffy?Her chest was tight and it was difficult to breathe.

The more indifferent and mocking Qihai Dengzi is to her now, the more frequently she thinks of the kindness he treated her in the past, and the affection that she missed in various moments. She hardly had the courage to look at the person in the mirror.

But she has to watch.She cannot back down.

"What is your relationship with Rutherford?"

Qihai Dengzi's voice is very pleasant to hear, soft and elegant and calm, revealing a bit of a thick atmosphere, even in the moment of torture, it is very enjoyable to listen to.

"It doesn't matter." Yu said dryly.

Qihai was noncommittal: "How did you know that Rutherford has the tradition of 'Trials of Ravenclaw'?"

"You told me." Yuu looked directly into her eyes.

Those sea-blue eyes slowly opened and closed, Qihai Dengzi sighed.

"to be frank."

The girl looked at her calmly: "I never lie to you."

Qi Hai frowned and looked at the person in the mirror, trying to find flaws in those warm yellow eyes, but all she saw was openness.Frankly speaking, she appreciates this posture very much, but now this posture has become a wall for her to hit a wall, the ring is tightly blocked, and there is no dead end.

"How did you put this double-sided mirror on me?" She asked from a different angle.

"I didn't do that."

"Then who did it?"

"It was agreed upon by us." Yu's eyes darkened, "Before entering the 'Trial Room', we took the double-sided mirrors with us."

"Oh," Qihai smiled, "That's really prescient."

She thought that her sarcasm could somewhat arouse the girl's anger, but she found that the other person's expression was more of patience and sadness - she looked at her like this, as if what she said was true.

——How can you tell the truth?

Qihai Dengzi suddenly clenched her fists.

"How did you fake that memory? The one in the Pensieve."

——How can you tell the truth?In this way, isn't my life false?

"I don't," the girl said clearly, "that's your memory."

"You didn't say a word," Qihai let go of her hand, "it's the answer I want."

"If the answer you want is to affirm this false world," Yu shook his head, "I can't do it."

"Then, the last question." Qihai's face was deeply tired, "What makes you so convinced that this world is false?"

The girl opposite the mirror suddenly laughed.

"It's you," she said.

"What did you say?" Qihai slightly opened her eyes.

"It's you, senior." Koito Yu clenched her fists, her voice was tinged with a tremor: "...I like you."

--I like you.

Qihai didn't know how she would react when she heard this sentence suddenly under normal circumstances, but she knew it would never be like this.For a moment, endless flowers seemed to bloom in her heart; the wind blew by, and those flowers swayed and shouted the word that she couldn't hear clearly but had rolled into her throat, the word that had rolled into her throat when she first met this girl. Words yelled in terms of conditioned reflex——

"Yo..."

There are too many emotions mixed in this moment when she is about to talk: surprise, puzzlement, inexplicable relief and soft joy.The girl didn't open her mouth to explain a single bit, but she understood and accepted the meaning of "like" without any effort, and even had the urge to throw herself into the mirror and embrace the other person——

Qihai Dengzi was terrified by such a thought.She flinched back in panic, hit the back of the chair, and let go of her hands weakly, allowing the double-sided mirror to slam down.With her mouth slightly open, she stared blankly at the starry sky hanging high outside the window, her beating heart beat like thunder in her ears.

Immediately afterwards, the world shook, and she felt as if she was falling vertically from the [-]-meter-high Ravenclaw tower. Throat--

"Senior! Senior! Are you okay? Answer me, Senior!"

—She suddenly floated up from the bottom of the lake.The voice holding her up was warm and clean, refreshing like honey.

Qihai woke up from the trance and opened the mirror again.

"Senior!" The worried expression of the person in the mirror was beyond words, "What's wrong with you?"

"It's okay, I..." Qihai comforted her subconsciously, but got stuck in the middle of the sentence, "You..."

In the mirror, the girl's eyes were shining brightly: "Have you remembered?"

"...No." Qihai couldn't bear to turn her head away.

The light in Koito Yu's eyes gradually dimmed: "Then you... just...?"

"Sorry," Qihai found that she could no longer show hostility, "I might be too surprised, so..."

There was a moment of silence on the other side of the mirror: "I'm sorry, I said that suddenly, you are very troubled."

"It's very troublesome," Qihai raised her eyebrows, "You have completed your motives, and in this way, I will be even more unable to find your loopholes."

Yu forced a smile: "Then why don't you try to believe it once? My statement."

Qihai Dengzi opened his mouth, but did not speak.As if she couldn't bear the weight in the girl's eyes, she cast her eyes on the table; Koito Yu raised her hands in the silence, letting her gaze roam freely on the other's face.

——Long eyelashes.she thought inappropriately.

How would you feel if you kissed those eyes?

——If I had met her sooner...

Qihai who raised her head didn't know the girl's sigh in her heart, she only knew that the other party's eyes were too naked, she couldn't help coughing lightly, her face was a little uncomfortable and slightly hot: "Koito-san."

"Yes." Yu was pulled back from nine days away.

"Your rhetoric is really very, very bizarre," Qihai looked at her seriously for the first time, "I still think you may have taken a very superb confusion spell, but—"

Yuu held his breath.

"—Just this time, I'll play with you once."

Across the Mirage (4)

"—Just this time, I'll play with you once."

Koito Yu knew that he won the bet after all.

The woman's soft voice, wrapped in the softness of a long-lost reunion, slapped her ears gently; her slow thinking had no time to deal with the surging emotions in her master's heart, and her body had already moved first—she grinned and looked at the mirror in the mirror. The man squeezed out a slightly forced smile: "Thank you..."

As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she noticed that these two words had a slight nasal sound.She lowered her head as if to cover up, pressed her sore nose with the back of her hand, and took two deep breaths before forcing herself to raise her head again.

Qihai Dengzi was still looking at her with that kind of scrutiny, but his gaze was no longer so cold that it made her tremble.

--This is enough.she thinks.

This impeccable dream wraps Qihai Dengzi tightly, no matter how others shout or shake it, she can't break it apart. In this case, she can only find the weakest point on the shell, and use words to turn it into a mallet. Spikes were hammered into it.The spike must and can only be stained with her heart and soul. Only in this way, Qihai Dengzi can't help touching, doubting, and discovering the boundary of the shell from the inside out.

This was a gamble where all the cards were exhausted unilaterally, and Koito Yu won the bet.

She sniffed her nose indiscriminately, put on a nonchalant look, and said, "Senior, since you are willing to believe me, there is something I want you to see."

Without waiting for the other person to answer, Yu picked up the mirror and walked towards the bed with it.The stone basin placed in the center of the bed gradually enlarged on the mirror as she moved, Qihai narrowed her eyes and asked, "What did you find on this Pensieve?"

"I found this," Yoo placed the mirror vertically on the bed, aiming at the outside of the Pensieve, "Can you see it clearly?"

"I can see clearly." Qi Hai began to chant in a low voice: "What is engraved here? 'The Head on the Leaf (The Head on the Leaf)'...'The Ark on the Painting (The Arkison the Art)'?"

Yu turned the stone basin at an angle of [-] degrees, and a deer head resting on a broad leaf came into Qihai's eyes.The eyes of the deer are half-closed, the expression is serene, and the texture of the skin is lifelike, which shows that the carver is very skilled.After turning another thirty degrees, the engraved scene changed, and an impressionist-style framed painting leaned on the ground, with a simple wooden boat in the center of the painting.

"What does this mean?" Qihai's voice was tinged with doubt.

"It seems to be some kind of code, or a code." Saying that, You erected the empty stone basin, and motioned Qihai to look at the bottom of the basin, where there were five slightly protruding round wheels, each with an Arabic numeral on it.

"These numbers can be dialed," Yoo said, fiddling with a wheel, "each one can be dialed from 0 to 9, like a combination lock."

"Combined lock?" Qi Hai struggled to recall this familiar word, "I only saw it in Muggle research textbooks, how could wizards use this kind of mechanical control?"

"It's not made of Muggles," Yu immediately vetoed, "I tried to destroy it with a spell—you see, the bottom of the basin is so thick, there must be a layer in it—but it doesn't work at all, it's carved out of some kind of magic material of."

"Speaking of which, where did you get all the memories in this basin?" Qi Hai only now realized that the Pensieve was too empty.

"It's down." Yu replied without changing his face.

"W-what-"

"Anyway, senior, you don't want to see those memories anymore, do you?" Yu turned the mirror over, facing Shang Qihai's astonished face.She breathed out slightly and lowered her voice: "I don't want you to remember that kind of memory again."

The girl's voice is the sweetness unique to young girls. After being deliberately suppressed, not only does it not change its taste, but it also highlights the warmth and generosity that you don't listen carefully on weekdays.This voice coupled with the pair of bright yellow eyes suppressing the blazing fire, really hit a corner of Qi Hai's heart - she turned her face away unnaturally, feeling hot in her ears: "Oh..."

You didn't notice her strangeness at all, and just continued on his own: "I think there must be a five-digit password hidden in that short song, which is used to open the interlayer of the stone basin. And the content of the picture, put the 'Head (Head)' and 'Ark (Ark)' on the 'Leaf (Leaf)' and 'Painting (Art)' respectively, like this..."

She waved her wand, and a roll of parchment flew out of the drawer and landed on the table.

"Head

Leaf

Ark

Art”

"A lot of repeated letters." Nanami commented.

Yoo nodded: "Yeah, so I thought, should I delete the repetitive part..."

"HD

LF

T"

"...I don't know what to do at this point," Yu tapped the table with the tip of a quill pen, "There are six letters in total, assuming that letters and numbers are converted in alphabetical order, then H=8, D= 4, L = 12, F = 6, K = 11, T = 20; completely beyond the limit of five figures, and there is no pattern in it."

"Hmm," Qihai squeezed her chin, "six letters, five digits... What about the interval? Have you considered this direction?"

"Interval?" Yu was taken aback, "Do you mean to subtract the numbers represented by the alphabetical order? But if you subtract in this way, there will be a negative number..."

Qihai leaned back in her chair and reminded softly: "Sort. Try sorting in alphabetical order, and then subtract."

“D=4，F=6，H=8，K=11，L=12，T=20……2-2-3-1-8？”

Yoo put the mirror back against the book, picked up the stone basin, and began to fiddle with the numbers on the rotating wheel at the bottom of the basin.

After a while, she frowned and raised her head: "There is no response... it should be wrong."

Qihai folded her arms and looked serious: "This is troublesome. It's not the interval, how do you get a five-digit number from six letters?"

Yoo bit her lower lip, and rubbed her fingers repeatedly on the wheel that stayed at "2-2-3-1-8".There was a slight rustling sound from the opposite side of the mirror. Qihai Dengzi pulled a piece of parchment and began to write and draw some scribbled ancient runes, as if intending to analyze it from the perspective of arithmetic and divination; There should be nothing wrong with the idea, it's just that they overlooked something somewhere.

Intervals, intervals—she said the word silently, tracing the rows and columns of the alphabet in her mind.

Suddenly, an idea popped into her mind: to subtract the numbers before and after—they just calculated the distance in the sense of arithmetic.But what about finding intervals in a formal sense?In this way, the interval between adjacent letters is no longer 1, but 0.

“1-1-2-0-7”——小糸侑将刚刚的五个数字通通向回拨了一位。就在她将“7”对准旁边的三角标号后，一声清脆的“咔哒”声在寂静的室内响起——石盆的底部打开了，一个有棱有角的东西擦过侑的大腿、滚落在地上。

Hearing this voice, Qihai Dengzi raised his head in surprise: "Student Xiaoito? What's wrong?"

"I opened it..." Yu murmured, picking up the things that fell on the ground.It was a delicately framed gold-plated photo frame, and inside the frame was a picture of an eagle about to fly. Its light-colored pupils turned around and locked on the girl outside the picture.

"There seem to be words on the back of the painting." Through the mirror, Qihai said.

Yoo turned the frame over, and saw two lines of small characters written in silver ink:

"Find it,

"Kill it."

"What did you find, this eagle?" You Zhong turned the painting over again, and found that the eagle's gaze had changed direction.She stood up uncertainly, took a few steps, and said hesitantly, "This eagle seems to be staring at the door..."

"Maybe some kind of locating spell was cast on it," Qihai raised her chin, "It's asking you to follow its line of sight—speaking of which, how did you untie it?"

She tried her best to pretend to be careless about this question, but she still vaguely revealed a bit of unwillingness.You looked at her slightly pouted mouth, and smiled with crooked eyebrows: "Senior's previous thinking is correct, the answer is 1-1-2-0-7, and the number of letters between two letters is taken. .”

"Ah——" Qihai patted her head angrily, "That's right! Otherwise, why would you give the option of 0... If it is the subtraction of the numbers represented by the letters, then the minimum value when calculating the interval is 1, no matter what. 0 will be subtracted..."

Shaking her head, she straightened up and gathered her robe: "Xiaoito, follow the hints of this painting and see where it will lead you. I have other things to do, so I won't be with you for now—" — but I will carry my double-way mirror with me, so if you encounter any problems, feel free to contact me.”

※※※

After cutting off the communication of the double-sided mirror, Qihai Dengzi slowly came to the floor-to-ceiling mirror, tidied the clothes from beginning to end, and even took off and re-tied the tie.Even though she took deep breaths repeatedly during this process, the strange and inexplicable throbbing in her chest still couldn't be calmed down.

It is not the first time that Nanami Dengzi has been confessed to by someone, and the way Koito Yu confessed to her is also plain, but she can't restrain her heart palpitations - this kind of secret joy that arises spontaneously from the bottom of her heart, just like her The long-awaited thing has been expected - but how is this possible?

I don't even know her at all.she thinks.

——No, judging from Koito Yu's words, they seemed to know each other at first.

Qihai stared blankly at herself in the mirror, unconsciously stroking her hair hanging from her chest.The logical thinking that is usually proud of is tangled in a mess in the brain at this moment, repeatedly stirring the opposite poles; at the root, Koito Yu and the memory she saw in the Pensieve are the biggest variables and deviations—— She was not sorted into Ravenclaw, but into Slytherin-for her, this was a vicious insult, not only to her personally, but also to the name Qihai.

It was something she couldn't possibly accept, nor could she imagine.

But the girl grabbed her hand in such a reckless manner, and begged her to look into her eyes—to look at those eyes that didn't seem to be lying anyway.

In this case, there is only one verification method.

Qihai Dengzi put her wand into her cuff and pushed open the door resolutely.

—she wants to talk to the Sorting Hat itself.

Under normal circumstances, this request is almost impossible to achieve.Except for the annual admission of freshmen, the Sorting Hat is kept in the principal's office. To talk to it, not only does it need a resounding reason, but there must be a lot of red tape to go through.

It was impossible for her to write down her delusions into a written reason, and she didn't have so much time to wait for the procedure to finish, so she chose the most risky method: breaking into the principal's office at night.

This Arabian Nights approach is not difficult for her.As the prefect of Ravenclaw, she has the right to conduct night patrols within two hours after lights-out time; and the password of the headmaster's office is often changed once a week, so the day before yesterday she went to pick up Minerva, the professor of transfiguration and headmaster. ·The password that McGonagall heard when he imprisoned Doris should still be useful.

It was the first hour after lights-out, and the hallway was quiet, the only time she encountered a ghost hiding in armor trying to scare the students during the entire journey.After seeing Qihai's indifferent face, the ghost floated away despondently.

"nothingness."

Qihai Dengzi said to the stone monster at the end of the corridor on the eighth floor.The monster's gaze changed from pointing blankly forward to focusing on her, and the woman looked at it with a calm expression as if she was the owner of this office.

The stone beast moved aside, and the wall behind it opened.Qihai Dengzi climbed the handrail up the spiral staircase, and finally stopped in front of a brass door with a huge knocker.

The size and weight of the brass doors did not match. Qihai only pushed lightly on the joint, and the two doors rushed to open inward.There was a soft sound of fire bursting in the room, and the torch pot standing by the wall was automatically ignited, spreading a dim light across the field of vision.

Qihai took two steps forward, and the brass door closed naturally behind her.Within a few turns, she caught the tattered black peaked hat.The sorting hat was placed on a T-shaped frame more than one meter high, without any protection around it, but Qi Hai cautiously pulled out her wand, and whispered: "The spell will be manifested."

After confirming that there was no obvious protective spell on the sorting hat, Qihai slowly stretched out her hand, shaking her fingertips just before touching the limp hat.

She didn't know what was wrong with her.Are you scared?If she gets a possible answer from the mouth of the sorting hat, does it mean that the world she is in now is false?If dreams and reality are indistinguishable at all, what is the difference between them?

Why should she lose everything in front of her eyes?

At that moment, countless thoughts flew through Qi Hai's mind like lightning, but her fingers finally landed on the soft fabric of the Sorting Hat trembling.

She recalled Koito Yuu's face.

Thinking of that girl made her chest swell.She couldn't tell why, and she didn't know whether it was good or bad, but she had a vague awareness of one thing-if she didn't do anything, she would definitely lose her.

Qihai Dengzi put the sorting hat on her head.The world went dark; she didn't need to look in a mirror to know that the hat must be pulled up before her eyes in a very ridiculous position at this moment.

The wordless silence lasted only two or three seconds before it was broken by a thin voice: "Oh, you're here."

The voice was neither loud nor soft, neither male nor female, filling the ears and back of the head, as if directly intruding into her spirit.

— did you know I would come?

So she also asked in a silent way in her heart.

"Me?" The hat giggled, "Of course I know. Since you entered here, your every move has been in my eyes-maybe you will say that I have no eyes, but I make up this Every corner of the world, boy."

--what are you saying?I do not understand.

"What don't you understand, my dear child?" The hat took a slow breath, "Haven't you already grasped the most essential part of this 'trial' - 'me'?"

Qihai was struck by lightning.

"I must commend you," the thin voice continued, "you are the quickest person to find me since 'Trials of Ravenclaw' was made—although it probably has nothing to do with your vision It is related to itself: you were originally a Slytherin and were assigned to Ravenclaw, which makes it easy for you to think that the problem lies with me."

Qihai's eyes were still dark, but she could feel her lips trembling violently.

"It's not real." Finally, she shouted out with a real voice: "It's not real! If this world is fake—then neither me nor you may be fake! What do you use To prove that there is another world beyond this world? How are you going to prove that I am here—17 years of memory—”

"Think about it," the hat interrupted her, "do you really have 17 years of memories? Are they specific? How much better is it?"

Qihai suddenly stopped talking.This series of questioning hit her sore spot hard - the disjointed memory was the first abnormality she noticed under Ye Li's inspiration.

The hat breathed a sigh of relief, and went on: "I don't need proof, my dear. In fact, more than anyone else, I would like you to stay--to accompany my poor, lonely, thinking old hat. This is a false world, but I am a real caretaker - I accept the wisdom of Ravenclaw, and I am the maker of this illusion; I am a compatriot with the magic hat at Hogwarts, the only difference It's just that I'm led by Ravenclaw's mind."

Qihai's body shook a bit: "Everyone...everyone who enters the 'Trial' must face such a choice?"

"Yes," replied the hat, "that was the riddle that plagued the great Ravenclaw all his life—what is the difference between dreams and reality? After the death of Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter, she made Me, also created this ever-changing 'fantasy'.

"In the beginning, she just came here when she missed her daughter, holding hands and talking with her; but gradually, she was no longer satisfied. She came here and stayed for a week or a month, until finally, She simply let the illusion repair her memory—her body was sleeping in an external ward, but her thoughts lived here, in a world where her daughter still existed.

"My child, please tell me--when a man is