The Purpose of the Basilisk's Existence

As he slid down the sloping pipe, Xiwen became unaccustomed to the slippery surface and transformed into his Maledictus Transformation —a small, blue-purple snake with pale white wings —Animagus and flew down the pipe.

Riddle continued sliding forward in front of the small snake, his movements calm and practiced, as if he had done this many times before.

After sliding for an unknown amount of time, Riddle suddenly landed on a flat surface. The water pipe became horizontal, and beyond that was the outlet of the water pipe.

He sat down on the damp ground with a "plop," and although he quickly and skillfully stood up, his school uniform was still covered in sticky dirt.

Following closely behind Riddle, the blue-purple snake that Xiwen had transformed into emerged from the pipe and nimbly landed on the ground in human form. Moreover, he had previously cast Impervius Charm on his shoes, ensuring that not a speck of dirt touched his body, creating a stark contrast to Riddle's somewhat disheveled appearance.

Seeing Riddle take out his wand to clean his clothes, Xiwen also took out his wand and, using the light from his wand's Lumos, began to examine the Chamber of Secrets located several miles below Hogwarts Castle.

This is a dark stone tunnel, large enough for a person to stand upright inside.

The surrounding walls were dark and sticky, making the tunnel appear exceptionally eerie and sinister. Apart from the illumination Lumos on Xiwen's wand, there was no other light source; he could only see a small area in front of him and could not make out the overall layout of the tunnel.

At this moment, Riddle also cleaned his outer robe with Cleaning Charm.

He straightened the wrinkles in his clothes slightly and looked at Xiwen, saying, "Have you ever thought about visiting the Chamber of Secrets the great Salazar Slytherin, Senior Rozier?"

He called out "senior" very loudly at the end, as if venting his resentment towards Xiwen for lecturing him.

Xiwen glanced at Riddle in the dim light and nodded slightly.

"Why not?" he said.

Riddle then led the way to the front of the tunnel, guiding Xiwen towards the depths of the Chamber of Secrets.

The two walked along the road in silence, their footsteps clattering loudly on the damp ground, echoing through the empty tunnel.

They didn't seem like opponents about to face off in a life-or-death duel at all; rather, they looked like an ordinary pair of upperclassmen and underclassmen, walking one after the other down the castle corridor, relaxed and with light steps...

Unlike the torch-lit corridors of the castle, the tunnel was pitch black. Apart from the light- Lumos on Xiwen's wand, there was no other light source. The light from the wand cast Xiwen and Riddle's shadows on the damp walls, making them look like two eerie monsters.

Riddle was extremely familiar with this area, and even in the dark, he could accurately find his way to his destination based on his memory.

However, Xiwen could no longer bear the dark and oppressive environment. He silently raised his wand and used an enhanced version of the Wand Lumos, conjuring a ball of light that followed him and illuminated the surrounding space.

Even in the suddenly brightened environment, the tunnel remained as silent as a tomb, but the eerie atmosphere was somewhat dispelled.

Just then, an unexpected "crack" sound rang out beneath Xiwen's feet.

Xiwen looked down at the ground and realized he had stepped on the skull of a small animal.

Startled, he carefully examined the ground and discovered that not only beneath his feet, but the tunnel was filled with the bones of small animals, seemingly food that the Basilisk had found underground when it awoke from its hibernation.

Xiwen paused for a moment, subconsciously imagining the size of the Basilisk and the size of these small animals. After making the comparison, he couldn't understand how the Basilisk, hidden deep underground for nine hundred years, could have survived by relying on these small creatures.

After all, it's unclear whether the previous Gaunt family descendants failed to discover Salazar Chamber of Secrets, or whether they discovered it but lacked the courage to release the Basilisk. In any case, in the past few hundred to nearly a thousand years, there have been very few incidents of the Basilisk harming people, and the extremely rare occurrences were all in places far away from Hogwarts, definitely not the one we just saw.

It seems that the Basilisk possessed a unique ability to enter a deep hibernation state, reducing its metabolism to almost nonexistent, thus allowing it to survive for nine hundred years.

As for the reason for the formation of those small animal corpses, it's probably either because its energy was about to run out and it had to replenish it; or because a descendant of the Gaunt family did indeed use the Parseltongue to find this place and awaken the Basilisk from its deep hibernation, forcing it to eat some small animals to have enough energy to continue hibernating.

Thinking about this, Xiwen suddenly realized that this Basilisk could easily emerge from the depths of the tunnels into Chamber of Secrets at any time, and could freely traverse the pipes scattered throughout the castle, able to catch and eat any lone wizard at any moment, instead of only being able to find small animals to fill its teeth.

But it never did that!

Aside from being petrified by Tom Riddle, a descendant of the Gaunt family, who used Parseltongue to manipulate it, it has never intentionally done anything bad to harm humans!

Xiwen couldn't help but have some doubts about the significance of the Basilisk's existence.

If its existence was a contingency plan left by Slytherin to eliminate Muggle-born wizards and prevent the wizarding bloodline from being tainted, then the Basilisk could emerge from the Chamber of Secrets at any time and devour any Muggle-born wizard it chooses.

Its ability to appear and disappear without a trace in the pipes makes it difficult to attract attention, and it might even eat people without being discovered by the headmaster and professors of Hogwarts.

So why didn't the Basilisk do that?

Could it be that Salazar Slytherin left this Basilisk there merely as a decoration? That certainly doesn't seem like something a great wizard like Slytherin from a thousand years ago would do.

Therefore, the truth is more likely to be something no one could have imagined: Salazar Slytherin left the Basilisk behind not to eliminate Muggle-born wizard, but more likely to use it as a secret weapon to protect Hogwarts!