Chapter 796
Memory 3
Chapter 796 Memory 3
Which...which year? What kind of question is that?
Jason was slightly taken aback, then suddenly realized something, looked abruptly at his hands, and quickly touched his face.
His skin became more elastic, the wounds and calluses on his hands disappeared, his knuckles were no longer so thick, and his chin, which should have been covered with stubble, was now smooth!
Jason immediately realized—he had become younger!
The thought of the "infant" that had degenerated into a lump of flesh and blood before his eyes sent chills down Jason's spine. Panic engulfed him like a tidal wave, making him forget to speak.
He looked in alarm at the young man with a ponytail in front of him, and saw the man pull out a small wooden stick, point it at his nose, and the nosebleed stopped immediately.
This is a wizard!
"me……"
Jason was trapped in the palm of the hand, and the fear of death made him want to ask the other party for help. But at this moment, the ponytail wizard raised his head, looked behind him, and showed a look of panic!
"careful--!!!"
As the shouts arose, the white mist suddenly spread, and after a moment of shaking, the surrounding scenery transformed into an unfamiliar place.
Wade blinked and saw that Jason was still a twelve or thirteen-year-old child. From his eyes, it was clear that shrinking had not caused Jason's memories to revert to his childhood. He still remembered what had happened to him.
At this moment, he was strapped to a cold metal bed with sturdy leather straps, with a blinding shadowless lamp overhead and various instruments and tubes flashing with unreadable readings all around him.
Wade turned his gaze forward and, unsurprisingly, found that the devastation of the surrounding environment had spread even further. Several people were walking around the room, but only the figure of a wizard dressed in an elegant black robe was still relatively clear.
The wizard was speaking in a low voice to another person:
"...The risks are extremely high, Sir. Time magic is one of the most forbidden areas. Even among the Silent Ones, only a very few are permitted to research it. The slightest mistake will result in...utter chaos..."
"Jazz" snorted and said, "But if you can control that power, then rejuvenation... even resurrection, is not impossible, right? I can see that the sand has that power!"
“Yes, you’re right.” The wizard bowed slightly and said, “But this is also the area most closely monitored by the Magic Council. Any slight fluctuation in time will be detected by the Department of Mysteries, and we’ll probably be exposed very soon…”
"One hundred million, US dollars."
The words that reached the wizard's ears immediately brought him to a halt.
The gentleman paused, then continued, "This is your personal compensation."
The wizard's breathing suddenly became rapid.
The man continued, "Furthermore, I'm prepared to invest 500 million initially in this project. If it yields results... 1 billion, 2 billion... no problem."
His voice was laced with laughter and seduction: "Although this is ordinary people's paper money, you should already be well aware of the purchasing power of the US dollar."
"No matter what kind of money it is, its ultimate purpose is the same... Think about it, how many years would you have to work in the magical world to accumulate the same amount of wealth?"
“Never!” the wizard said resentfully in a low voice. “Even if I could work for five hundred years without eating or drinking, I still couldn’t save up that much money.”
The knight chuckled, “The magical world is, after all, a closed society. How can your few tens of thousands of people entertaining themselves in America compare to the enormous wealth brought by billions of people worldwide?”
The wizard fell silent.
He remained silent not because he opposed it, but because he deeply agreed with it, yet subconsciously did not want to admit it.
After a moment, the jazz asked, "So...can you do it?"
After thinking for a moment, he added, "Don't worry about touching any taboos of the Magic Congress or that international wizarding organization. The world is vast, and I don't believe wizards can monitor every corner."
A few seconds later, the wizard suddenly said, "At sea."
Jazz: "Hmm?"
The wizard said, "No magical organization has the ability to monitor the entire vast ocean."
"I need more samples, more data, and more in-depth research... Time magic is the most uncontrollable form of magic, and to avoid failure, we must be fully prepared..."
His voice gradually lowered, turning into a more indistinct whisper.
Jason tried to open his eyes wide to hear what the other person was saying, but under the influence of the drugs, he uncontrollably fell into a drowsy state.
Then Wade could no longer hear what the two were saying. The surrounding scenery flashed and jumped around rapidly like a carousel, and the fragmented images made him feel as if he were in a bizarre dream.
He saw the soldier with the missing arm scream as he turned into a one-armed baby, and just as he let out a cry, he disappeared from the platform.
He also saw a emaciated woman banging on the glass door, but her movements were like an extremely slow dance, with her eyes and body movements completely out of sync.
There was also an old man wearing a respirator. When the golden sand fell on him, he instantly turned into bones, then instantly became an infant again. His body rapidly grew taller and he became a teenager. Before he could even show a happy expression, he turned back into a seriously ill old man who was about to die.
The cycle repeats itself endlessly... there is no escape.
Soon, no matter what stage of life that person was in, his expression was always the same: pain and despair. He pleaded, "Stop, let me die!"
However, those around him remained completely unmoved.
These fragmented pieces are filled with screams, distortions, and pain, intermittently accompanied by the researcher's voice, which is always equally cold.
Many people became expendable, but for some reason, Jensen was lucky... or rather unlucky enough to survive every cruel experiment and live on.
After an unknown amount of time, the scene changed again.
Wade stood beside the seemingly endless highway and saw the ponytail wizard carrying Jason, who still looked like a child, running.
His face was pale and exhausted, but his eyes were unusually firm. He gasped for breath and said intermittently, "Hang in there, kid...we'll...we'll shake those guys off soon!"
Jason kept his mouth tightly shut, not daring to reveal his identity. Wade, standing by the roadside, clearly saw the emotions hidden in his eyes—struggle, guilt, a desire to live, and an even deeper despair.
"Ha!" The ponytail wizard spat out blood, forcing a smile as he said, "Once we escape, we'll go to England... to find Dumbledore! He's the most powerful wizard, he can definitely..."
boom! boom! boom!
A gunshot rang out clearly from behind!
Before the ponytail wizard could finish speaking, his body jolted violently, and he looked down in disbelief to see blood gushing out instantly.
His stomach and chest were pierced by bullets.
The young wizard's eyes quickly glazed over, his arm loosened its grip on Jason, and he collapsed to his knees, falling heavily to the ground.
"No! No! No!" Jansen lunged forward, grabbing his shoulders, then pressed his small hands against the bleeding wound, crying out, "Don't die! Use your magic to heal the wound quickly!"
The sound of a car engine rapidly approached them from behind.
The ponytail wizard's dying gaze focused on Jason's terrified little face, and with her last bit of strength, she managed to force a smile.
"Run!...Survive!"
Before he could finish speaking, the light in his eyes went out completely, and the world in Jason's memory suddenly turned black.
White mist drifted in and then dispersed, but the memories in the Pensieve remained pitch black.
It wasn't until he heard a girl sobbing that Wade realized—
It's not that this memory has completely collapsed, but rather that Jason, who left behind the memory... is probably no longer able to see it.
For a blind person, the world feels utterly nonexistent. Therefore, there is no "light or shadow" around Wade at this moment, nor can he see people or objects; only intermittent sounds. A girl is crying, her cries sounding incredibly sorrowful, as if she has lost the most important person in her life.
Then, Jason's voice came out intermittently:
"No...it's no use...you can't save me...and...I can't save him either...I'm sorry..."
He said in a barely audible voice:
“Listen to me…take it…take all…my memories…I know you…have this…magic…”
"No, I can't do it," the girl cried. "I've just started learning memory magic... If I were to perform it, I wouldn't be able to extract all the memories! And... and it would cause serious damage to your brain..."
“It doesn’t matter,” Jason said haltingly. “I don’t care… anyway… anyway I’m going to die… but it can’t… it can’t be that no one knows… what happened there…”
Therefore, entrusting this heavy and terrifying memory to someone else became his only obsession before his death.
"I beg you……"
Jason pleaded, "Just for him... Before he died, he was thinking about... finding someone named Dumbledore..."
Jason's breathing grew weaker and weaker, and finally, the girl choked out her agreement.
She raised her wand and uttered a complex and lengthy incantation in a trembling voice.
Wade could tell that she wasn't being modest; she was indeed very bad at memorizing magic, and she couldn't pronounce at least three syllables of a spell correctly.
Wizards of stellar skill, such as Snape or Slughorn, can extract memories from others without even needing to chant spells.
If Jason hadn't been so determined to relinquish his memories, easily resonating with the girl's spell, the incantation might have failed.
And in the next instant, this void world suddenly lit up faintly—
Accompanied by a cold sense of detachment, a fragile, seemingly fragile silver substance floats like a ribbon in the world of memory.
Wade also saw Jason, who was almost unrecognizable when he first appeared, but quickly returned to normal—he hadn't shrunk, had no wounds, and naturally, no bloodstains.
The young soldier opened his eyes, sat up from the ground, looked around in confusion at first, then looked down at his clothes and hands, touched his undamaged legs, and then touched his eyes.
Wade watched his actions silently, his mind filled with immense questions—
what happened?
Could this also be a memory from that time?
Just as he was wondering what was going on, Jason stood up, straightened his hat, and turned his head to meet Wade's gaze!
In that instant, Wade felt a chill run down his spine!
Jason, however, was completely oblivious to this. He asked in confusion, "Child, who are you?"
After a pause, he asked again, "Where is this place? The afterlife? Are you the Grim Reaper?"
"you……"
Wade felt his throat go dry, and he asked in a hoarse voice with difficulty, "What do you remember?"
"Me? I seem to... remember everything?" Jason exclaimed in shock. "Could it be that the girl's magic failed? She didn't extract my memories?"
Wade: "..."
“No.” He tried to keep his tone steady. “She succeeded. We’ve received everything you wanted to convey.”
"really?"
Jason showed no doubt whatsoever, as if he knew Wade was telling the truth.
The young soldier beamed: "So it really got through! That's great! By the way... who are you?"
"I'm……"
Wade was about to say his name when he suddenly remembered that Jason, being an ordinary person, probably hadn't heard of the name "Wade Gray".
So he said, “I am Dumbledore’s man… He wants to know what happened.”
"Dumbledore?!" Jason exclaimed with delight. "Great! With the most powerful wizard involved, those villains will surely be punished, right?"
Wade looked at the person opposite him and felt that his appearance was both familiar and unfamiliar.
The familiarity stemmed from the fact that in the Pensieve, Wade had been looking at his memories for a long time, and could almost picture Jason's appearance in his mind with his eyes closed.
The reason he seemed unfamiliar was that the man before him, Jensen, showed none of the cowardice or fear he displayed on the battlefield, nor the despair and grief he later displayed. Instead, he seemed like an ordinary person who had laid down all burdens and was cheerful and enthusiastic.
It looks a bit like the appearance of that ponytail wizard.
His words, his demeanor, and the smile on his face all seemed light and airy, almost unreal.
—What the hell is going on here?
Wade almost swore. He squeezed his palms hard to suppress the unspeakable panic in his heart and keep his mind clear.
Just then, Jason suddenly said, "Ah, I have to go."
"Leave?" Wade said instinctively.
“Yes!” Jason pointed to a spot not far away and said with a smile, “Look, that’s calling me!”
When Vader looked over, he saw nothing but emptiness—neither darkness nor light, but a scene that seemed to exist only in the universe, with nowhere to land, no matter up, down, left, or right.
“I’m going to move on!” Jason invited warmly, “Would you like to come along?”
“No!” Wade swallowed hard. “Dumbledore is waiting for me to bring the intelligence back!”
"Ah, right... I completely forgot!" Jason scratched his head sheepishly and said, "Well... I wish you all the best?"
“…Thank you, we will do our best,” Wade said cautiously.
"Then I'll leave it all to you!" Jason waved his hand and said, "We'll meet again someday, won't we? Haha!"
He walked briskly toward the void, his figure quickly swallowed up by the invisible mist.
Only then did Wade breathe a sigh of relief; his back was soaked with cold sweat.
(End of this chapter)