From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

In the faculty lounge, the alchemy professor listened to William recount the amusing events of the morning with a mischievous grin—which made Adams, who was listening with great interest, grimac.

"There's nothing wrong with the rooster."

"Yes, whether it's a rooster or a hen, it's just food."

"Exactly, it's just some roosters, nothing really interesting."

Adams' calm response earned him serious agreement from his two colleagues—at least in terms of attitude, William and Singed both had serious expressions.

“William!”

"Hmm, what's wrong, Adams? Do you feel like you're under some kind of curse?"

William looked serious, then pulled out a handful of amulets from his usual desk—teaching aids he had used in class before, which had been taken over as a joke and then left there.

"Look, this is a top-quality amulet. It's something that you couldn't get for a pile of Galleons. For the sake of our past friendship, you can choose one."

William's words were full of regret that the priceless treasure had now been exchanged for gold coins.

"Give me one, I've been having trouble sleeping lately, I have headaches, and my nose is dry..."

Singid approached with a serious expression, picking through the pile of counterfeit goods like a tourist browsing souvenirs on the street.

So Adams stormed off in a huff.

But this wasn't the end of it. Although William didn't seem to want to continue the joke, Singed seemed to have gotten hooked. In less than half a day, he had even come up with several jokes.

Unfortunately, Hagrid's side provided a helpful assist, just as he said, these roosters were bought to make up for the poor hospitality last time.

At noon, Hagrid asked a student to invite Professor Adams to eat chicken. The jokes that had finally stopped continued with this invitation—after the student who delivered the message left, William and Singed hugged each other and laughed.

-

How was lunch?

"Fortunately, Hagrid's cooking is a little better than I expected—though only by a little bit."

Adams responded quietly, saying that although it was inappropriate to comment on the host's cooking skills after being treated to such hospitality, Hufflepuff was, after all, a house with a whole bookshelf of cookbooks in the lounge.

Although Adams didn't think much of Hagrid's cooking, Hagrid seemed to feel that a chicken wasn't enough to make up for the poor hospitality he had received last time.

In the evening, another student timidly entered the office and informed Professor Adams that Hagrid had prepared a unique dinner for him.

"A dinner party?"

The three professors exchanged glances, their faces filled with curiosity.

"Who invites someone out both day and night? Especially not just for a meal!"

Although Adams was also quite surprised by the invitation, he politely asked his student to inform the student that he would definitely keep the appointment on time.

"Adams, has Hagrid kept some strange, magical creature, the kind that eats herbs?"

William curiously raised his own question.

“Shut up, William. Hogwarts doesn’t need magical creatures like that. Otherwise, I wouldn’t stop even if the fight reached Professor Dumbledore.”

Adams looked serious, as if he would fight anyone who dared to support him.

His posture made Singid, who was about to make sarcastic remarks, abandon his plan to continue teasing him.

-

'I woke up too late, it's noon now?'

On Wednesday morning, as William floated to the cafeteria with a polite smile and as he drifted along with the students who greeted him, he suddenly saw Singed sitting there.

This discovery startled William, who was already feeling sleepy from staying up too late to prepare exam papers, awakening him completely.

"I only dozed off for a moment after the alarm went off, it wasn't that long, how come it's already noon?"

He's starting to regret it now—he had no classes all day Wednesday, which would have been a good day for either entertainment or reading, but he just wasted the time in bed.

Although wasting time on things he enjoys isn't a waste, he still carries a curse on him, so how can he have much time to relax?

Just as William was blaming himself, he suddenly noticed that the other professors at the table all looked surprised, as if a miracle had suddenly happened that day.

After paying a little attention to the time, William instantly understood what had happened that day.

Professor Singed, unusually, got up very early and successfully made it to Hogwarts breakfast.

Getting up so early was clearly quite unusual for the alchemy professor; in that short time, William saw him yawn three or four times at the dinner table.

'What happened? Did Mischievous Ghost sneak into his lounge to play a prank? Was he sleepwalking? Was he woken up by the students?'

Countless thoughts raced through William's mind—this was the first time he had seen Singed at breakfast since the start of the semester, something that seemed even more unbelievable than the murdered rooster.

"Adams, you ate two of their chickens."

Professor Singed yawned and looked tired as he mocked Adams.

"Singed? You didn't get enough rest?"

Adams ignored the mockery and looked concerned. Not to mention William, this was the first time in nearly five years that he had seen Singed at the breakfast table.

"I'm fine, I just haven't slept yet."

Singid wore an expression that said he didn't care about these details, his face displaying a complex mix of excitement and weariness.

'What great discovery has this been made?'

The first thought that popped into William's mind was that alchemy was both the most expensive and the most profitable discipline.

Despite being one of the younger professors, and even able to get along well with William, the new professor, Singed has far more work experience than William and Adams combined.

While William's work experience was hardly anything to boast about, Singed's was solid—while others relied on time, this alchemy professor relied entirely on overtime.

The term "alchemy" has two meanings: first, it refers to the ultimate goal of alchemy, which is to refine gold; second, it naturally refers to burning money as if gold were the raw material.

What legendary magical equipment has been produced, the kind that can be passed down through generations?

'A new alchemical route has been discovered?'

'Did you improve upon the original alchemical methods?'

Although these achievements sound outrageous, they don't seem out of place at all when applied to professors at Hogwarts—aside from William, who was brought in to fill in, which professor isn't a top-tier professional?

William's heart also stirred with excitement. Although those achievements had nothing to do with him, he was genuinely happy for Singed.

'Staying up all night for this was totally worth it!'

William thought to himself, then looked at Professor Singed with a half-admiring gaze as he pulled out a piece of paper.

He smiled and handed it to Adams, smugly indicating that Adams could now look at it.

William couldn't resist leaning closer for a peek. It was a bit impolite, but he was genuinely curious—what great discovery could it be?

Then, he and Adams were both stunned.

On the paper were a dozen or so jokes that had been made up.

To be precise, it's about a dozen jokes about Adams.

Chapter 121 When Adams slipped away

"No, Singed—"

Adams himself was furious. "It's one thing for you to suddenly appear and scare me first thing in the morning, but what's the point of making up such a joke?"

These jokes can make me laugh all night!

Is the ship of friendship so easily capsized?

Not to mention Adams himself, even William, who was just observing, was getting a little angry at this moment—is this all you've shown us?

I know making jokes is fun—but you might as well learn from me and make some test papers. It may not be as technically sophisticated as alchemy, but it would at least be helpful to students. If you don't know the answer, I'll teach you. You're laughing like this over a few jokes. Are you one of those who sneaked in like me?

What are you doing?

Singed looked puzzled, as if he wanted applause and cheers—which made William even angrier.

It's just ridiculous that someone stayed up all night making up something like this and was so excited they couldn't sleep!

Although staying up all night had taken a toll on Professor Singid's mental state, he still noticed something was wrong—he glanced at the paper, then looked at the two of them with an indescribable expression before snatching the parchment back, turning it over, and handing it back to them.

"And you call yourselves professors—can't you even tell the front and back of a parchment?"

'You better explain why you wrote a bunch of jokes on the back!'

Despite the complaints, you still have to watch it.

Compared to the large amount of text at the back, there were only a few lines on the front of the paper.

[Fast-acting hair growth agent: Add...to..., to assist..., then use...]

……

The experiment is effective.

William felt utterly devastated—after all, his native language wasn't English, and while he might have been able to guess the technical terms in Chinese, he could only understand the auxiliary words.

Although they were completely unrelated, he still thought of Mei Chaofeng—these technical terms were simply incomprehensible to him; for an alchemist like himself, understanding them was more difficult than reading a book written in heaven.

'I reckon this recipe could be replicated perfectly by an alchemy master in no time, but as for me…'

William looked up, feeling that this was even more insulting than those jokes—the handwriting was clear and uncorrected, though a bit messy, but he just couldn't understand it.

“Oh—this?” Adams scoffed, “Use your brain, which still seems brand new even after a sleepless night, to think I know anything about alchemy?”

How ironic.

William quickly agreed in his mind, but didn't show it—he hadn't spent enough time with these guys, and didn't yet have the courage to say such things confidently.

"I know you don't understand, but you recognize the front, right?"

Singed scoffed, pointed to the name in front of him, and then ran his hand through his hair, which he usually kept down. "Look," he said, "what a great discovery!"

Without him saying anything, the two of them could see it—in the place where the hair was originally so thick and fine, a small patch of very short and thin hair was lying there. Although it looked malnourished and as if it was about to fall out, it was indeed new hair.

"See that? See that? A great invention!"

Singed looked proud—as if not sleeping all night was no big deal; he even planned to work on it for a few more days.

'It is indeed great, but it's completely different from what I imagined.'

William, who had maintained a good amount of hair, felt it was remarkable, but he did not empathize with it—he was first excited, then disappointed, then excited again, then hit hard, and then disappointed again, and was no longer sad or happy.