A Lament for Life, a Brand-New Journey

"Today, when there aren't enough resources to meet the needs of all humanity, only the elite will be able to survive! This will ensure humanity's continued progress!"

"Starting today, the quality of life for every family outside the elite class will be tied to their children's grades. We must cultivate more talent for humanity's future!"

"Students who rank in the bottom third of their year-end examinations will be destroyed. Their parents will be relocated to the slums, where they will remain until they raise a more capable child."

"Yes, yes, I want you to do it." In an underground hospital, a middle-aged woman clutched the doctor's sleeve.

The doctor, who had practiced medicine in the underground world for years, frowned. Even he had never before heard a parent ask him to perform such an operation on their child.

He wasn't even sure whether the child would be better off after the operation than if she were simply destroyed.

Of course, the woman in front of him hadn't considered any of that. All she cared about was avoiding relocation to the slums.

The middle-aged woman looked at her daughter on the operating table. There was no trace of pity or guilt in her eyes.

"Yueyue, listen to Mom. Once you've had this operation, your grades will definitely improve."

Lin Yue looked deeply at her mother. She knew perfectly well why she'd been brought here.

Her grades had never been very good, even though she studied diligently—or, more accurately, studied herself to the bone.

She studied until two or three in the morning, yet she could still only manage an average ranking in her class.

She wasn't a clever child. She never had been. So her mother had come up with a solution.

They would sever the emotional center in her brain. Without unnecessary emotions interfering with her studies, and without emotions to make her defy her parents, she would be more obedient and study harder.

They would damage the sleep nerves in her brain, so she'd never feel tired again. She would need only the briefest rest to keep her body from collapsing, leaving her with far more time to study.

Looking at Lin Yue on the operating table, the middle-aged woman felt she was seeing the future—the glorious future she and her husband would have.

The elite world was beckoning to them. They could move out of their current apartment and into a villa in a better neighborhood.

They would have a garden, and maybe even a swimming pool!

Weary, Lin Yue closed her eyes. She no longer looked at her mother. Her mother had given birth to her and raised her... If this was what she wanted, then Lin Yue would let her do it. She could think of it as repaying her.

She was tired, too. Perhaps she would feel better without emotions? Lin Yue tried to comfort herself with aimless thoughts.

The operation began. Lin Yue's consciousness slowly sank into darkness, while a wordless lament played soundlessly.

When it was over, Lin Yue opened her eyes again. Her pupils were filled with numbness.

"It worked! It worked!" The middle-aged woman cried with joy as she stroked Lin Yue's cheek, her face alight with manic delight.

"Yueyue, do you still know who I am?" She needed to make sure her child still had her faculties and could still learn.

"I do." Lin Yue spoke without inflection, her expression blank as she looked at the middle-aged woman stroking her cheek. "You're my mother."

"That's right, that's right." The middle-aged woman nodded frantically, then took a textbook from her bag and handed it to Lin Yue, paying no attention to the bandages wrapped around her head.

"Why don't you have a look?"

Lin Yue took the textbook, opened it, and quickly flipped through the pages. Without emotions getting in the way, she read several times faster than before.

Pure reason now occupied her brain. She understood the material in the textbook more quickly, too.

It took Lin Yue only an hour to read the entire textbook and understand and master it completely. Even considering that she already remembered some of its contents, the speed was astonishing.

"A genius! My daughter has finally become a genius, too!" The middle-aged woman hugged Lin Yue in a frenzy of delight. Beside them, the doctor watched with nothing but coldness and contempt in his eyes.

"All right, ma'am. You can pay now and take your daughter home."

The middle-aged woman released Lin Yue, paid with the band on her wrist, and led her out of the underground hospital.

When she brought Lin Yue home, her husband saw their daughter's vacant gaze and turned to his wife with equal delight.

"It worked?!"

"It worked!" The middle-aged woman nodded emphatically and patted Lin Yue on the back.

"Our daughter is a real genius now. She mastered an entire math textbook in just an hour!"

"Wonderful, wonderful..." The man paced excitedly. "Our good days are finally here!"

The days that followed went exactly as the two of them had imagined. Lin Yue's grades kept improving, and the family moved from an apartment into a villa.

Then they moved from that villa into an even bigger one. Over the two years from Lin Yue's fourteenth to her sixteenth birthday, they made the leap into the elite class.

Then, when Lin Yue turned sixteen, everything changed again.

"So you're saying our child is a genius? A genuine genius?!" The man rubbed his wife's belly and looked at her in delight.

"Of course! I went to the most authoritative private hospital. The doctors examined me themselves." The woman gazed at her belly with boundless affection, as if she could see the unborn baby inside.

"That's wonderful..." The man murmured, his eyes glazed over, as if he could already see an even more glorious future.

They had reached the elite class. Could they now... climb even higher?

The thought filled him with excitement. Then he remembered that his daughter, Lin Yue, was already sixteen, and he couldn't help looking at his wife with concern.

"In another two years, Yueyue will have her big exam. They'll give her a physical then. What if they find out..."

Hearing her husband's words, the woman frowned, too. "It is possible..."

"If they find out, will we be punished?" the man asked anxiously. As Lin Yue grew older, the worry had weighed more and more heavily on him, though he was only telling his wife about it now.

The thought that he and his wife might be punished filled him with dread, even though it wasn't certain they would face any consequences.

But just imagining losing everything they had now, returning to an apartment, or even being sent to the slums, made the woman feel as if she couldn't breathe.

"No. We can't just wait to be punished!" The woman gripped her husband's hand.

The man lowered his head. After only a moment's hesitation, he looked up at her.

"According to the rules, families without school-age children can maintain their current social standing and quality of life from the time a child is born until the child starts school."

"Our child is a true genius. So once he's born, our family will have no school-age children. Doesn't that mean..."

The woman stared at him, eyes wide. "But... we have Yueyue, don't we?"

The man lowered his gaze and slowly rubbed his wife's belly, as if greeting the genius inside.

"Well, isn't the year-end examination coming up?"

Understanding what he meant, the woman pressed her lips together. She didn't feel any reluctance about Lin Yue. She was simply weighing whether it was worth doing.

If Lin Yue failed the year-end examination, their family would have no school-age children, and they could maintain their current quality of life and social standing.

When the baby in her belly was born, he could grow up in an even better environment, and they could use this genuine genius to climb even higher.

And any potential risk posed by Lin Yue... would disappear, too.

Once she'd considered the pros and cons, the woman didn't hesitate. She gazed fondly at her husband. "Let's do as you said."

"Good." The man smiled and nodded, then kissed his wife and the unborn child.

That year's year-end examination was no ordinary one for Lin Yue. Her failure had been decided before the exam even began.

A bowl of porridge laced with plenty of drugs was enough to send her to the bottom of the year-end rankings.

Lin Yue stared blankly at the armed personnel who had come to take her away. Unlike the other students, she didn't struggle or resist.

She didn't understand why she should resist. Wasn't destruction the prescribed punishment for failing an exam? Rules had to be followed.

Even as she lay on the operating table, Lin Yue still thought so.

The nurse responsible for carrying out the destruction had done the job for many years, but she had never seen a child so calm.

So calm, as if she didn't know what awaited her.

Pushing the thought aside, the nurse slowly injected the drug into Lin Yue's body. Her consciousness faded, and her life ebbed away.

The lament for life had begun on an operating table, and it ended on one, too.

Once the destruction was complete, Lin Yue's body was placed in a black bag, tossed carelessly into a transport truck, and left to await its journey to the final crematorium.

The transport truck's doors closed. In the pitch-black darkness, a golden light gradually began to shine from Lin Yue's body inside the black bag.

The golden light grew brighter and brighter. The black bag around her body seemed unable to bear its brilliance and slowly dissolved.

The next instant, Lin Yue's body abruptly vanished into the golden light, and the inside of the truck fell quiet again.

No one would ever know that, just moments ago, a destroyed student had quietly disappeared from this world.

Choo...

The whistle of a steam train roused the girl leaning against the window. She turned to look at her unfamiliar surroundings. She wasn't confused about where she was—or rather, she simply didn't get confused.

She merely analyzed the situation: she was on a train, a steam train.

Then her vision blurred, and several lines of text appeared before her.

Lin Yue, welcome to a different world. This is a world full of magic and wonder. Begin your new life here. Learn magic, experience life, and discover the things you never got to have.

Also, to help you get along here, I've given you enough magic to keep you safe and sound. I've also changed your age to eleven. I hope you don't mind that I made you younger. I hope you'll be happy here. —From HP's World Consciousness

Lin Yue felt no change in her mood as she read the words before her. Magic was a power that changed things and reality by unscientific means. Magic power was the basis for using magic.

So, with this gift from the World Consciousness, she could cast spells.

And there was a school, so she was going to a magic school now? Since it was a magic school, she would be studying.

Study... Lin Yue's gaze shifted to the large trunk beside her. She had a vague sense that it was meant for her.

She reached out and opened the trunk. First, she took out a little wooden stick. The instant she touched it, a stream of golden light burst from its tip, and warmth spread through her body.

"I don't know what it is." Lin Yue spoke mechanically, then casually slipped the little wooden stick into her pocket.

Taking out a book, Lin Yue closed the trunk, opened the book, and began to read.

As she rapidly read and memorized the book titled Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, Lin Yue realized it contained knowledge she had never encountered before.

Her comprehension slowed. After an hour, she had only finished and understood a third of the book. Before she could turn the page, someone knocked twice on the compartment door, then opened it.

Lin Yue looked up toward the compartment door. A brown-haired girl stood there with a boy.

She calmly looked away and returned her attention to the book.

Hermione watched as Lin Yue glanced at her and Neville, then silently lowered her head and went back to reading.

Tilting her head in confusion, she greeted Lin Yue first. "Hi, I'm Hermione Granger."

The rules of etiquette said that when someone greeted you, you should respond.

Lin Yue raised her head again and looked at the girl who had introduced herself as Hermione Granger. "Hello, I'm Lin Yue."

The lovely voice, devoid of any emotion, sounded unsettling. Hermione even felt a faint shiver of fear.

"Oh... Oh, we interrupted your reading. I'm sorry..."

"It's all right." Lin Yue shook her head.

Hermione swallowed. "Well, Neville..." She gestured to the boy beside her. "He's lost his toad. Have you seen it?"

"A toad?" Lin Yue looked at Neville.

"Yes..." Neville nodded, his face a little pale. Lin Yue's flat tone and expressionless face frightened him. It was as if he wasn't facing a person, a real person at all.

But a doll that looked almost human, or something else.

"I haven't seen it." Lin Yue shook her head, her vacant eyes still fixed on them.

"Is there anything else?"

"N-no..." Hermione did her best to stay calm. "Sorry to bother you. Goodbye."

Hermione closed the compartment door and hurried away with Neville. Only after they had put some distance between themselves and Lin Yue's compartment did they let out a long breath of relief.

Once the two of them had left, Lin Yue turned her attention back to the book. She was going to study at a magic school, so she was still a student. She couldn't waste time that should be spent learning.

The train traveled from day into night before finally arriving at Hogwarts. When Lin Yue had bought food at noon, her emotionless voice and expression had frightened the trolley witch, too.

But she had no intention of spending more time thinking about it. She needed to devote all her thoughts to studying.

She was used to the way Hermione, Neville, and the trolley witch reacted. Her parents, classmates, and teachers had all reacted much the same way. She didn't care—or rather, she was incapable of caring.