Weilan and Dumbledore didn't have to wait long before the person Ailiudaila was waiting for appeared.
It was a human female, coming from the direction of Hogwarts Castle. She held up her dark green skirt, looking flustered, constantly glancing back.
The young girl had pale skin, a slender, straight nose, light red lips, and not a single stray hair on her forehead.
Her shiny black long hair was braided into two loose plaits behind her ears, then coiled into symmetrical small buns tightly against the sides of her head, covered by a hairnet woven with gold thread, with tiny freshwater pearls dotted between the meshes.
“The Middle Ages?”
In Weilan's impression, this was a common attire for noble women in medieval Britain.
Moreover, her appearance closely resembled an old acquaintance in a portrait, but Weilan couldn't recall who she looked like at that moment.
Weilan gazed at Hogwarts Castle in the distance, hoping to find some evidence to confirm his guess about the era.
Hogwarts Castle had remained almost unchanged for a thousand years, but the Castle's tall outer walls clearly lacked the marks of the long passage of time.
The unfamiliar young girl was afraid of being discovered. She looked around nervously, walking all the way to Ailiudaila.
Then, she spoke.
Weilan watched blankly as the young girl’s lips opened and closed.
He couldn't understand a single word of the sounds that came out.
Weilan had studied diligently for many years and believed his language knowledge could handle most situations. He was proficient in English and Chinese, knew Latin, and understood some French, Russian, and German.
But he simply couldn't understand what the young girl was saying.
He looked at Dumbledore with a pleading gaze.
“It’s Old English.”
Dumbledore answered his confusion.
“The English pronunciation system used by the ancient people of the Middle Ages is different from ours.”
Weilan suddenly understood.
Over a thousand years is enough time for a language’s pronunciation system to undergo a revolutionary change.
Just like the pronunciations of Old Chinese and Modern Chinese are two completely different things.
“Then can you understand what they are saying, Professor Dumbledore?”
Dumbledore shook his head.
Helpless, Weilan had to turn his attention back to the owner of this memory.
He had to extract as much information as possible from body language and facial expressions.
The unfamiliar long-skirted young girl was eagerly telling Ailiudaila something.
Her fingers frequently pointed in the direction of Hogwarts Castle,
Ailiudaila hesitated, wavered, and struggled, torn about making a certain decision.
Finally, the unfamiliar young girl gave her two cloth bags, one black and one white.
Opening the white cloth bag, a small white snake poked its head out, looking around curiously.
The unfamiliar young girl pointed at the small snake and chattered away to Ailiudaila.
Closing the white cloth bag, both bags were forcefully placed into Ailiudaila’s hands.
Afterward, the young girl turned and ran towards Hogwarts Castle, as hurriedly as she had arrived.
The memory twisted and changed.
When the scene solidified again, Ailiudaila was sitting in a small wooden house, brewing a Potion.
From outside the wooden house window, the outline of Hogwarts Castle could still be seen.
This wooden house should be located on a small hillside on the edge of Hogsmeade, very close to Hogwarts.
The Potion in the cauldron was bubbling with steam.
Ailiudaila opened the black cloth bag and took out a strand of dark human hair.
She put it into the cauldron.
The Potion in the cauldron turned into a milky white, viscous, jelly-like substance.
“Polyjuice Potion.”
Weilan identified the Potion's ingredients.
Dumbledore nodded.
They both watched as Ailiudaila drank the Polyjuice Potion in one gulp.
She transformed into the appearance of the unfamiliar young girl.
Ailiudaila then took out a dark green floor-length gown and several hair ornaments from the black cloth bag.
Ailiudaila spent nearly an hour meticulously styling and dressing her hair until it became identical to the noblewoman's hairstyle.
Then she put on the long gown.
She and the unfamiliar young girl were indistinguishable.
Having dressed herself, Ailiudaila picked up the white cloth bag containing the small snake and jogged towards Hogwarts Castle.
Weilan and Dumbledore followed behind her.
The sun in the sky was in the west, and the irises in the Hogwarts courtyard were in full bloom.
The Castle was empty, and many of the portraits and furnishings Weilan was familiar with were missing.
Ailiudaila now took out the white cloth bag and released the small white snake from it.
The small snake quickly slithered across the floor.
Ailiudaila followed it to the girls' lavatory on the second floor of the Castle.
Weilan immediately tensed his body, his eyes wide.
With a rumbling sound, Weilan saw the door to the Chamber of Secrets open.
Ailiudaila, holding up her skirt, walked into the Chamber of Secrets.
There was no Basilisk as Weilan had imagined, only a vast expanse of white mist.
Ailiudaila couldn't see her surroundings clearly.
Neither could Weilan and Dumbledore.
However, they both noticed a small part of the complex array beneath their feet.
The sound of chanting came through the mist.
The magic array on the ground glowed with a blood-red light.
Ailiudaila tried to move her feet in terror, but found that she was firmly fixed in place.
The mist dissipated.
The magic array, glowing with an evil, blood-red light, covered every corner of the Chamber of Secrets.
At another symmetrical point on the magic array stood another person.
Although a millennium had passed, although he had only seen his oil painting, and although Weilan was not a Slytherin student.
But Weilan recognized the person's identity.
He and Dumbledore simultaneously uttered the person's name:
“Salazar Slytherin.”
One of the four founders of Hogwarts.
He was tall and thin, with high cheekbones, and stood at one of the array's focal points, smiling as he chanted a long string of incantations.
At the same time, Weilan finally figured out which old acquaintance the initial unfamiliar young girl resembled.
Her appearance was almost a young, gender-bent version of Slytherin.
She and Salazar Slytherin had a close blood relationship.
Only at this moment, even though Ailiudaila had transformed into the young girl's appearance, it still couldn't stop Slytherin from using her to complete a certain magic ritual.
Ailiudaila looked at him in a panic, struggling more intensely.
Suddenly, Slytherin’s smile froze on his face, and the unfinished incantation was also stuck in his throat.
He reached out a skeletal finger, pointing at Ailiudaila in shock and disbelief, and roared a sentence in a hoarse, trembling voice.
The Polyjuice Potion failed, and Ailiudaila’s body was changing back to her original form.
Slytherin’s shock instantly turned into uncontrollable rage!
It was the rage of being deceived.
He rushed forward, extending his skeletal arms towards Ailiudaila, intending to choke her pale neck.
Before Slytherin could touch Ailiudaila, the magic array beneath his feet restricted his further movements.
The magic array held him firmly in place, rendering Slytherin immobile.
Blood-red light engulfed everything.
When the light dissipated, Weilan clearly saw Slytherin, decapitated, lying in a pool of blood.
A dark shadow rose from the corpse, quickly fled, and disappeared into the dark, unlit corner.
