After a long while—
"It's over."
"My reputation, my dignity—gone. All of it's gone."
Voldemort, who in this lifetime had feared nothing and no one except Dumbledore, now wore a face full of utter despair.
Today, Quirrell—the pawn he had never once truly respected—had taught him a lesson so savage that even he felt shaken.
What in the world—
You actually ate unicorn dung?!
And at that very moment, Quirrell wiped his mouth, then even licked a bit of the filth from his fingers before nodding in satisfaction.
"I can feel it."
"There's life flowing through my body."
"As expected of unicorn droppings. The effect is excellent. I can live a little longer now."
"But it's not enough. Not nearly enough. Even a dog can produce piles of dung in a day. Unicorns are so much bigger—there's no way they leave less behind than a dog."
"Since I found one pile here, there must be more nearby."
"If I've already eaten one bite, I may as well eat a few more. Otherwise wouldn't that just be a waste?"
At once, Quirrell became ablaze with enthusiasm, determined to search the Forbidden Forest for a fresher pile of unicorn dung.
Voldemort's pale face turned green.
"Quirrell, you…"
He sighed and forcibly swallowed the curse that had nearly escaped his lips.
Reality had now proven one thing very clearly.
If a person was crazy enough—so crazy that he dared eat dung—then even Voldemort would think twice before provoking him too far.
"Quirrell, forget it. Stop looking. I have a better way to obtain life force."
Quirrell froze for a moment, then suddenly ground his teeth.
"Then why didn't you say so sooner?"
"You wanted to watch me eat dung on purpose, didn't you?"
"No. I'm definitely eating a few more bites now. You can smell it too!"
Voldemort let out a deranged roar.
"Damn it!"
"Quirrell, you dare?!"
"Fine! I'm sorry! Alright? I apologize! Is that enough? ENOUGH?!"
…
Inside Slytherin House, the former prefect Flint limped slowly back into the single room reserved for prefects.
Ever since he had repeatedly targeted Theodore and even tried to lure him out onto the Black Lake, only to have Theodore break dozens of his bones in response, Flint had been stuck in St Mungo's.
Only recently had he finally recovered enough to return to Hogwarts.
But by now, his "achievements" had already made him a walking joke.
Especially in Slytherin House.
This was not a place that prized solidarity. Everywhere Flint turned, he felt only mockery and ridicule.
In the past, he could always use his fists or his wand to teach a lesson to anyone who dared laugh at him.
But now?
Now he was lucky if he could even limp his way to class.
No one feared him any longer.
Even the Slytherin Quidditch team had passed entirely into Draco Malfoy's control, and Flint had been removed from it outright.
As for the rights and authority of a prefect, those too had largely been taken over by Draco.
In other words, aside from this single room, Flint now had nothing.
Even the girl who had once been his girlfriend had already found someone new during his time away.
His face was dark and poisonous with hatred. The moment he got back, he slammed a fist viciously into his pillow.
"That damned Mudblood!"
"If it weren't for you, how could I have ended up like this?"
At this point, Flint's fury and resentment were so strong that if Theodore had appeared in front of him right then, Flint might very well have tried to cast the Killing Curse.
But after venting for a while, he suddenly noticed something sitting on the table beside his bed—
a pink envelope.
Flint blinked.
People often joked that his brain was about on the level of a troll's, but he was not stupid enough to think he had somehow started using pink envelopes himself.
Then, with the greatest speed his mind had ever shown in his life, Flint's thoughts began to race.
"Wait."
"So someone slipped this into my room while I was gone?"
"A pink envelope. That means it must've been left by a witch!"
The full extent of Flint's imagination rose to the occasion. The rage in his heart was even temporarily pushed aside by swelling vanity and amorous excitement.
So what if he had suffered a temporary setback?
So what if he'd lost the authority of a prefect?
He still had his rugged good looks. He still had the heroic bearing of a former Quidditch star.
Clearly there had been countless little witches secretly in love with him all this time, only too intimidated by how dazzling he was to approach before.
And now, finally, one of them had gathered her courage and confessed.
A grin spread across Flint's face.
If this little witch looked decent enough, then giving her a chance might not be out of the question.
With that, Flint eagerly tore open the pink envelope.
Inside was a blank sheet of paper.
But the moment he picked it up, elegant handwriting began to appear across it.
"Hello. I'm sorry—I'm far too shy, so I can only talk to you this way."
"Your handsome face has long since carved itself deep into my heart."
"I can't help myself. I simply can't help it. Every night, all I do is think about you."
"Will you talk to me?"
Back in Quirrell's office, Voldemort controlled the body and wrote those words expressionlessly across the paper.
Standing nearby, Quirrell looked surprised.
"Master…"
"You're very good at this."
Voldemort's face darkened instantly, and his voice turned cold.
"This is for drawing life force from students. It is so we can survive until we obtain the Philosopher's Stone."
"This is a necessary sacrifice!"
Quirrell, however, gave him an amused look.
"And yet why do I get the feeling you're awfully practiced at it?"
"Master… you haven't done this sort of thing before, have you?"
Voldemort's face darkened even further.
In his younger days, his looks had absolutely been one of his greatest hidden weapons.
With those looks, he had won the diadem and the cup—along with a great many other advantages.
But everyone who knew the details of those old affairs had been dealt with long ago. Voldemort had sworn to himself that anyone who ever learned that secret would absolutely die.
And yet now, much as it made him grind his teeth in anger, he did not scold or punish Quirrell.
He had no choice.
At present, he still needed Quirrell's body.
And after that first encounter with unicorn dung, Quirrell had clearly cut loose from all worldly restraint.
Voldemort did not doubt for a second that if he kept punishing Quirrell, the man would move into the Forbidden Forest and live off unicorn droppings for the rest of his remaining days.
Against a madman willing to eat filth, Voldemort no longer wanted to push too hard.
Faced with that, he would rather sit here and write suggestive filth to Flint.
"Come. Kiss me. I can feel your kiss."
"Do whatever you want. Imagine it. I'll help you."
Voldemort wrote these ambiguous phrases with effortless fluency.
Inside the prefects' dormitory, Flint's face had gone beet red, his breathing rough, his quill scratching furiously.
"You're filthy."
"But I like it!"
"Come on, baby—take it!"
Half an hour later, Flint collapsed onto the bed like a heap of mud, panting heavily.
A wave of exhaustion swept over him, and he fell asleep almost at once.
Yet even in sleep, a lewd little grin kept twitching across his face. Clearly, the "before-bed exercise" had left him feeling extraordinarily satisfied.
At the same moment, Quirrell let out a cry.
"I feel it!"
"Life—life force is coming through!"
Voldemort, however, had his brows drawn together tightly, staring at Flint's words with visible revulsion. He shook his head fiercely, as though trying to fling the memory of the phrases out of his mind.
His voice was ice-cold.
"The quality of Slytherin students these days is truly pathetic."
"Flint is already a troll in human form, but there are several others who've received the letters and started writing back as well."
"Hmph. Have they all forgotten even the most basic common sense? They collapse at the first hint of a little witch's affection, and not even from a real witch in person—just from a letter."
"This is the worst generation of Slytherins I have ever seen."
Then suddenly, Voldemort paused.
His breathing became quicker.
A thought had struck him.
"I've got it."
"I've got it!"
Quirrell gave a violent start.
"What?"
"It works even through a letter?!"
Voldemort took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to rain down ten thousand Killing Curses on Quirrell right where he stood.
"I mean," he said coldly, "I've found a way to deal with Theodore Ashbourne and make him reveal how to reach the Philosopher's Stone."
Quirrell replied immediately,
"I've heard that before."
"Several times, in fact."
"And every single time, things ended badly."
"Honestly, Theodore is far too strange. I think we should stop provoking him."
A sneer curved Voldemort's lips.
"I admit Theodore Ashbourne's magical strength is absurdly high."
"But in the end, he is still only an eleven-year-old wizard entering adolescence."
"So what happens if we send an exceptionally charming little witch to get close to him? Let her flatter him, indulge him, let him drift into that dreamy haze…"
"In a moment like that, he might very well let slip how to obtain the Philosopher's Stone."
"And perhaps we'd even discover the source of his magical power."
At once, Quirrell's eyes lit up as well.
"A honey trap?"
"That actually sounds possible!"
At that same moment, Theodore had just returned to Hogwarts with Hermione and the others.
The very moment Voldemort and Quirrell began plotting against him, The Secrets of Heaven Can Be Measured had already produced a response.
Theodore raised an eyebrow, and a trace of coldness passed through his eyes.
So Quirrell and Voldemort were trying their hand at scheming against him again?
It seemed the Nail-Head Seven Arrows had still been too gentle. Since he had paused it for a few days, perhaps it was time to resume.
Then Theodore saw a new block of text appear on the System screen.
[Duobao Daoren's incarnation has repeatedly suffered losses at your hands. His Dao-heart wavers, yet unwillingness remains within him.]
[Suddenly, a thought arises.]
[The awakening of youthful desire is only human nature. The tribulation of love is one frequently encountered by cultivators.]
[As the saying goes, even heroes struggle to pass through the gate of beauty. Since your Dao-heart is invincible, then what if one first uses affection and desire to shake that Dao-heart, softening forged steel into coiling silk?]
[Thus Duobao Daoren's incarnation decides to seek out a female cultivator of the Hehuan Sect and send her close to you, determined to enchant you utterly!]
Theodore paused.
Well now.
So when brute force failed, they'd switched to underhanded tactics?
Seduction?
Hehuan Sect methods?
Who exactly did they think they were underestimating?
My invincible Dao-heart is not something some random Hehuan Sect female cultivator can shake.
At the very least they ought to send ten or eight of them.
Black stockings, white stockings, flesh-toned silk, maid outfits—shouldn't the full arrangement be present?
Only that would count as a real challenge. Otherwise, if my invincible Dao-heart simply crushes everything outright, then where is the tempering in that?
If they have any sense, they'll send more.
Help me cultivate.
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