After a Potions class, Harry and Ron turned out to be the two most miserable people. Combined with Professor Snape's sarcastic and mocking remarks, they were so embarrassed that their faces burned with shame.
Seen this way, Lin Shu being sentenced to detention didn't seem like such a big deal after all.
For the following week, Lin Shu's life followed a strict four-point routine: dormitory, dining hall, classroom, and then Professor Snape's office.
At first, Lin Shu thought detention would mean standing for hours to reflect on her mistakes, but once she arrived at Professor Snape's office, she realized otherwise.
First, Snape handed her a huge pile of potion ingredients that needed processing. Once those were done, he ordered her to clean the room. Throughout this process, he would pop quiz her on various questions from time to time. If she didn't want to get yelled at and have her detention extended, she naturally had to study and preview her lessons diligently in private.
As a result, her motivation to study was forcibly boosted. While others were having fun, she spent almost all her time soaked in the library, where she also built a profound revolutionary friendship with Hermione.
To tell the truth, it was the first time Hermione had ever seen someone who loved studying even more than she did. A sense of crisis inevitably arose in her heart. In her view, she could not compete with others at the school in terms of pure bloodlines or powerful backgrounds; the only thing she could rely on was her own hard work.
If even this was surpassed, she really didn't know what else she could depend on.
Consequently, Hermione studied even more crazily.
During this period, Lin Shu also sensed a hint of something amiss, feeling that Hermione's state was far too tightly wound, which was very unhealthy.
Master had said that if you put too much pressure on yourself and remain stretched like a taut bowstring for too long, the final outcome will either be an astonishing arrow shot or a snapped string with the bow retired.
Therefore, as the ancients said, balancing tension and relaxation is a philosophy of great wisdom.
That day, after Lin Shu finished the coursework assigned by Snape, she went to find Hermione. After much deliberation, she still wanted to have a talk with her.
"Hermione, please forgive my presumption. However, I feel your state is genuinely tense, and as a friend, I'm very worried about you. So do you understand? Can you grasp what I mean? Come to think of it, this is my first time counseling someone, so I'm still a bit at a loss for how to begin."
Hermione understood Lin Shu's intention almost instantly. She raised an eyebrow, equally unsure of how to reply. Meeting Lin Shu's clear and bright eyes, she knew Lin Shu was doing this entirely for her own good.
She also felt fortunate to have made a friend like Lin Shu at Hogwarts; otherwise, given her background, very few people would ever propose being friends with her.
As for Ron and Harry, being boys, they were simply incapable of noticing a girl's sensitive thoughts.
"Shu, I think I understand what you mean, but I just want to become more outstanding."
"But you're already outstanding!"
"Really?"
Hermione was currently like a child who was extremely starved of validation from others; any evaluation from someone else could affect her.
"Listen, Hermione, I don't know what you're anxious about, but you are definitely the most outstanding person of our age that I've ever seen, and the very target we should be chasing. So if anyone ever tells you to your face that you're not outstanding or not good enough, just give them a slap right across the face, and don't hold back at all!"
"Pfft—"
Hermione couldn't help laughing out loud. At the same time, she rubbed her sore and tired eyes from reading, realized how wrong her state of mind had been, and cast a grateful smile at Lin Shu.
That's right! She wasn't inferior to anyone.
What if her parents were Muggles? She was who she was: Hermione Granger. A student officially and properly invited to enroll at Hogwarts—that in itself was the greatest validation of her.
After all, if she didn't have the aptitude and talent, she wouldn't have been able to cross the threshold of Hogwarts either.
Having figured this out, she decided to be a bit more lenient with herself.
"Shu, thank you. If not for you, I think I would have kept driving myself into a dead end. Um... Actually, I really feel quite sorry. I saw your diligence and love for learning, which generated pressure inside me. My own petty nature got the better of me, and I kept thinking about surpassing you, only to end up needing you to comfort me in the end."
"Me? Diludious and eager to learn? Oh god, thank you, darling."
Lin Shu's brain automatically filtered the input, retaining only the part she loved to hear most.
Miracles never cease; nobody had ever called her studious before, truly!
Hahaha—
She actually had her day. She really wanted to record this and play it for all her fellow disciples, especially that skinflint Master of hers, who always said she was too lazy to turn a page of a book, claiming her mind was full of rocks. At the very least, other people knew how to cram at the last minute, while she was even too lazy to write a cheat sheet for exams.
She had always felt she wasn't as hopeless as Master made her out to be; it was just that all her senior and junior martial brothers and sisters were too intensely competitive, making her look like she was just coasting along.
Now, praised by Hermione, she felt a sudden rush of clarity.
"Not at all, Hermione. This is all thanks to my peers making me look good. But if you're taking me as your target, there's really no need. While you watch me read, I'm actually comparing some differences between the East and the West. As for brewing the boil-curing potion, do you know how it's refined over on our side?"
Hermione felt the door to a new world being swung open. The two girls put their heads together, and Lin Shu didn't hold anything back, taking a "Qingling Pill" out of her backpack.
This pill could treat various skin diseases, hair follicle issues, acute inflammations, and allergies.
Her senior sister had prepared it just before her departure, fearing she wouldn't acclimate to the local environment and might suffer from allergies.
"Hermione, look at this. This is a pill from our side. It serves a similar function to your boil-curing potion. These past few days, I've been studying the formulas from both sides, wondering if I can integrate and synthesize them."
The materials required for Dongxuan alchemy were simply too expensive and hard to find. Coupled with changes in the broader environment, the herbs one could find in the mortal world were dwindling, and most still had to be cultivated by themselves.
Therefore, alchemy could never be done freely or mass-produced.
This was never a long-term solution.
If the formula could be improved and the two sides combined, it would simultaneously solve the drawback of potions being inconvenient to carry and the issue of rare and scarce Eastern herbs. Wouldn't that be a win-win for everyone?
"Whoa! That's incredible! So, Shu, have you come up with any results?"
Lin Shu shook her head. She had indeed written down a few formulas, but to verify them, she had to conduct experiments, which carried the risk of blowing up the alchemy furnace.
Lin Shu hadn't found a suitable place to try yet.
"This Qingling Pill requires three spiritual herbs of ten years' growth called Purple Flame Flowers, five Ice Spirit Fruits, and one liang of Spiritual Crystal Powder. First, put the Purple Flame Flowers and Ice Spirit Fruits into the alchemy furnace, calcine them with a mild fire for half an hour, then add the Spiritual Crystal Powder, switch to a fierce fire to condense and refine for the time of an incense stick, and finally use spiritual power to nourish the pills until they take form and emit a soft halo. That's how it's made. It's just that successfully formulating something requires multiple attempts. I haven't had the chance for hands-on practice yet."
Hermione nodded; she understood what Lin Shu meant. Though she only understood the alchemy formula as a fascinating novelty, when it came to hands-on practice, she thought she could help.
"Shu, I think I know where we can go to brew our potions."
"Where? You aren't going to say the Forbidden Forest, are you?"
"Of course not. The Forbidden Forest is so dangerous, it's completely unsuitable for brewing potions. What I'm talking about is the second-floor girls' bathroom—the one where Moaning Myrtle is."
Lin Shu frowned, looking completely baffled. Refining pills in a girls' bathroom? That was completely unrealistic.
And who was Myrtle?
She lived in a bathroom? Why not live in a dormitory? Was she being bullied?
Lin Shu had a mountain of questions and didn't even know where to begin asking. Hermione clearly saw her confusion and blurted out everything she knew in one breath:
"Actually, Myrtle is dead; she's a ghost now. Because she constantly cries in the bathroom and makes horrifying wailing sounds, very few people ever go to that bathroom, and no one uses it at all. I've heard that only some upperclassmen go there when they want to do things they don't want others to know about."
Lin Shu came to a sudden realization. Looked at that way, it really was a good spot.
"Sounds not bad. Maybe I should go scout the location."
"I'll go with you."
"Alright. But before we go, we need to prepare some things first."
"What things?"
Lin Shu raised an eyebrow, wearing a look of absolute expertise.
"Since you're borrowing someone else's place to do business, you have to offer some perks, don't you? As the saying goes, 'eat people's food and your mouth is short; take people's things and your hands are soft.' That applies just as much to ghosts and spirits, haha."
"But ghosts don't have physical bodies, so they can't touch our things either. What can we possibly give them?"
"Just leave it to me! This is practically my specialty."
After agreeing on a time, Lin Shu and Hermione returned to their respective houses. Upon returning to her dormitory, Lin Shu rummaged through boxes and cabinets until she finally dragged out incense candles, talisman paper, ghost money, and paper-crafted items—mostly clothes, since the ghost was a female and should presumably still love to dress up!
Everything was ready; all that remained were the offerings.
When dinnertime arrived, Lin Shu stealthily packed away plenty of food—such as cornish pasties, Yorkshire pudding, steak and kidney pie, roast beef, and roast chicken.
Her movements were swift and fluid. Coupled with the fact that very few people were eating at the moment, surely no one would notice her.
So she thought.
Unfortunately, in a corner she knew nothing about, a pair of eyes precisely and unerringly locked onto her and all of her actions.
"Oh~ George, did you see what sweetheart just did? And she actually thought she was being stealthy. That's just too adorable."
"Fred, maybe you should shift what you're paying attention to. That's clearly way too much food for one person. What is sweetheart packing up so much of it to take back for?"
"Who knows? Clearly, it's a secret."
"Then shouldn't we avoid missing out on this secret?"
"Well said."
The two brothers quickly made up their minds. The moment Lin Shu left her seat, they dropped their knives and forks and followed right behind her.
Along the way, Lin Shu walked at a brisk pace. Calculating the time, Hermione might have already arrived, so she needed to hurry.
Only... why did she feel like someone was following her? She racked her brain, but she didn't seem to have offended anyone in the school.
What could the pursuer's purpose be?
She impatiently licked her lips. Upon entering the magic teaching building, she flashed sideways, stepped against the wall, and hung herself up on the ceiling, staring intently to see who the stalker was.
Meanwhile, Fred and George eagerly followed her, only to find not a single trace of Lin Shu left in the long corridor. Yet there was only one path here, and people couldn't just vanish into thin air.
They were genuinely baffled.
"George, though I really don't want to admit it, we've totally lost her."
"Yeah! The first time we've ever run into someone more slippery than the two of us. This is so exciting."
Hanging on the ceiling, Lin Shu listened to a whole bunch of chatter, and even at the end, she still couldn't figure out what the Weasley twins were up to. So, she decided not to hide anymore—she was tired of it!
She leaped straight down from the ceiling.
"Two senior schoolmates, are you looking for me?"