The Death Knell

It's really strange. Because of Fleur, Harry rarely felt happy even in the dark.

He ran wildly on the dark path, as if he had endless energy, and used directional spells from time to time to confirm whether he was heading in the right direction.

His desire to win the trophy was stronger than ever, but he found himself always reaching dead ends. The maze was so large that he never encountered another player for a long time.

He counted the number of people in his mind. Fleur needed to rest and pause in place, while Krum was knocked unconscious and couldn't wake up for a few hours. If he and Hermione were removed, there would still be six students from other schools in the maze.

Just be careful of the man from Africa's Moon Mountain. Animagus who can use firearms is definitely not an opponent you want to encounter in a small space.

Harry would not actively attack others, but he was worried that others would regard him as prey.

The feeling of being watched came again, but he raised his head and looked around, but he didn't find any cameras with lights on in the trees.

As time passed, the sky became increasingly gloomy. The black cotton-like clouds meant that it might rain soon, but Harry felt that he was lost, and the rain was probably going to stop him.

Neither rain protection spells nor food spells were advanced, but he had never learned either. On rainy days in the past, he only had to stay in the house, eat some sweets and play with Ron and the others by the fireplace.

Now he regretted it. If he had known before, he should have spent more time learning the basic knowledge instead of playing wizard chess or chatting with Hagrid.

At this moment, he suddenly heard some movement. When his sight turned to a long and straight fork, the light of the wand shone on an extremely strange monster. He had only seen it in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" pictures of it.

This is the Sphinx, also known as the Sphinx, a specialty of North Africa. It has huge paws like a lion, a long yellow tail, and a tuft of fluffy hair on the tip of the tail, like a small duster.

But she had the head of a woman. She should have been found by following the light. Her round eyes looked at Harry in the darkness, and she made a purring sound, as if she was laughing.

Harry didn't know whether he should take action first, because if it was like the record in the book, then the Sphinx preferred to guess riddles than to eat people, so it would be best to avoid wasting energy in fighting.

The physical education professor talked about the necessity of rationally allocating physical strength in the course. It is not necessary to fight every enemy you encounter. Sometimes negotiating terms or being reasonable is a better choice.

She really didn't have the feline intention of crouching down and pounce on him, she just squatted on the path to block Harry's path.

Then she spoke, her voice low and hoarse: "You are still about ten miles away from the target. Of course, the fastest way is to get over here from me."

Her tail flicked and she pointed behind herself.

"Then...borrow it?" Harry replied tentatively.

"No." She blocked the path between the hedges and swung her big furry tail back and forth: "Unless you can answer my riddle, if you guess it correctly, I will let you pass. If you don't, I will beat you to death!"

Harry was a little nervous. Answering questions was Hermione's specialty, but not his.

But an idea flashed in his mind. If the riddle was too difficult, he didn't have to answer it. As long as he didn't speak, it wouldn't be right or wrong. The Sphinx wouldn't hurt him. He could retreat and find another way.

"Okay." He took a deep breath and patted his chest to cheer himself up: "Please give me a question!"

The Sphinx sat on his hind legs, tilted his head and began to ask:

"A man raised five giant monkeys. He bought them a bunch of peaches, but they couldn't divide them equally, so he drove the monkeys away and said they would divide them the next day."

"But a monkey came to him in the middle of the night to pray. He relented and gave the first monkey a peach so that the remaining peaches could be divided equally among the five monkeys tomorrow."

"The first monkey took his share in advance and went back to sleep. But not long after, the second monkey also came to the human to pray."

"It also ate a peach, and the remaining peach could be divided into five equal parts, so it also took its share in advance."

"The third, fourth, and fifth monkeys all encountered the same situation, that is, when they ate one and took away one-fifth of the peach, the next monkey could eat one and then divide it into five equal parts again. .”

An unspeakable smile appeared on the monster's face, as if he found something unspeakably funny. He waited for a long time before saying the question:

"Excuse me...when will this black man named Nick Fury die?"

"Can you say that again...slowly?"

Harry, who was counting how many peaches there were, looked confused. Who is Nick Fury? Did he offend the Sphinx?

The Sphinx asked again patiently, and was still playing with her tail with her paws. She was not in a hurry anyway.

"Why is there such a problem? This is too strange."

The long, straight black boy had a dead look on his face. He could answer this question without running away.

The Sphinx blew her sharp nails: "You have to ask the man who brought me here. He came to Egypt not long ago to find me and negotiated a condition with me. If he can answer my questions , but I can’t answer his question, then I have to come here to guess riddles with you human cubs.”

"Is this the problem that stumped you at that time?" Harry asked back. This familiar style must have been something done by the PE teacher.

The Sphinx had an embarrassed look on her face, and she scratched her chin:

"It's not that he was stumped, mainly because I answered it quickly... Before he asked the final question, I answered '3121'. I thought this question was about the total number of peaches, but it turned out that it was '3121'." It was a joke that the answer was not the question. Alas, I have been in the Egyptian guessing world for thousands of years without fail, but I fell into a psychological trap because of my pride and arrogance. That man is really unpredictable."

Harry wiped the cold sweat on his head. Fortunately, he was not good at mathematics and could not calculate the number of peaches. This was the first time that he was happy because he was not a top student.

If I was smart enough to answer it, I would probably have to run for my life now, right?

"This man named Nick Fury will die the next day, because he said he would divide the peaches the next day, but he secretly divided the peaches the night before, didn't he?"

Harry calmed down, licked his lips and gave the answer. Thanks to Ron's family going to Egypt in the second grade, and showing off some knowledge to Harry after they came back, he still remembers:

"Professor Wilson said, 'A person cannot stand without trust.' This is the question he asked you. He also specifically emphasized that Fury is a black man. That means that early the next morning, this person who broke his trust with the monkeys will..." 'Not standing' literally means lying down, and in Egyptian murals, the lying black human body represents the dead."

The Sphinx got out of the way, her big furry cat paws still applauding in front of her: "You are indeed very smart. You can see the second level of five levels of meaning, which is not bad for humans. Anyway, you If you pass the level, you can find the trophy as long as you keep running on the road behind me."

"Thank you." Harry brushed past the monster. The monster had no intention of attacking him at all. He was indeed very trustworthy, but he still cared about something: "You said this riddle has five levels of meaning, so the third level is What?"

The sphinx-faced monster glanced at him and lay back at the intersection:

"The man said: 'Human beings are often like the monkeys in this story. They only care about whether they get fewer peaches than other monkeys, but forget who bought them the peaches, so they will retaliate for kindness. .....'Tsk, this story is interesting, isn't it?"

Harry smiled awkwardly. His train of thought had almost gone in the direction of 'after the peaches were divided unevenly, the monkeys would kill humans and similar species with vested interests'. It was so dangerous.

This is probably a trap specially prepared for smart people. If there are really smart people who think this way, they will definitely analyze the combat power gap between monkeys and humans and try to calculate the date of human death, right?

Wrong thinking will undoubtedly lead to wrong answers...

Harry said goodbye to the monster again, and he ran forward, determined not to be a monkey...no, not to be an ungrateful person.