Wade spent some time explaining the state of the current era to Slytherin.
Slytherin frowned deeply, his expression clearly displeased.
"This really is a boring era."
In his time, there was no Ministry of Magic, not even anything that could truly be called a governmental institution. He had long been accustomed to freedom and disorder.
In the present age, however, there were rules and restrictions everywhere, which made Slytherin feel thoroughly uncomfortable.
"It is truly hard to understand. Why would anyone willingly place layer upon layer of restraints on themselves to limit their own behavior? Laws and regulations… are those not Muggle tricks?"
"These rules exist to protect the weak and to restrain the strong. Times are different now," Wade said in summary.
"You seem rather supportive of this approach, even though it makes you afraid of being discovered when you use Dark wizards as experimental subjects?" Slytherin sneered.
"No matter who you are, you will have people you care about, friends or family who are still weak for the time being. I hope the existence of laws can provide them with protection. As for me violating those laws, that is to make myself stronger. As long as I am not discovered, what is wrong with that?" Wade replied calmly.
"Ha! You really are shameless," Slytherin laughed aloud at Wade's double standards.
"Of all people, you are the least qualified to mock me. I have read your manuscripts. If those experiments of yours were placed in the present day, you would be locked up in Azkaban for life."
"Times are different, boy. Those were your words. In my era, if you were not ruthless, others would not fear you. Only when you treated human life as expendable would people fear you, and only then would no one dare provoke you."
Slytherin paused, then continued, "All right. Now it is my turn to ask you questions. Even if you intend to destroy me in the end, I still hope you will answer them. After all, I have no power left to fight back, do I?"
When he had first awakened, Slytherin had still been able to drag Wade into an illusion. But now, as more time passed in his ghostly state, Slytherin could feel the remnants of magic within him slowly dissipating…
"You should not have revealed that to me. Now, the only threat you posed to me is gone," Wade frowned at Slytherin, not understanding why he would expose such a weakness.
"With your Sage's ability, you would have realized sooner or later that I was merely bluffing. There is no point in delaying any longer," Slytherin said, casually taking a seat on a nearby chair as he spoke.
"I have been hearing you mention it since earlier. What exactly is a Sage? And what do you know about this ability I possess?" Wade asked immediately.
"You do not know?" Slytherin was somewhat surprised.
"I truly do not."
"Oh… then that is not surprising. The passage of time, a thousand years, is enough to change many things, and enough to make much of history vanish…" Slytherin produced a transparent smoking pipe from nowhere and began to light it. "Tsk… becoming a ghost really does rob everything of its flavor…"
"You still have not answered my question," Wade urged.
Wade had no intention of being polite to this old man who had tried to kill him the moment they met, even if he was the ghost of one of the four founders.
Moreover, Wade still harbored doubts about his identity. He had been able to pull him directly into an illusion, after all. Who knew whether this fellow's identity was genuine to begin with?
Slytherin merely lifted his eyes to glance at him, then took another leisurely puff.
"You need to understand what a transaction is, boy. Only after you answer my questions will I continue answering yours."
"Fine. You ask first," Wade said, pulling over a chair and sitting down as well.
Although Wade had many ways to make a ghost disappear, when it came to prying information out of one, brute force was hardly the best option.
"I placed the basilisk beneath Hogwarts. Only my descendants can open the door. How did you find it and kill it? Was it because my descendant released the basilisk and was then captured by you?" Slytherin asked.
Yet Wade keenly noticed that the hand holding the smoking pipe was trembling slightly.
Could it be… that this old man truly cared about his descendants? Ha. Then you are finished.
"That was not the case. I am actually friends with your descendant. We accidentally discovered the study you left behind, passed your trials, and ultimately found clues about the basilisk within your study. The school could not possibly ignore such a threat," Wade said.
"You coerced my descendant?"
"No. In fact, your descendant voluntarily handed all of it over…" Wade briefly recounted what Tom had done.
"..." Then Slytherin's entire figure began to tremble.
Purely from anger.
He had even been worrying about the safety of this so-called descendant just moments ago. Only now did he realize that the boy had actually sold off everything he had painstakingly left behind. And he even claimed he did not wish to inherit his knowledge?
A Slytherin who despised the Dark Arts?
"You said this Tom… um, which branch did he come from?" Slytherin asked coldly.
He wanted to see exactly which branch of his lineage this descendant came from.
"Riddle."
"Riddle? What pure-blood family is that? Could it be a pure-blood family that only rose after my death?" Slytherin muttered.
If his bloodline continued through a female descendant, the children would no longer carry the Slytherin name.
Thus, in Slytherin's understanding, the Riddle family should have been a pure-blood line that emerged later.
Wade Reynolds closed his mouth and did not say a word.
Slytherin did not press further, instead saying angrily, "My Slytherin descendants must now be an extremely powerful family. By what right does a mere collateral branch like him get to dispose of the legacy I left behind at will?"
Wade curled his lip slightly. If the direct Slytherin line had truly survived, then Tom would indeed count as a collateral branch.
But with Slytherin's rigid pure-blood supremacist principles, his descendants would likely be even more extreme than the Gaunt family.
Even the Gaunt family's direct line had died out due to generations of inbreeding. As for the Slytherin family… after more than a thousand years, it was anyone's guess in which year they had already gone extinct.
"Let me ask you this. Did my direct descendants not object at all? Or was this entirely his own decision?" Slytherin demanded angrily.
"You might be better off not asking," Wade said helplessly.
"Why should I not ask? I insist on asking!"
"Do you really want to ask?"
"If you want to learn anything from me, then you must answer my questions honestly!"
"All right… ask again," Wade said.
"Did my direct descendants not object?"
"They did not object."
"That is impossible! This was the legacy I left behind. How could they not object? Even if there were only one Slytherin left, it would be impossible for them not to object!"
"That is true."
"Then why did you…" Slytherin suddenly realized something. "Could it be that my direct descendants…"
"All dead," Wade Reynolds said calmly, spreading his hands.
At those words, Slytherin felt his vision go dark.
"How is that possible… I left them so much behind. Their foundations were stronger than any pure-blood family. How could they all be dead?"
"Should you not be reflecting on this? On your pure-blood supremacy theory?" Wade reminded him.
"What is wrong with my pure-blood theory? Pure-bloods are inherently more gifted than non–pure-bloods. As for you… you are only exceptional because of the power of the ancient Sage. You are merely a special case," Slytherin said impatiently.
"You conducted so many human experiments. Do you truly not understand that inbreeding is nothing but a path to self-destruction for a family?" Wade scoffed.
"Inbreeding… marriage? Are you saying that my direct descendants actually practiced inbreeding?" Slytherin's vision went dark once more.
Even though he upheld pure-blood supremacy, he understood very well that inbreeding was absolutely unacceptable. It would cause defects in future generations.
"Why?!" Slytherin asked unwilling to give up.
"Because of pure-blood supremacy. Because they wanted to keep the bloodline pure," Wade said, spreading his hands.
"Idiots! A pack of idiots! Were there no other pure-blood families at all? How could they be foolish enough to resort to inbreeding?" Slytherin was nearly furious enough to die all over again.
"Do you have any idea how large the wizarding population actually is? And what proportion of that population consists of pure-bloods? Even if, in the first two centuries, your descendants could still marry into other pure-blood families, what about after that?"
Wade smirked and continued, "To be frank with you, every so-called pure-blood family that still exists today has secretly married half-bloods or Muggles at some point. Otherwise, they would have been wiped out by history long ago, just like your direct line.
My guess is that at some point, your direct descendants realized that the bloodlines of the other pure-blood families were no longer truly 'pure,' so they simply turned inward and married among themselves. And then… that was the end of it."
After hearing Wade Reynolds's words, Slytherin fell completely silent.
With things laid out to this extent, someone as intelligent as him could hardly fail to understand.
"All right… all right… it seems that I truly did bring harm upon my own descendants," Slytherin said, his expression growing far more despondent. "Then how many descendants do I have left?"
"Not many," Wade said, counting on his fingers. "As far as I know, there should only be two branches left."
"Both branches split off from the Gaunt family. One is in Britain, and now only Tom remains. The other went to America. A witch named Isolt Sayre founded Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry there. As for the state of her descendants, I do not know."
Slytherin's eyelids twitched as he listened, a very bad feeling suddenly rising within him.
"Tell me honestly… are they… still pure-bloods?"
Wade broke into a wicked grin. "Tom Riddle. His mother was from the Gaunt family, and as for his father… he was a Muggle."
"What?!" Slytherin nearly ground his teeth to dust. "Then… what about Isolt Sayre?"
"Mm, Isolt Sayre was a pure-blood. However, her husband… was also a Muggle. So with Isolt Sayre's passing, there are no completely pure-blood Slytherin descendants left."
"Pfft!" Slytherin spat out a mouthful of transparent blood and collapsed straight to the ground.
"Unfilial descendants! Even marrying a half-blood would have been acceptable. How could you marry a Muggle?!"
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