Sunlight streamed through the tall windows, spilling across the floor in long bands of light. The dust motes drifting through the air were clearly visible within them, like countless silent witnesses.
Professor McGonagall did not speak at once.
She merely walked over to Lin Yuan's desk with steps as precise as a metronome.
Her sharp, eagle-like eyes remained fixed on the perfect silver needle lying on the desktop.
The needle lay there quietly, as though silently mocking all the knowledge and theories about Transfiguration that she had built over several decades.
She reached out and carefully picked up the needle between two fingers.
"Mr. Lin," she finally said, her voice carrying the oppressive weight of an authoritative scholar, "I need an explanation."
Lin Yuan raised his head. His dark eyes calmly met Professor McGonagall's probing, scrutinizing gaze.
His face even held a touch of perfectly measured confusion, as though he truly had no idea what he had done wrong.
"An explanation? Professor, do you mean... this needle?"
"Don't play dumb with me, young man." Professor McGonagall's brows drew together even more tightly. "You know what I'm asking. No incantation, no wand—you completed a perfect cross-system transformation of matter, from wood to silver, in an instant. And..."
Her gaze fell upon the exquisite rose carvings circling the end of the needle, so fine they were almost impossible to distinguish with the naked eye. A tremor crept into her voice, one she did not even notice.
"...and you created these additional, complex structures that did not exist before, out of thin air. Tell me, how did you do it?"
That was the heart of the matter!
Turning A into B—that was Transfiguration.
What Lin Yuan had done was turn A into a perfect C, complete with additional components.
This had already touched the edge of the most forbidden and profound laws in the field of Transfiguration.
Faced with the question, Lin Yuan's reaction remained that infuriatingly calm.
He thought seriously for a moment.
Then, in the same plain, matter-of-fact tone he had used in Charms, he slowly said:
"Professor, I merely... imagined it as it should look while I was looking at it."
"..."
Professor McGonagall felt her temples throbbing.
What kind of damned explanation was that?!
"Imagined?" she stressed, a suppressed fury already entering her voice. "The thousands upon thousands of students at Hogwarts are all imagining things! If perfect Transfiguration could be completed through imagination alone, why would they need to work hard and study here for seven years?"
"I think perhaps our imaginations aren't quite the same." Lin Yuan continued without arrogance or humility. "In my understanding, this match and this needle are fundamentally no different."
"No different?" Professor McGonagall felt so exasperated by the student's twisted sophistry that she was almost laughing.
"Yes, no different." Lin Yuan's gaze was clear and certain, as though he were stating the simplest truth. "Whether wood or metal, if you trace them back to the most fundamental level, they are merely different forms aggregated and arranged from the most basic energy according to different rules."
"So what I did was not change it. I merely dismantled the old order that belonged to the wood, then endowed it with a new order belonging to a silver needle."
He paused and lifted his eyes toward Professor McGonagall, who had been rendered completely blank by his astonishing remarks. Then, in an almost innocent tone, he added the fatal blow—one that would have made any master of Transfiguration vomit blood on the spot.
"As for the carving, Professor, I just thought a completely bare needle looked a little dull. So I casually added a small bit of decoration."
"..."
"Casually...?"
"Added... a... little... bit... of... decoration?"
Professor McGonagall felt her brain go blank with a buzz.
Her proud mind, filled with logic and rules, was thoroughly fried at that moment by Lin Yuan's offhand yet utterly subversive remarks.
Dismantling order?
Constructing order?
Casually adding a carving?!
This... this was no longer a discussion of magic.
She stared blankly at the calm-faced eleven-year-old boy before her as an unprecedented sense of helplessness swept over her.
She discovered that she could not refute him at all.
Because from a certain philosophical perspective, everything he had said seemed to be right!
But!
This theory could not be learned, could not be replicated, and could not be written into a textbook!
It was like asking a natural musical prodigy how he had composed a timeless masterpiece, only for him to answer, "I merely wrote down the sounds I heard in my head."
What could you do?
You could do nothing.
This "interrogation" had been destined from the start to become a complete case of talking past each other.
Professor McGonagall fell silent.
She remained silent for a very long time, so long that the position of the sunlight shifted noticeably.
At last, she slowly exhaled a long breath.
That breath carried an exhaustion and frustration she could not put into words.
She conceded.
"All right, Mr. Lin." She spoke again, the oppressive force gone from her voice, leaving only helplessness. "I understand."
No, she did not understand.
She did not understand at all.
But she knew that continuing to ask would yield no results.
She could only find a logical framework of her own to explain everything that had happened to this boy—one she could barely accept.
"This... perhaps this is the legendary... one-in-ten-thousand intuitive spellcasting talent." She murmured as though trying to convince herself. "A natural talent that allows one to resonate with the source of magic—a talent that cannot be explained..."
She placed the perfect silver needle, practically a work of art, back in front of Lin Yuan.
The gesture itself symbolized a kind of acknowledgment and compromise.
"This needle belongs to you." She looked at Lin Yuan with a complicated expression, but in the end, she could not help reverting to her trademark admonishing tone. "Mr. Lin, your talent is something I have never seen in my life. But I must remind you that talent which is too powerful can sometimes become a curse if it is not wielded with humility and reverence. I hope you understand what I mean."
"I understand, Professor." Lin Yuan courteously put away the needle and inclined his head. "Thank you for your instruction."
His obedient, well-behaved appearance forced Professor McGonagall to swallow back the long speech she had prepared about "keeping a low profile" and "hiding one's brilliance."
"All right, you may go." She waved her hand, exhaustion written all over her face.
Lin Yuan rose, bowed to her once more, and then quietly turned to leave the classroom where he had made a name for himself in a single battle.
When the classroom door closed again, Professor McGonagall stood alone in the middle of the empty room, staring at the vacant desk without moving for a long time.
That offhand remark continued to echo in her mind.
"Casually added a small bit of decoration."
At last, she shook her head with a bitter smile. On her usually stern face appeared an extremely rare, helpless smile.
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