Chapter 495: Beyond Gossip

The score of the first House Cup match finally settled at 140:150. Harry, relying on his richer broom flying experience, and Jin Ni together restricted Crieg. The three of them contributed one of the most exciting entanglements in recent years in the sky. The other Slytherin players couldn't keep up with their rhythm, leading to the scoring efficiency not reaching expectations. In the end, when Greengrass's state declined, Gryffindor seized the opportunity and ended the match early.

The audience and commentators in the stadium were all boiling with enthusiasm. They either cheered for Crieg's superb flying skills or sighed at Gryffindor's clever tactics. Students from the Lion and Snake houses evaluated this as a well-matched, hearty battle, and very rarely did any fan conflict break out.

However, outside the stadium, some subtle little thoughts were still flowing. Seeing that the Prince was indeed interested in flying sports, Delake wanted to recommend Astoria Greengrass as a marriage candidate. However, in this match, she performed like a relationship-holder who mixed into the team. Instead, Jin Ni showed sufficient competitive level and youthful enthusiasm. Even he admitted that Jin Ni on the stadium was full of charm.

After this, Delake had to change his train of thought, trying to focus on shaping Astoria's "genius sick beauty" persona, hoping to improve her competitiveness by being thoughtful and willing to accept royal control. This was indeed more attractive to those behind the Prince, but to the Prince himself, he seemed to prefer girls like Jin Ni who were full of youthful vitality. They had several polite dates and began to gradually increase their understanding of each other, while Astoria's record still stopped at a dance, which made Delake feel very anxious.

What made him feel even more constrained was that only a small number of people knew the Prince's true identity, so many students in the Snake House who didn't know why questioned one after another why he kept trying to push the popular little schoolgirl to a Muggle—especially since that was a Muggle who was favored by the Weasleys. And the little schoolgirl herself, although Astoria did not explicitly express resistance to the Prince, her attitude could not be called enthusiastic either.

Under heavy resistance, Delake finally had to make a difficult decision, which was to withdraw from this marriage competition to befriend the royal family, and turn to seek other plans sufficient to help the family break the deadlock.

Of course, these things were learned by Zhang Qiu through Pansy, and Harry knew almost nothing about this. Because since the celebration after the match ended, Luo En happily agreed to Ivy's invitation to kiss, his attention had been placed on these two people.

For most of November, both of them were in a "passionate but restrained" relationship, until the end of the month, when reminded by Zhang Qiu, he realized that he should reduce his attention to them, otherwise it would be counterproductive.

"I mean, these lovey-dovey gossips have taken up too much of your energy. Haven't you noticed the small movements of some other factions?" Zhang Qiu prompted. "For example, the Malfoy family is colluding with some emerging capital in the Muggle world, and they are secretly communicating with Oxford; some intelligence shows that Soviet agents are committed to stealing floating city technology, although this is part of the plan, we cannot appear to know nothing; and, we'd better care about Hermione's mental state again. She still hasn't given up on A-Level. It's hard to say what she is thinking."

"Oh, yes, let me think." Harry scratched his head. "But are these important? If the Malfoy family wants to participate in the construction of the Carya Academy, or they plan to set up another stove and build another university, that's not a bad thing for our Wizarding World."

"And the floating city—that is a complex system project. Even if they obtain all the technology, they have to spend a lot of time on design and construction. And is the floating city really that powerful? I feel that its symbolic significance is greater than its actual significance." Harry spread his hands. "Are you thinking of using this to consume the strength of both the US and the Soviet Union at the same time?"

"Yes and no. Although its role is indeed to consume strength, the floating city itself is indeed a very powerful weapon. This is a 'wonder ruins the country' strategy." Zhang Qiu explained. "In other words, for the Great Britain that is already idle, investing some manpower and material resources to build a floating city won't have too much negative impact, but if Yanayev wants to follow up, he needs to face more intensified domestic contradictions and technological imbalance in the coming decades."

"What is technological imbalance?"

"It means that most talents and research directions have begun to revolve around the floating city and its related applications. Some fields that originally needed development, such as basic principles of magic, material empowerment theory, etc., which have more profound influence outside the framework of the Statute of Secrecy, will stagnate because they are forced to make way for the floating city project." Zhang Qiu briefly explained the impact of the floating city on national strength, and then brought the topic back to her side. "Of course, those are things the ministers should worry about. We still need to pay attention to Hermione's thoughts. I feel she..."

"I feel there's nothing wrong with it. She has always been a smart girl with her own ideas." Harry only wanted to discuss more about the floating city at this moment. He was worried that this project would also cause some bad influence on the Ministry of Magic. "Let's talk back to the floating city. How do you think we should avoid the British Ministry of Magic encountering the same predicament?"

"Hmm, okay, then let's discuss a rough plan." Zhang Qiu touched her chin. "The rough plan is that the Celestial Empire will send a team to provide us with technical assistance, among which some are experts who participated in the Forbidden City project back then, or students of those experts."

"Obviously, everyone will know that this team is largely helping Britain because of your face, which can allow you to achieve a great sense of presence in the completed city with very little cost. In fact, the military prospects of the floating city project are not broad. Its more valuable attribute is the sense of presence."

"Why do you say its military prospects are not broad?" Harry recalled the newspapers he had seen before. "According to the reports I have seen, the Celestial Empire used the floating city to deploy troops quickly and defeated the coalition forces very smoothly. It seems that the front line at this moment has almost been pushed to the Ganges."

"That may be so, but in terms of the comparison of national strength." Zhang Qiu shrugged. "A country capable of manufacturing a floating city, its conventional military strength is already sufficient to crush those countries that don't have the ability to manufacture floating cities."

The logic is of course that logic. Behind the various technologies of the floating city, what is implied is the high integration of magic and technology. Except for countries like the Celestial Empire that have started exploring the boundaries of the Statute of Secrecy for hundreds of years, it is obviously unrealistic for other forces to develop their technological level to such a height in the few years since Death just left.

"Let's just follow your plan for now." Harry felt vaguely lost. "Of course, the university is the top priority I need to do, and I hope the opening of the university can help us get more from the process of the floating city project."

"Speaking of this, does the framework of the university have a clue?"

"Snape and the Ministry of Magic have discussed it for several rounds. Obviously, the Ministry of Magic is very happy to let him serve as the principal, and the professors have also expressed that they are very happy to study deeply with smarter students in their professional fields. Now it is just the argumentation of the division of colleges and professional courses." Harry was still very optimistic about the progress in this regard. "Perhaps soon, within a month or two, we will be able to get a preliminary conclusion."

"It seems I guessed right. Many professors at Hogwarts are more willing to teach at the university." Zhang Qiu looked at him with a smile that was not a smile. "But in this way, Hogwarts will have vacancies for professors. Have you considered how to fill them?"

"The preliminary consideration is to hire excellent graduates from previous years. Snape has already contacted some quite good ones... Of course, Defense Against the Dark Arts still has no clue. We are still not very sure whether a PhD can withstand the curse." Harry scratched his head. "Speaking of which, my internship position this year is 'Hogwarts High Inquisitor'. I feel that if I can figure out the transfer and replacement of professors, it can also be considered a perfect internship report within my job duties."

"Actually, my meaning is, since we already have Donna to make a good start," Zhang Qiu suggested. "We can use some old favors from the Triwizard Tournament to invite Krum over to teach as well, teach Defense Against the Dark Arts for a year first, and then transfer to teach flying lessons. Of course, more importantly, if Malfoy insists on opening another university, then we need to solve the source of students. Relying on one middle school is not enough. Three would be just right."

"You mean, attract middle school students from the European Wizarding World to our university?" Harry felt that this train of thought could not be called bad, but it was not very good either. "Our attitude toward Europe is still uncertain now."

"I can only say, Europe is there. If you don't occupy it, Yanayev will occupy it." Zhang Qiu shrugged.

"This has also been said before. The result of our excessive closeness and utilization of Europe is the dilution of our country's independence, which is also a situation that is hard to solve."

"On this point, Hermione answered before, because she seems to have some whimsical ideas—you know in some companies, because there are many shareholders, the chairman can become the person with the most shares with less than 5% of the shares, thereby deciding company affairs. Hermione thinks this train of thought can also be applied to international alliances." Zhang Qiu explained. "She wants to use a larger alliance to suppress the EU. You have probably heard of it, that is the English-speaking country alliance, referred to as ETO."

"That is from the EU... no, are there English-speaking countries in the EU?" Harry felt that this train of thought was a bit chaotic. "But if it's on a global scale, we are not the largest English-speaking country."

"You also noticed, right, so I said I don't know what she is thinking." Zhang Qiu shrugged. "Of course, my meaning is, if this thing is really good for Britain, we can completely be together." ===== CHAPTER 496 =====