I want to learn...

Hagrid finally agreed to Zhang Xiao's request, which delighted him. He decided to contact his parents that evening and ask them to send some seeds over.

On the way back to the castle, Harry said nothing about what had happened in Diagon Alley that day. Perhaps it was because Hagrid had told him not to spread it around. Harry really had done well on that front.

Their pockets were stuffed with heavy Rock Cakes. Ron muttered that they could even serve as weapons, provided you could hit an enemy squarely in the head with one.

The two boys were fascinated by the food Zhang Xiao had described and kept asking questions. Meanwhile, Zhang Xiao was once again shocked by the lack of variety in British cuisine. Although he had lived in Britain for over ten years, he really had hardly ever eaten out.

He had always eaten home-cooked meals with his parents. On the rare occasions they ate local food, it was like having McDonald's or KFC: just something to try for a change.

Since he still had time, Zhang Xiao also went to see Professor Sprout and asked her for some tips on quickly propagating ordinary plants. The plump, kindly head of Hufflepuff was very warm toward him.

She even awarded Slytherin five points to commend his dedication and enthusiasm for botany.

And so Zhang Xiao returned laden with rewards. As soon as dinner ended, he hurried back to his dormitory. After rummaging through his little bag for quite some time, he finally found a bronze mirror among a pile of odds and ends.

Malfoy had eaten too many fancy sweets sent from home that afternoon. Now he lay on his bed, bored, reading the comics Zhang Xiao had lent him.

He was always complaining, "I can't believe Muggle books don't even move!" and "I can't understand why anyone would like such monotonous picture books."

In private, however, he devoured them. Draco had already reread all twenty-six published volumes of Dragon Ball several times.

One piece of evidence was that Zhang Xiao had caught him secretly researching whether the Wizarding World had a kind of bean that could keep someone full for ten days and heal every injury.

Another compelling piece of evidence came when Malfoy argued with a pure-blood in Ravenclaw whom he disliked and blurted out, "You're trash with a power level of only five."

Unfortunately, his opponent failed to understand the mockery and insult in those words. Apart from Zhang Xiao, only Harry and Ron got it, and both burst out laughing.

Malfoy thought he had found kindred spirits, but the moment the three boys met one another's eyes, the feeling was... well, even Zhang Xiao found it awkward.

Seeing Zhang Xiao mysteriously produce a brass mirror, Malfoy immediately perked up. He tossed aside the volume of Dragon Ball he practically knew by heart, leaned over, and drawled:

"What's that? A magic mirror?"

By now, he dared not underestimate anything Zhang Xiao brought out. He always felt that Zhang Xiao might produce something astonishingly valuable at any moment.

"A Far-Seeing Mirror. You can think of it as an alchemical item. You can use it to contact whoever holds the other mirror."

Malfoy fell silent. A Two-Way Mirror?!

He knew the Wizarding World had similar things, but the truth was that the method for making those mirrors had been lost. They were extraordinarily precious.

Malfoy had only ever heard his father mention that the ancient Black family still possessed a pair of Two-Way Mirrors.

Another extraordinarily precious magical artifact!

That was rather an overestimate. Although Far-Seeing Mirrors were fairly precious in the Mystic Order, they were nowhere near as expensive as Malfoy imagined. Unlike Two-Way Mirrors, they required a spell to work.

Zhang Xiao set the mirror in place, formed a hand seal as his parents had taught him, and recited, "Radiance of the jade wheel, full and undiminished!"

Then he lightly touched the mirror's surface with a finger. A faint white glow immediately rose from it, rippling like still water disturbed: a Daoist Order spell, the Fingertip Circular Light Technique.

Unfortunately, Zhang Xiao's cultivation was not quite up to scratch. The mirror behaved like a device with poor reception, showing almost no picture. Only a voice came through:

"Xiaoxiao?"

Zhang Xiao hurriedly answered, "Mum, it's me. Where are you? Why is the wind so loud?"

"Oh, your dad and I are up in the sky."

"Up in the sky??? What are you doing up there?"

Zhang Chengdao's voice cut in amid the howling wind. "It's all because of you, you little rascal. Your mum said all the other children have owls, so you should have one too. That way, we can send you letters and things."

"Then why not just buy one?" Zhang Xiao was even more puzzled.

"That's exactly what I said! But your mum insisted they weren't imposing enough. She said owls looked like fat chickens and told me to catch a Gyrfalcon. We're over by the Outer Khingan Range catching one right now!

"An ordinary one won't do, either. It has to be a magnificent specimen with pure-white feathers and jade talons! I've been wandering around these parts for days!

"I originally thought I'd ask the immortal cranes on the mountain, but none of them wanted to come. They either disliked the weather or thought it was too far away. Being too clever makes them hard to sweet-talk!"

Zhang Xiao: "..."

From the other side of the mirror came Zhang Chengdao's exaggerated cries. "Ow, darling! I was wrong, I was wrong!

"No, I absolutely wasn't saying you were making unnecessary trouble. I genuinely want to get our son a Gyrfalcon."

Wait, those owls have all been magically trained. Would a Gyrfalcon work? Still, his dad knew more about the Wizarding World than he did, so he probably knew whom to ask to train it.

Once they landed, Zhang Xiao told them about what had happened recently. His parents applauded when he described stopping the pure-bloods from bullying the new Slytherin students.

If you saw evil and did not step forward to stop it, what was the point of cultivating the Dao? What was the Dao?

Besides being the truth of heaven and earth, the Dao was also ordinary people's yearning for everything good. It was simple justice and reason, punishing evil and promoting good, acting chivalrously, safeguarding the mortal world, and upholding heaven and earth.

Of course, settling things through private fights was no longer acceptable, but you could still stand up for what was right.

Finally, after discussing the seeds with his parents, Zhang Xiao cheerfully hung up the phone... ended the call.

Beside him, Malfoy had listened to the entire conversation without understanding a word. He stared blankly at Zhang Xiao. As a wealthy boy who had received an excellent education from an early age,

Malfoy was proficient in several languages, including German, Italian, Spanish, and Latin.

But he had never studied Chinese. He had never even heard it spoken.

"Does everyone where you're from talk like that? It sounds like singing."

Singing? Zhang Xiao had never imagined that this was how Chinese sounded to foreigners. "We were just having a quick chat."

Malfoy suddenly became interested. He leaned closer and asked:

"Your family has such a long history. You must use a special aristocratic language, right? Can I learn it?"

"It's not an aristocratic language. It's just Chinese. Over a billion people use it." Smiling, Zhang Xiao put the Far-Seeing Mirror back into his little bag. After a moment's thought, he took out paper and a pen and asked:

"Do you really want to learn? If you do, I can teach you."

Malfoy looked utterly incredulous. His voice was thick with skepticism as he said:

"Impossible. Your country is so big. How could it have only one language? Europe has loads of languages, and it's that big! You must be lying to me."

Zhang Xiao shrugged and glanced at him. "Why would I lie to you? There are different dialects, but those are regional differences, just like the difference between how people speak in Scotland and England.

"If one of your ancestors had unified Europe, and it had stayed mostly unified for the next two thousand years, Europe would only have one language too."

Malfoy fell silent. Clearly, that had hit a sore spot again. Looking dejected and upset, he bit his lip and stood there in a daze for a while.

Zhang Xiao sighed. There were plenty of things the West did very well in Muggle society. At the very least, they had good reason to be proud of their modern history.

Yet wizards had drawn a line between themselves and Muggles. They identified as citizens of their countries, while refusing to identify with those countries' Muggles.

As a result, wizards could share in none of the glory Muggles had created. The most obvious example was the American Ministry of Magic.

Compared with its country's Muggles, it was worlds apart. Both had suffered terrorist attacks, yet the American Ministry of Magic had not dared make a peep and had even relied on Britain for revenge...

And the very things wizards valued-history, heritage, and culture-were precisely China's greatest strengths. It would have been stranger if Malfoy had not felt stung by the inadvertent boasting.

"Do you still want to learn Chinese?"

A trace of bewilderment appeared on Malfoy's pale face. He looked at Zhang Xiao, his lips moving hesitantly, and asked quietly:

"You said... I could find answers to all my questions in China's history..."

Zhang Xiao thought for a moment, then answered earnestly:

"Not every question. But I think most of yours could be answered. For example, why we don't discriminate against Muggles, or why we don't care about bloodlines..."

"All right, I'll learn!"