HP: At the beginning, I influenced Snape's childhood.

In the blink of an eye, the black robe had vanished from sight. Lin Mo paused for a moment, then took a step and followed. In the Great Hall, Professor Flitwick nodded with satisfaction, while Dumbledore narrowed his eyes, deep in thought.

Snape took long strides, his long legs moving quickly, as if he were walking forward recklessly.

Compared to Snape, Lin Mo didn't walk very fast; in fact, it was quite slow for him. Lin Mo was usually a person who walked with long strides and no hesitation, but now he slowed down his pace.

What should he say when they meet? What should he say? Should he thank him or apologize? Lin Mo had no idea. He even thought the other party would just throw him out of the cellar, and he had already thought of the reason for it—to disturb the professor's rest.

The distance was the same, but the speed and starting time were different. This resulted in Snape already being back in the cellar, while Lin Mo was still wandering halfway there.

Suddenly realizing he was walking aimlessly, Lin Mo stopped and turned to walk towards the opposite side of the cellar.

Having found his destination, Lin Mo arrived quickly...

That was the night Lin Mo first saw the Mirror of Erised, the night he walked out of the house and saw Snape.

Lin Mo took a few steps forward and stood in the spot where Snape had stood. Hogwarts at night was quiet and still.

It was still early, and the banquet was only halfway through. Unlike the late night of the last night tour, there were still some lights in the corridor, but they were dim and not very bright.

But Lin Mo felt it was too bright; he preferred darkness in this environment. So he raised his hand and waved, extinguishing the nearby fire and darkening the surroundings.

This place seems to be no different from last time, except that the person in this position has changed.

Indistinctly, the silhouettes seemed to overlap.

They are the same kind, the same kind of people. Equally powerful, equally lonely.

They are so alike, seemingly always the same person, but perhaps they have long been accustomed to solitude, and their empty, hollow silhouettes do not appear desolate.

At night, a breeze blew through the window, ruffling the boy's hair, making it sway gently before falling back down.

If Snape were here, he would deny the resemblance between the two without hesitation. In Snape's heart, this boy would never be as dirty as him, because this boy... like the former Mo, was the first ray of light in his life, a light that belonged only to him.

Lin Mo looked up at the moon. Thick, continuous dark clouds obscured the moon's clear light shining down on the world, leaving Lin Mo to enjoy the moon's pure and flawless beauty alone.

Lin Mo's thoughts were a bit jumbled. He remembered the letter Bai Ze had sent a few days ago. It was a letter from his older brother, but there was also a piece of paper tucked inside.

The paper contained only three simple words: "Old friends return."

Lin Mo's pupils contracted slightly when he saw those three words; he knew very well whose handwriting it was.

He knew that person's handwriting all too well.

Lin Mo's posture remained unchanged; he kept looking in the direction of the moon, softly murmuring: "Brother Ziqin..."

Memories flooded back all at once: a dark childhood, joining the Night Dragons, training, graduation, missions, hunts, gaining trust, infiltrating, gaining trust, gaining trust, gaining trust…

The endless pursuit of trust continues until... the final explosion that ends everything.

No one knows, and perhaps no one ever will, how much each spy paid for the simple phrase "gaining trust."

What does it mean to gain trust? It means to be suspicious and distrustful, and then, in order to prove oneself and continue to lie low, one can only kill the exposed comrades with one's own hands.

God knows how much they sacrificed for this line.

God knows how many of them sacrificed their lives to create a king of spies.

Heaven knows how agonizing and painful it was for Lin Mo to personally cause the sacrifice of his comrades.

...What does "God knows" mean? It means that no one but themselves will know about their achievements and their sacrifices. Because they were spies, they were prepared to disappear for life and be cursed by others for life when they chose this path.

Killing enemies didn't frighten Lin Mo, nor did it cause him any guilt or torment. He even wished he could kill more. He had crawled out of piles of corpses and was used to seeing mountains of bodies and seas of blood.

But what if the other party is a comrade-in-arms?

What should he, Lin Mo, do?

What can we do?

Kill me! Aren't you so capable? Why can't you bring yourself to do it? Where's your cold-bloodedness? Where's your ruthlessness?

But he wasn't a monster devoid of humanity...

But I had to keep going. I swallowed my teeth, blood and all, and endured my broken bones.

Even if your teeth are crushed and your spine is broken, you still have to keep going, keep going!

How could Lin Mo simply abandon the path paved with the lives of countless people? How could he, and how dare he?

Once you take the first step on this path, there's no turning back.

Even if the number of comrades' lives on his shoulders increases to the point that he himself loathes his own existence, what can he do?

Countless days and nights, only the lives of countless comrades could awaken his belief in continuing to live.

Survive, survive, complete the mission, achieve victory... and then what? Then quietly perish together.

The one who deserves respect and reward is not him, not Lin Mo, but his comrade-in-arms.

Time and again, scene after scene. Every time Lin Mo "gained trust," he even hoped that his comrades would not know his true identity.

Yes, I am utterly wicked; I am a killing machine.

You hate me...

Unfortunately, all his comrades were intelligent men. They had bright eyes and clear minds, as if they had supernatural vision. They could all see that the person who killed them was their comrade before they sacrificed themselves.

Because they knew that their comrades were different from those dark forces. Those who willingly succumbed to darkness would never understand what it meant to have loyal bones buried everywhere in the green hills... It's just a pity that Lin Mo would never know that in the eyes of his comrades, he was a hero who guided the way in the darkness.

Therefore, they had no regrets, and even when they sacrificed themselves, their eyes were filled with a sense of entrustment.

But Lin Mo didn't want it to be like this, she didn't want it to be like this.

Please, hate me, it'll make me feel a little better... Why, why don't you hate me...?

If you hate me, perhaps I can numb my pain, see myself as that dark monster, and perhaps I won't have to let my remaining conscience suffer the agony of being devoured by a thousand ants.

Even he himself didn't know how much of his comrades' blood was on his hands; he could never atone for his sins...

Brother Ziqin... Tang Ziqin, codename Chen, lurking in the shadows, known as Tang Chen.

The two were the first to recognize each other's identities and were the closest and most trustworthy people to each other, but on the surface, they were always at odds.

Before that final battle, Tang Ziqin had already sacrificed himself, killed by Lin Mo.

He wasn't mistaken; Ziqin's eyes were smiling before he died.

He often wondered why Ziqin didn't hold on a little longer, so he could finish his final mission immediately and all of them, the undercover agents, wouldn't have to sacrifice themselves.

But in that last glance, Lin Mo understood that people like them all had one thought in their minds—they had spilled too much blood and could never repay it.

For them, this was actually a relief.

……

Lin Mo squeezed his eyes shut; his temples throbbed. The handwriting was Ziqin's; he couldn't possibly be mistaken.

An old friend has returned... An old friend has returned...

Gazing at the sky, Lin Mo's lips curled into a self-deprecating, ironic smile. In the dead of night, would he still dream of those comrades, those... comrades who had risked their lives to build him up?

He had entered a dead end. Their original intention was to create a prosperous world with thousands of houses, but he took all the blame upon himself.

All the fog will eventually dissipate, because there will never be a worse moment than now.

Be patient and wait.

The dark clouds were slowly blown away by the wind, and finally the long-awaited moonlight appeared... After waiting for the clouds to part, the moon will shine.

Author's note: I haven't experienced it myself, and what I've written may be quite extreme. Part of the reason is for the sake of the character setting, but I still want to express my respect for such unsung heroes.

I'm dying of laughter. I didn't check the Chinese calendar when I went out today.