Chapter 35: Green Hat Man

Locke looked very miserable.

His face, which was already ugly enough, had been beaten into a pig's head, black and blue, and several of his sharp teeth had been knocked out.

This guy had been tortured quite a bit.

No wonder he couldn't be found after the attack; it turned out Malfoy had captured him.

"Locke!" Lucius looked at the half-breed goblin. "Did you privately open a vault for Murphy Darkholm?"

Locke raised his swollen face and looked at Murphy with his bruised eyes.

The two stared at each other for a while.

Murphy suddenly said: "Locke, just tell the truth. All my assets are legally inherited; you didn't do anything wrong."

Locke's pointed ears twitched, and then he looked at Dumbledore. "Dumbledore, can you guarantee my safety?"

"During the time you are a witness, you will not suffer any harm," Dumbledore said.

"No! I mean in the future. If I tell the truth, can you guarantee that I won't be retaliated against?"

Dumbledore pondered for a while and finally said: "If one has to face retaliation for telling the truth, then wizarding law will lose all credibility. Rest assured, the Aurors will guarantee your safety."

"Good!" Locke seemed to have made some kind of decision.

He glanced at Murphy, then at Lucius, and suddenly said: "I am innocent! Murphy Darkholm is also innocent! I didn't do anything that violated Gringotts regulations! I didn't privately open a vault for him; all my actions were standard and legal! Mr. Murphy Darkholm's source of funds is also crystal clear. Everything is Lucius's conspiracy."

Lucius was stunned.

"You, you didn't say that before! You helped Murphy open a vault using the fake name Stephen Conberbatch; you laundered money for him! And that money all came from Muggles!"

Locke was very calm. "Those were all excuses you taught me, Mr. Malfoy."

Lucius was stunned.

He couldn't understand how this guy could suddenly turn against him.

"Impossible! That's not it! Bao Ge Luo De, bring Bao Ge Luo De here; he can prove all this!"

Scrimgeour nodded and was just about to let the Aurors bring the person, when an Auror leaned over and whispered a few words in his ear. The latter was stunned and then said: "Bao Ge Luo De has already been arrested on charges of attempting to embezzle wizarding property."

"Also, Gringotts just sent a notice saying that Mr. Murphy Darkholm's source of funds has been confirmed to be completely reliable and legal." Scrimgeour glanced at Lucius. "If your evidence was intended to accuse him of this, you can give it up."

"What?!"

Lucius found it incredible. He looked at Murphy, shocked and bewildered.

How on earth did this guy manage to do it?

What kind of magic did he have?

"Alright, Lucius, let's end this farce today," Scrimgeour said, letting the Aurors pull Lucius out of the iron cage, preparing to take him to Azkaban.

"No! I don't accept this! I have evidence!" Lucius struggled desperately. "Potions, I have samples of the potions he sold to Muggles! I have samples! And raw materials! I got them from a Muggle factory!"

He broke free from two Aurors and took out several things from his Undetectable Extension Charm bag. "It's these! These! Enough to prove he sold potions to Muggles!"

Murphy frowned; this guy was really well-prepared.

If it weren't for his sudden attack this time, it might have really been quite troublesome.

But now, after this series of operations, he had already lost his momentum, and no one would believe his words.

However, Murphy still walked up to the materials and samples.

Those were indeed the potion materials he had mixed, as well as the Cloud White Medicine with the Umbrella Corporation logo, and several bottles of semi-finished products.

"What is this?" Murphy asked.

"The potions you sold to Muggles! Didn't expect that, did you! You thought that by burning my house and taking away the things stored in the cellar, you had completely destroyed them all, but you didn't expect that I had kept some for myself!"

Murphy curled his lips. "Let's assume so. Then what potion is this?"

"Essence of Dittany!"

"Look!" He said, opening a bottle of Cloud White Medicine and pouring it on the wound on his arm that had been scratched by the iron thorns. The wound healed in a short while.

"Look! This is Essence of Dittany!"

The wizards on the tribunal also saw the effect and discussed it among themselves.

However, Murphy still had an indifferent expression. "But I see it says Cloud White Medicine on it."

"That's the name you gave it; Cloud White Medicine is Essence of Dittany!"

"Not to mention the relationship between these things and me," Murphy said. "I'll just ask you one question: how do you prove that Cloud White Medicine is Essence of Dittany?"

"What?" Lucius was asked stupidly. "Their effects are exactly the same!"

"Heh," Murphy laughed. "I heard that you have invested in several pharmacies, Mr. Malfoy. But you seem to know nothing about potions."

"If the effects are the same, are they the same thing? If Mr. Snape were here, he would definitely call you an idiot! Phoenix tears and Essence of Dittany can both treat external wounds, are they the same thing? Bezoars and Mandrake juice can both neutralize some poisons, but are they the same thing?"

"You might not know that in the Muggle world, there might be dozens or hundreds of drugs for one disease. Are they all the same thing?"

"You might know how to prepare Essence of Dittany, but do you know how Muggles produce this Cloud White Medicine?"

"If you don't know, how can you prove they are the same thing?"

"This... as long as there is a Potion Master who understands potions, it can definitely be proven..." Lucius still wanted to struggle.

Murphy looked at Dumbledore again. "Professor, you have discovered twelve uses for dragon blood and have achieved great success in alchemy. You are a Potion Master. So, may I ask, can you prove that these two drugs are the same thing?"

Dumbledore looked at Murphy's gaze quietly from behind his half-moon glasses with those blue eyes. After a while, he avoided Murphy's gaze, picked up the bottle of Cloud White Medicine, looked at it, and finally sighed. "Unfortunately, I do not understand such technology."

Murphy laughed.

This was something he had expected.

To prove that two things are the same substance, one must at least have a full and complete understanding of their properties; just "looking like it" is not enough.

Even "smelling like it, using like it, tasting like it" is not enough. Even if you can list a million similarities between the two, it still cannot prove that the two are the same thing.

Because that is just the process of enumeration; just like the Goldbach conjecture and many other conjectures about prime numbers, even if you can list a hundred billion examples that fit the conjecture, without a complete, rigorous, and sufficient logical proof, they will always just be conjectures and will not become truth.

There is only one way to prove they are the same substance: find the unique and irreplaceable property of this substance, and then prove that both things possess this property.

Do wizards have such ability?

A joke.

If wizards could understand their potions to this degree, what would he, Murphy, need Muggles for! What kind of technology would he be doing! What kind of pounds would he be earning! Wouldn't it be enough to just honestly take magic?

It is precisely because wizards do not have such ability, and their understanding of their own magic does not reach such precision, that Murphy seeks the power of Muggles.

Therefore, it can be said that the existence of Cloud White Medicine is proof that wizards do not possess this ability.

It's like a woman who cheated because her husband was impotent giving birth to a child, but the husband wants to prove that the child is actually his.

Murphy glanced at Lucius.

You aren't Lestrange either; how come your train of thought is so similar to the Green Hat Man?

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 36 =====