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Someone was looking for trouble.
And naturally, others were eager to fan the flames.
In the cell next to the second-generation wizard was a witch who had been accused of 'controlling the weather.'
Her hair was disheveled and there was a manic gleam in her eyes. When she saw the second-generation wizard mocking Ian, she suddenly burst into laughter.
"The nickname 'shorty' suits him perfectly! He really does look like a dwarf!"
The witch's insults became even filthier.
If the two prisoners had been insulting something else, Ian might have simply laughed it off. But, of all things, they chose to call him Shorty.
That genuinely touched one of Ian's sore spots.
It was like that old joke about Ke Jie: he'd laugh off insults about his Go skills but get worked up if you insulted his Teamfight Tactics skills. In reality, Ian was genuinely irritated by this.
They had struck directly at an insecurity he had carried with him for a very long time.
Once upon a time, Ian really had been a short kid, and he had genuinely cared about it, which was one reason why he paid so much attention to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and encouraging his growth.
But now, this prisoner was using 'shorty' to humiliate him.
On the surface, it had nothing to do with his past weakness.
Yet it awoke those long-suppressed memories.
Ian slowly turned around.
His deep green eyes glimmered in the dim light like blades cutting through a winter night.
The witch was still laughing, seemingly certain that he wouldn't dare retaliate.
But the next second, her smile froze.
Ian said nothing.
He merely raised a hand and curled a finger.
The gold-threaded robes she wore began to tremble violently.
Then the entire robe unravelled into countless fine golden threads that slithered into her skin like living serpents.
"AAAH...!"
She screamed.
But the scream stopped abruptly after only a second.
Her mouth continued to move, but no sound came out. Even more horrifyingly, golden threads spread beneath her skin like creeping vines.
Eventually, they wove themselves into a golden mask across her face.
One word was clearly engraved upon it:
Shorty.
How ironic.
The witch looked as though she had been struck by lightning. She frantically clawed at her face, but the mask had already fused with her skin and could not be removed.
At last, she understood.
This was no ordinary punishment. It was a brand etched upon the soul itself.
Ian looked at her coldly and spoke in a low voice.
"If you mock my little brother for being short, I wouldn't care. But if you dare call me short, I'll make sure that for the rest of your life, you read To Live as if it were a feel-good power fantasy."
People in this era might not be familiar with the novel To Live, but the meaning behind Ian's threat was perfectly clear.
The surrounding prisoners watched with fear.
Someone muttered quietly,
"That witch is finished... She'll be permanently marked as one who profaned herself. Even the Ancestral Spirits will refuse to accept her soul."
Clearly, this prisoner recognized that Ian had woven a curse into the punishment.
After giving Ian a fearful glance, he curled up in the corner again.
However, criminals like him were rare.
Especially the second-generation wizard who had started provoking Ian in the first place.
He paid no attention whatsoever to what Ian had done to the witch.
"All you're doing is bullying some woman with no backing. But someone like me? Someone with connections?"
"If you dare lay a finger on me, the pain you'll suffer will haunt you even in your next life."
The arrogant young wizard spoke with utter disdain.
Ian didn't react much.
"If you don't know how to speak properly, then say less."
He offered a calm warning.
Hearing this, the prisoner not only failed to restrain himself; he seemed even more enraged. He shook the iron bars wildly and roared, saliva flying everywhere.
"Shut up! Who do you think you are? You think you can order me around?"
"My mouth is on my face! I'll speak however I want! Not only will I insult you, I'll curse you too! I'll curse you..."
His words were ugly, and his attitude was even uglier.
After displaying all the patience and basic courtesy he could muster, Ian finally acted.
The moment he did, the prisoner's tirade came to an abrupt halt.
Ian tilted his head slightly.
A perfectly measured expression of innocent confusion appeared on his face.
In a soft voice, he asked: "What mouth?"
The prisoner instinctively wanted to shout, 'Are you blind?!'
But when he opened his mouth wide, no sound came out.
A cold, eerie sensation spread across his face.
Terrified, he reached up and touched his face.
Where his mouth should have been, beneath his nose, there was only smooth skin.
There was only smooth skin.
No opening.
No lips.
There was no trace of a mouth whatsoever.
It was as if it had never existed.
He had lost his mouth. The prisoner felt as though he had been struck by lightning.
His entire body froze. His eyes bulged so widely that they seemed ready to split open; they were filled with overwhelming terror and horror.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to beg for mercy, but all that escaped his throat were desperate, meaningless wheezing sounds.
He staggered backwards and collapsed onto the filthy floor.
"!!!!!"
The man could scarcely believe it. He raised a trembling finger and pointed at Ian. Then he frantically clawed at his face, which was now perfectly smooth.
The prisoner's eyes were filled with boundless horror.
"If your family wants revenge, they're welcome to come at any time. I wouldn't mind destroying another family... or another city."
Ian had already withdrawn his gaze, as though he had merely asked a trivial question.
He continued walking, following the silent Dementor deeper down the corridor.
He did not even spare the prisoner another glance.
In the surrounding cells, several inmates who had been eager to join in the mockery, or perhaps to throw out a few threats of their own, instantly fell silent, like chickens with their throats squeezed shut.
They stared in terror at their companion, who had lost his mouth and was writhing in agony on the ground.
Then they looked at Ian's calmly departing figure.
A chill shot from the soles of their feet straight to the tops of their heads.
They were all wizards. Yet Ian's methods were beyond their comprehension.
'What kind of magic was that?'
A silencing spell? He hadn't used a wand or pointed a finger, yet someone had lost an organ.
This was no longer merely a question of power.
Was his word law itself?
It was simply...
Bizarre.
Terrifying.
No one dared to make a sound towards Ian.
Even their breathing became quieter, almost unconsciously. The entire deep-prison district was engulfed in a deathly silence.
Only the faint sound of the wind stirred by Ian and the Dementors remained. As he walked, Ian observed the structure of the prison and its inmates. He noticed that the deeper they went, the fewer cells there were.
However, the cells themselves were clearly more heavily fortified, and the prisoners within radiated increasingly dangerous and oppressive auras.
Clearly, the African Ministry of Magic used a tiered imprisonment system based on the severity of the prisoners' crimes or their danger level.
"Keeping Newt in a place like this..."
Ian frowned once more.
"It seems the charges used to frame him aren't as simple as 'disturbing public order' or 'illegally carrying dangerous magical creatures.'"
"They're treating him like a high-level criminal."
"Do they really need to take it this seriously?"
The doubts in his heart grew heavier.
Although Newt Scamander had caused several incidents involving magical creatures, any rational Ministry of Magic file would classify him as relatively low risk.
For the African Ministry of Magic to go to such lengths, there must be a deeper reason behind it.
"I'll only find out what happened after I find Newt."
Having turned the matter over repeatedly in his mind without reaching a conclusion, Ian decided to stop wasting brain cells on speculation.
After all, his body was already getting plenty of exercise.
Anyone who hikes regularly knows that climbing uphill is easier than going downhill.
And right now, Ian had been descending non-stop.
The prison's deep, spiral structure seemed endless. He had already followed these silent guides for a considerable distance.
The surrounding air grew colder and colder. The magical lamps on the walls were becoming increasingly sparse and dim. The faint light made it feel as though he were walking along the ocean floor.
Yet, they still had not reached their destination.
The number of prisoners decreased further along the way.
However, each remaining cell emitted an increasingly dangerous and inscrutable aura.
Some of them even caused Ian to glance over with mild surprise.
Finally, he stopped walking and asked another question of the lead Dementor floating ahead of him.
It was the umpteenth time he had asked the same question.
"How much farther?"
There was no spoken reply.
Instead, he felt a vague mental fluctuation carrying feelings of coldness and obedience, as though the message had been transmitted directly into his consciousness.
Translated, it still amounted to the same three words:
[A little longer...]
A slight twitch appeared at the corner of Ian's eye.
He felt that he and the Dementors had fundamentally different understandings of the unit of time known as 'a little while.'
Whenever he asked, he received the same answer.
It was as though their perception of time had frozen, or perhaps 'a little while' simply meant 'until we arrive' in their dictionary.
Unfortunately, Ian couldn't argue with creatures this stupid.
Reasoning with them was impossible.
At that moment, he found himself missing the intelligent Dementor he had raised at Hogwarts.
"Ah..."
Ian sighed helplessly.
He continued onward patiently for quite some time, passing through several areas that were clearly security checkpoints, each one protected by increasingly powerful magical restrictions.
The cells here were even sturdier.
Some had been carved entirely from blocks of anti-magic obsidian.
Fortunately, with Dementors leading the way, Ian didn't need to bypass any authorization protocols himself.
As prison guards, the Dementors possessed the highest level of authorization in the entire facility.
Ian's footsteps echoed across the stone stairs of the Ninth Level.
The sound was quickly swallowed by the massive rock walls, creating the sensation of walking through an endless tunnel towards the center of the Earth.
The Dementors continued to guide him in silence.
Their black robes swayed gently in the faint, ghostly light.
Like a ferry drifting across the River Styx.
The deeper one went, the more significant the criminals became.
Some of the prisoners confined here resembled sleeping beasts. Even their breathing sent out ripples of magical power that made one's heart tremble. Others fixed Ian and the passing Dementors with savage, venomous stares, muttering incessantly under their breath as though concocting evil spells.
In one cell, there was not even a person.
Instead, there was only a constantly twisting, writhing mass of shadow that radiated an ominous aura.
Ian could not tell whether it was an unusual lifeform being imprisoned or a wizard who had transformed himself into one.
Either way, at least it had avoided the fate of a prisoner's 'new wife'.
After all, in a place like prison, Soap-dropping incidents were still a serious issue.
Ian encountered criminals of every kind imaginable.
Yet, despite all that, he still had not reached Newt's cell. The Dementors remained silent, simply continuing to float forward.
At last, Ian could not help himself. He took out the Marauder's Map that he had personally modified to display the Ministry of Magic's structure in real time. He looked at the glowing dot representing Newt, then compared its position with his own.
The two dots were indeed nearby.
They were practically overlapping.
So was he finally close?
Not exactly.
'Wait...'
Ian suddenly realized the problem.
He slapped his forehead, revealing a helpless yet amused smile.
"I miscalculated! When I designed the map, I focused on the floor plans and defensive nodes, but I completely overlooked this cursed height difference!"
The map was a two-dimensional, top-down view.
Although it could display different levels, it did not present the spiraling, astonishingly deep structure in an intuitive manner.
According to the map, he was indeed standing in the same 'area' as Newt's cell, but who knew how many layers of vertical distance still separated them?
Had these African wizards hollowed out the entire Ministry of Magic foundation?
Its depth was comparable to that of some of the deepest vaults in Gringotts!
"Just how deep did these Africans dig?"
Were they planning to build the prison straight into the Earth's mantle?
"This isn't a prison; it's an elevator to Hell! If you've got this much energy, wouldn't farming be a better use of it?"
Ian sighed, feeling helpless and like a fool, wandering in circles through a labyrinth.
Unsurprisingly, none of the other prisoners responded.
He put the map away and looked once more at the Dementor leading the way.
With one last shred of hope, or perhaps stubbornness, he asked another question.
"How far are we from Newt now?"
This time, Ian changed his approach.
He thought himself quite clever.
However...
[A little longer...]
The cold, emotionless mental response arrived right on schedule.
Good grief!
For Dementors, 'a little longer' was apparently a unit of both time and distance.
Sigh.
He should have expected that.
After all, even ordinary wizards knew that the Dementors' language was complicated.
It was perfectly normal for one word to serve multiple purposes.
Ian: "..."
He gave up.
Arguing with magical creatures whose thought processes differed so greatly from those of normal people was a battle he had already lost.
Just as he rubbed his brow and prepared to resign himself to what felt like an endless trek into the abyss, a voice suddenly emerged from a nearby cell. It was completely different from the roars, curses, manic mutterings, and numb groans of the other prisoners.
It was calm.
Composed.
It was even detached, carrying a sense of transcendence, as though its owner were chatting casually in a peaceful courtyard rather than in a gloomy, terrifying prison.
Most importantly, the voice conveyed clear emotion and rationality.
It did not belong to one of the hollow shells left behind after Dementors had drained all happiness away.
"If I were you, I wouldn't go any further down."
The words were spoken slowly and evenly. Yet their content immediately caught Ian's attention.
He stopped walking and turned towards the source of the voice. It came from a cell on the inside of the corridor.
Like the others, it was made of anti-magic obsidian.
However, it appeared to be much cleaner.
At the very least, there was no obvious dirt piled up near the entrance.
Inside, a middle-aged man sat cross-legged on the floor.
He wore faded grey robes that still hinted at having once been made from high-quality material.
His face was lean and refined, with a short beard that had been kept reasonably neat.
But the most striking feature was his eyes.
Or rather, the lack of them.
There were no eyeballs in his sockets.
Only two empty hollows remained.
Yet, despite being blind, his face was precisely directed towards Ian's location.
Those empty eye sockets seemed capable of piercing the darkness, enabling him to see Ian clearly.
It was astonishing.
And mysterious.
(End of Chapter)