Torn Apart

"I hope you won't be crying when the time comes! Goodbye!"

After saying goodbye, Hermione made no move to leave. She stood there, staring blankly at Li Mu. Her eyes were red-rimmed, as though tears shimmered within them. Li Mu looked at Hermione helplessly, gave her an apologetic smile, and gently shook his head.

On this matter, Hermione was clearly more rational than Harry and Ron. If she had not cared about them, why would she have taken the initiative after several days of cold war? Unfortunately, Li Mu truly could do nothing about it. He had no hope of reasoning with an eleven-year-old Ron, especially while Ron was irrationally angry.

"Punished?... That's what you said during Flying Class too." Sure enough, Ron now seemed to want Hermione to get sick with anger. He even deliberately mimicked her tone in a strange voice, his face full of mockery. "Oh, Madam Hooch will expel you!—But look at things now?"

Ron pointed at the Nimbus 2000 in Harry's hands. "Listen, Harry got into the Quidditch team! The youngest Seeker in a century!"

When Ron brought up Flying Class, Harry lowered his head awkwardly.

"So you think this is a reward for breaking school rules!?" Hermione gritted her teeth. "You'll regret it! I guarantee it!"

She did not wait for Ron to reply. With a sharp turn of her head, she hugged her books and stomped away.

"Hey, Hermione..." Li Mu called out. But Hermione ignored even him. Her back grew straighter and straighter as she left without looking back.

"She's finally gone." Ron actually looked relieved. "Being around her really feels awful."

"All right, you'll be glad. Maybe you'll never feel that way again." Li Mu looked in the direction Hermione had gone and sighed. "Maybe Harry and I won't either."

"Isn't that a good thing? She's always so bossy and arrogant, always ordering people around like she—"

Ron did not finish, because he saw Li Mu had already started moving. Without saying a word, he calmly headed after Hermione and disappeared in the direction she had gone.

Ron pursed his lips, then turned to Harry in confusion. "What's with him now?..."

The famous Savior stood there helplessly. Standing before one of his friends, he felt utterly alone and cold. His friends were falling apart. He could feel it clearly. He had not caused it, yet he was completely powerless to stop it.

After running to the end of the corridor and climbing a short flight of stairs, Li Mu stopped outside a washroom on the second floor. A skirt symbol was painted on the door. It was for girls.

He took a breath, closed his eyes to sense the area for a moment, then finally gritted his teeth and rushed inside. The washroom was quiet. Only faint sobbing could be heard from the stall at the very back.

Hermione was indeed here, hiding in the innermost stall and crying quietly. Although the course of "history" had veered somewhat off track, his companions' natures were hard to change. Ron was still the same childish, reckless Ron, and Hermione was still the Hermione who was proud and strong before others, yet hid in the bathroom to cry in private.

"Hermione, are you all right? Can I come in?" Li Mu took another breath and asked softly.

The sobbing stopped at once.

After a long while, Hermione's voice finally came from inside the stall, tinged with panic. "Li Mu?... No, this is the girls' washroom. How did you..."

"This washroom is usually empty, isn't it?" Li Mu smiled, took two steps forward, and stopped outside the stall door. "I heard at the beginning of term that the girls' washroom on the second floor was haunted. No, I should say it had a ghost."

There was a click from the stall door, then it opened, revealing Hermione's little head of thick, messy brown hair. "You... why did you come?"

There was a way in! Conversation was the foundation of communication and understanding. Since Hermione was willing to respond to him, she was not angry enough to lose her mind completely. Li Mu looked at her delicate face. Her eyes were bright red, and a trace of tears still lingered at the corners.

"Don't be angry, and don't be sad..." Seeing Hermione's vulnerable appearance, Li Mu could not help comforting her gently. Though she was still only an eleven-year-old girl, he could not stop a feeling of tenderness from rising in his heart.

Maybe even though I've lived two lives after coming here, I'm still being affected by this eleven-year-old body... Even my taste in beauty is developing in the direction of liking little girls.

"If you came to apologize on Ron's behalf..." Hermione looked at Li Mu, then avoided his gaze, lifted her chin, and continued pretending to be angry. "Then you should leave. I won't forgive them!"

Well then... she had really started resenting Harry Potter too. Poor Savior. Li Mu smiled and shook his head. "No, I came to answer your questions."

"Answer my questions?"

"Yes. Don't you want to know? Why, when you clearly meant well, Ron and the others were so unappreciative, impatient, and even disliked you?"

Hermione's eyes lit up. In an instant, she cast all her emotions aside. She stared intently at Li Mu, her gaze filled with nothing but thirst for knowledge.

Li Mu secretly laughed. He had found the right approach. To comfort someone, wasn't the most important thing to appeal to what they liked and tell them what they wanted to hear? Hermione's immense desire for all kinds of knowledge was precisely her weak point.

"You know about the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China, right?" After quickly organizing his thoughts, Li Mu asked. He decided to use an example as his entry point and reason things out with her. Whether it would work or not was beside the point. As long as he could guide Hermione out of her sorrow and resentment, that would be enough.

Little Hermione was indeed led along by Li Mu. She quickly nodded. Born into a Muggle family, Hermione had studied ordinary history and knew something about the famous China of Eastern culture. Li Mu continued.

"Historical records say that during the Three Kingdoms period, something like this happened—at the time, the warlord Yuan Shao wanted to attack another warlord, Cao Cao. His adviser Tian Feng tried to stop him, saying that Cao Cao was unpredictable in battle and that attacking rashly would most likely end in failure. It would be better to wage a prolonged war. Yuan Shao refused to listen, and Tian Feng repeatedly remonstrated with him. Yuan Shao became even angrier, accused Tian Feng of disrupting morale, and had him imprisoned. In the end, the war developed exactly as Tian Feng had predicted. Yuan Shao's army suffered a crushing defeat and returned. Everyone believed that if Yuan Shao had listened to Tian Feng, there would have been no such defeat... Can you guess what happened to Tian Feng in the end?"

"Since he was proven to be a capable and farsighted minister, he was probably valued and promoted afterward..." Hermione rolled her eyes as she thought, then answered, though she sounded somewhat uncertain. "...right?"

Sure enough, young people were still too naive. Would being talented mean you would be valued? Would doing the right thing lead to the right outcome?... Her thinking was still far too simple.

"You're wrong." Li Mu smiled and shook his head.

(End of Chapter)