Chapter 480: Genius Boy

The first Quidditch training was scheduled for the afternoon of the next day, but right after breakfast, the entire team arrived at the pitch to watch Slytherin’s tryouts and glean as much information as possible about their current roster to prepare targeted tactics in advance.

After scanning the ragtag group of candidates, Draco strode over to the stands and tugged at Cui Ge’s sleeve.

“Why don’t you try out?” he said sincerely. “With your physical condition, you’d definitely make it.”

“But I don’t want to,” Cui Ge replied lazily. “I find it boring.”

Harry was surprised—someone actually found Quidditch boring?

“Over summer, I tried flying an F-15 in Hawaii. I’ve completely lost interest in brooms now.”

No wonder, Harry thought, withdrawing his gaze. But from one perspective, Donald really did spoil him.

“For the sake of the house, help a brother out,” Draco pleaded, lowering his pride.

Cui Ge stared at him for several seconds, then sighed and said casually, “Fine. Which position do you need me for?”

“We’re still short a keeper,” Draco said, pulling Cui Ge away from the stands. Harry immediately tensed up.

Ron noticed Harry’s intense focus on the field and couldn’t help asking, “Come on, even if he inherited a bit of physical ability from the Double Riders, are we really afraid of one keeper?”

“It’s not about the Double Riders,” Harry swallowed hard. “It’s that a genius who can fly an F-15 at sixteen—his flying skills are beyond what I can imagine.”

Cui Ge seemed to have heard that, turned back, and gave a smug smile.

“Quidditch doesn’t allow wands, right?” Cui Ge asked after grabbing a broom. “The only legal offensive move is bodily collision?”

“Or hitting someone with a Bludger,” Crabbe said, waving his bat.

“What about the Quaffle?” Cui Ge’s eyes lit up.

“Theoretically possible, but throwing it alone won’t generate much force.”

“Theoretically possible is enough.” He mounted his broom. “Since only Chasers’ goals count, the Keeper’s job is…”

With a classic ground-lift takeoff, Cui Ge shot straight toward Millicent, who held the Quaffle. “...to knock down every opposing Chaser.”

When he executed a half-roll reversal from behind to snatch the Quaffle, Ron was still blustering—but Harry was already growing anxious.

When he casually replicated the Eimann and Cobra maneuvers Harry had seen in the Triwizard Tournament to dodge Bludgers, Ron was still pointing and commenting—but Harry’s hands began to tremble.

When he began demonstrating Pendulum and Hammer Turn maneuvers Harry had only heard of but never attempted, and used relative speed to slam a player with the Quaffle, Ron fell silent, and Harry couldn’t stop wiping sweat.

When he swept past a Chaser in a posture no one had ever seen, using the broom’s tail to knock the player down, every Gryffindor began trembling, and Harry forced himself to take deep breaths to calm down.

“This,” Ivy’s feather pen had snapped in her notebook, “how do we even play?”

“Dean, can you stop him?” Ginny asked, turning around.

“Me?” Dean was also wiping sweat. “Are you serious?”

“Don’t even think about it. A genius like this can’t be contained. We need fast attacks and four-on-one. Team battles are fine too—after all, we just have to survive these two years.” Harry sighed.

The players fell silent. Even MacLaggen, who was used to boasting and defying everyone, remained unusually quiet.

“Don’t lose heart—it’s just that Slytherin is harder to beat,” Ivy stood up and declared loudly. “We still have a chance to win. As for Slytherin, we’ve already seen their cards. Now we just need to discuss targeted tactics!”

After endless discussion, the final decision was: against Slytherin, Gut would be switched to Beater, Harry and Ginny would become Chasers, alternating to handle the Quaffle and stall Cui Ge, while the one not stalling would take Natalie to hunt the Snitch, using Seeker experience to end the match quickly.

Fortunately, Slytherin grew overconfident and left the pitch before lunchtime, laughing and joking.

Over the afternoon, Harry and Ginny managed to become reasonably proficient in those aerial maneuvers, since brooms were more maneuverable and slower. Even so, they achieved it only through repeated attempts and relentless practice, while Cui Ge seemed to master them on the first try—this left Harry feeling discouraged.

“Cui Ge isn’t completely untrained,” Ivy comforted them. “He’s been interested in this since he was very young. In the Muggle world, there’s something called television—it lets him watch pilots’ feats from home.”

“That’s the advantage of growing up in the Muggle world. If only we could watch Quidditch on television—”

“It wouldn’t help much,” Harry sighed. “Maybe we’re already geniuses at Quidditch, but sometimes you have to admit: for those born to a higher sky, genius is merely the threshold to even see them.”

Ron patted his shoulder. “Are the fourth-year books still around? You two could try practicing together to counter him—that might give you a fighting chance.”

“You mention fourth year and I think of Cedric, then I think of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff now. We still have a chance against Cui Ge—but what about them?” Harry shook his head. “So we face an even tougher question: how do we score enough points from the other two houses to surpass what Slytherin scores from them?”

At this, Ivy’s eyes suddenly lit up. “That’s not a tough problem—it’s our advantage. Their Seeker, Greengrass, excels at early aggression but not suppression. If we train our scoring coordination well, we’ll definitely outscore the other two houses.”

“That’s cruel for the other two houses,” said Natalie, the youngest, sympathetically.

After dinner that day, Harry learned from Torchwood’s casual chatter that Cui Ge hadn’t just ridden an F-15 over summer—he’d been learning to fly one. Donald had spent nearly a month with him at a flight base in Hawaii.

“He’s been so good to you—has he repented?” Luna asked.

“I don’t know,” Cui Ge said, uneasy. “But old Donald said he doesn’t plan to marry or have children, so I’m his only heir.”

“For Muggles, it’s dangerous,” Draco said. “But for wizards, if you can learn to fly on your own, it’s not that risky. And you can Apparate, can’t you?”

In their casual talk, Harry gradually pieced together what had changed in Donald since his defeat: he seemed to want to reconcile with Cassandra, had privately apologized to her sincerely—but Cassandra, who had long closed her heart to love, refused. She now only wanted a quiet life with her son.

If you applied the novels Zhang Qiu constantly quoted, the next scene should be: she flees, he chases, he gives everything to win back her heart. But reality wasn’t so melodramatic—Donald simply let go of the relationship. After returning home, he hired seven beautiful female secretaries.

Yet, as both atonement and a backup plan, he began paying more attention to Cui Ge and formally named him his heir. When Cui Ge expressed his dream of becoming a pilot, Donald immediately used his connections to pave the way. Perhaps, as Draco said, wizard pilots were far safer than ordinary Muggle pilots.

“But there’s one problem,” Harry asked. “If you go to a Muggle flight school after graduation, what about Luna?”

Even from a pragmatic standpoint, Harry didn’t want them to break up—Ultimate Form was top-tier wizard power, while a lone Double Rider could only sit at Draco’s table.

“We’ll figure it out next year,” Cui Ge scratched his head, troubled. “I haven’t even decided where to become a pilot yet. Sure, old Donald has connections there, but I really don’t want to leave everyone.”

Harry quickly said, “No problem. Whatever you and Luna decide—if you want to stay, I have connections in the Defense Force too.”

“What about your mom? Does she support you?” Draco changed the subject, sounding sour.

“Of course,” Cui Ge said happily. “She knows my dream since childhood was to fly fighter jets. Ever since I first sneaked to the grocery store to watch TV, I had this idea.”

Wizards, who had never understood fighter jets, listened to Cui Ge’s detailed accounts of aerial legends with reverence for his Quidditch genius—curious to hear stories, and immersed in their thrilling details.

But Harry didn’t pay close attention—he’d already taken Muggle history classes and knew aerial combat was just one branch among many battlefields, not as fascinating to ordinary wizards.

What interested him was a line of thought: if wizards intervened in modern warfare, Cui Ge’s method of using magic to enhance safety was crude. They could develop specialized, higher-performance weapons designed for wizards. But if they focused on improving existing Muggle weapons, they’d inevitably face the problem of [wizards refusing to learn Muggle things].

So, if they shifted perspective—using magical aerial units more aligned with wizarding cognition, like Dragon Riders or Gryphon Riders, and adding subtle technological enhancements to disguise their magical nature—would that be feasible? Feasibility seemed decent, but it might offer little advantage over conventional aerial forces.

Thinking of this, Harry felt helpless again. Perhaps Cui Ge was simply an exceedingly rare exception.