As a world-renowned tourist destination, Egypt attracts vast numbers of visitors each year who flock to experience its wonders.
Among these, the pyramids remain the most coveted attraction. To this day, people still cannot comprehend how such magnificent and awe-inspiring megastructures could have been built by human labour alone over three to four thousand years ago.
On a high slope several hundred metres from one pyramid, tourism enthusiasts from around the globe were excitedly snapping photos with their cameras, capturing both the desert's desolation and the pyramids' mystery on film.
Nobody noticed a young man quietly appearing among the crowd, standing beside a veiled young woman without saying a word, simply watching quietly.
The young woman holding the camera paused briefly before quickly resuming normal movement.
Clicking the shutter, she lowered her camera, removed her veil, and turned to reveal a brilliant smile.
"How did you get here?"
Wayne looked at her with an amused expression, his hand already deftly encircling her slender yet softly curved waist, pulling her slightly toward him before gazing directly into her amber eyes.
"If I didn't come soon, I'm afraid someone would have almost completely forgotten about me. Wouldn't that mean I was being taken for a free ride?"
"You're so cruel, senior. Leaving for such a long time - you sent postcards at first, but then you simply disappeared entirely."
"What free ride?" Grace rolled her eyes. "Where do you get all these strange expressions from."
"And this doesn't count?" Wayne grew increasingly assertive as the crowd flowed around them, everyone subconsciously ignoring the area where they stood.
"Enough nonsense." Grace tugged at the youth's collar, her warm breath reaching his ear. "Let's go back to the hotel first."
"What hotel? We're going straight home."
With that, Wayne exerted slight force, lifting Grace into his arms as the two spun and were drawn into space.
After an intense bout of lovemaking, deep night had fallen.
Wayne didn't have the habit of a post-coital cigarette, though he did have the stick of a finished ice lolly between his teeth as he played with the silken hair cascading across his chest, watching Grace's tired face that had grown increasingly alluring.
"Should I keep calling you Emelia Grace, or... Lady Rowena Ravenclaw."
Upon hearing this, Grace couldn't even be bothered to lift her head, still listening to Wayne's heartbeat. "Of course, use my current name. As for Ravenclaw - I don't know anyone by that name."
Wayne's mouth twitched. "Sis, are you taking me for a fool?"
In his post-climax clarity, he showed no mercy, directly pushing her away and forcing Grace to sit up properly.
"Speak properly. This matter is very important to me."
Grace chuckled, running her hand over her body. "Can you have a proper conversation like this?"
Wayne: "..."
Ten minutes later.
They sat at the dining table with two bottles of whisky and some snacks arranged before them.
Grace drained her glass in one go, swirling the ice ball as she sighed: "Though the taste is much smoother than the liquor from back then, it always lacks that grain flavour. I still can't quite get used to it."
"When did you figure it out?" Grace asked, leaning back in her chair.
Wayne produced Ravenclaw's Diadem, its gem now replaced with the one Grace had given him before her departure.
"Isn't this obvious enough? Replacing it with the original gem indeed produces a stronger effect than Felix Felicis, but I still haven't figured out why Felix Felicis would react with your diadem."
Grace didn't answer immediately; instead, she continued her questioning, "Even if the gem and the diadem are connected, you can't be so arbitrary in determining I'm Rowena Ravenclaw?"
"Because I cannot deduce anything about you." Wayne gently waved his hand, shifting the celestial and terrestrial dials as an invisible Qimen domain enveloped the surrounding space.
"I've mastered a method of divination. Though I wasn't as powerful then as I am now, only someone like Voldemort deliberately using Dark Magic to conceal themselves could evade my scrutiny."
"And when I discovered the gem's secret, you disappeared without a trace during that period. I tried to deduce your whereabouts but found nothing."
Grace looked around, sensing the strange power lingering nearby, a curious glint flashing in her eyes.
"It's truly remarkable. Is this your domain?"
"One of them." Wayne lightly tapped his finger, restoring everything to normal.
"I haven't finished studying it yet." Grace pouted in dissatisfaction.
"First, confess everything completely. There will be plenty of time for you to study it later."
"Fine. Who knew you'd mastered such strange magic?" The young girl sighed. "Rowena Ravenclaw is dead. Before dying, she used an ancient spell passed down through generations."
"Ravenclaw is merely my past. The current me is Emelia Grace."
Grace settled into Wayne's lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. "If you're willing, I could also become Emelia Lawrence in the future."
"So this is reincarnation?" Wayne held her, asking uncertainly.
"Quite a way of putting it." Grace shook her head. "But precisely speaking, it's just rebirth, and not for the first time either."
"Each time I become a newborn baby, found and raised by someone."
"What if no one takes you in?" Wayne asked again.
"My luck has always been good." Grace looked at the gem on the diadem. "This gem has effects similar to Felix Felicis."
"But if you hadn't given me Ravenclaw's Diadem, allowing me to fully recover, I would just be Grace alone, with no connection to Ravenclaw whatsoever."
"Does the diadem contain your memories?"
"The diadem is the key." Grace looked into his eyes. "An infant cannot withstand Ravenclaw's vast memories and knowledge, so I established several methods of unsealing."
"Either discover Helga's cause of death to resolve my doubts, or meet Salazar, or obtain the diadem."
Wayne, who had long understood Grace's inner obsessions, quickly noticed the problem. "You suspect Slytherin killed Hufflepuff?"
"About eighty percent certainty," Grace said dejectedly.
A chill ran through Wayne's heart.
When he last encountered Slytherin, the other had shown no signs of anything amiss when mentioning Hufflepuff.
"Any evidence?" Wayne wasn't disbelieving, just found the matter too bizarre.
The Sorting Hat preached every year about how wonderfully close the four founders had been, yet, from the actual person's mouth, it turned out to be the exact opposite.
"No." Grace shook her head gently, "But I have evidence that Slytherin originally intended to kill me, but Helga noticed something was wrong."
"That sounds too confusing, start from the beginning." Wayne rubbed his temples.
Grace shot him a glare but didn't object, beginning her story from Helena's theft of Ravenclaw's Diadem and subsequent betrayal.
Shortly after Helena left with the Diadem, Ravenclaw asked the Bloody Baron to bring her back. During this, a dispute occurred, and both of them died. Because of this, Ravenclaw was indeed sad for a while and fell seriously ill.
At first, she thought it was due to excessive grief, but Hufflepuff recognised that she had been poisoned.
Moreover, the circumstances surrounding the Bloody Baron's killing of Helena were highly suspicious. The Baron came from a pure-blood family, and although his temper wasn't great, his affection for Helena was undeniable—he would never be so impulsive as to kill her directly.
Combined with Ravenclaw's poisoning, the two quickly pinpointed Slytherin as the culprit—someone like Gryffindor would never resort to poisoning, especially since he had once had a crush on Ravenclaw.
Although Slytherin had also once harboured feelings for Ravenclaw, leading to frequent friction with Gryffindor, after Helena appeared, he completely lost interest, throwing himself wholeheartedly into the study of Dark Magic, his personality gradually undergoing strange changes.
The poison Slytherin used was something even a master of herbology like Hufflepuff couldn't cure; she could only alleviate Ravenclaw's symptoms, allowing her to flee Hogwarts to find a permanent solution.
After that, Gryffindor and Slytherin had a major falling out, fought fiercely, and both eventually left the school.
But before Gryffindor departed, Hufflepuff had already mysteriously disappeared.
Ravenclaw travelled the world but couldn't find any trace of Slytherin, nor a cure for the poison in her body. Left with no choice, she used magic to reincarnate, each life carrying an obsession: to discover the cause of Hufflepuff's death and whether Slytherin was truly the one who poisoned her.
"Luckily, you found the Diadem."
"Wait a moment." Wayne raised his hand, "Although I'm also concerned about Hufflepuff's death, could you first tell me who Helena's father is?"
Seeing the young man's serious yet awkward expression, Grace couldn't help but chuckle.
"Jealous?"
Noticing Wayne's expression growing increasingly strange, even changing colour, Grace stopped teasing him.
"Helena isn't actually my daughter. Because of my obsession, none of my reincarnations ever entertained thoughts of romance. No matter who I was, I've only ever had you."
Grace gently kissed the young man's forehead, "You really were fooled."
"Huh?" Wayne was baffled, "She's not your daughter?"
"She's my sister's child." Grace explained, "My sister was three years older than me, but because I was smarter, she always lived in my shadow. In a fit of anger, she ran away to Greece, the ancestral home of the Ravenclaw Family, where she married and lived in seclusion.
"But she was unlucky in love; the Muggle man she found died in the war, and she herself fell ill after giving birth to Helena."
"She came to me before she died, entrusting me with Helena's care. To spare the child's grief and conveniently ward off those wretched men, I claimed she was my own."
At this point, Grace spoke with exasperation: "Just like her stubborn mother, she never thinks things through properly."
"Not thinking is good, not thinking is wonderful," Wayne instead looked delighted. "Our future children will certainly be smarter than her."
"Satisfied now?" Grace chided the young man.
"Satisfied, thoroughly satisfied," Wayne nodded repeatedly.
Seeking to atone, he recounted his encounter with Slytherin in Russia.
Grace's expression gradually turned grave. "Wayne, Slytherin most likely isn't dead."
"Where is he then? I'll help you flush him out."
Having broken through to Legend rank, Wayne brimmed with confidence - pseudo-Legends like Slytherin were no match for him.
As for breaking through to higher realms?
Between mortal flesh and worldly constraints, such dual limitations made it nearly impossible.
Grace looked at him, offering no answer but posing a question instead.
"Do you know what the true origin of magic actually is?"