Operation Red Book

"Joshua, Joshua! What do you usually watch on TV? Harry Potter, Downton Abbey, Doctor Who, Peaky Blinders, Yes, the Minister, Yes, the Prime Minister?"

"I love Yes, Prime Minister! The debate between Sir Humphrey and the Prime Minister is so interesting, although many times Sir Humphrey wins unilaterally..."

"It sounds interesting, but I've only ever seen Harry Potter. My grandma took me to the cinema to see a few of them."

"Which Harry Potter movie do you like best? I like the ones where Cedric, Senior Wood, Sirius Black and young Voldemort appear the most!"

"I just like handsome guys..."

Joshua murmured quietly, and after making sure that Ivy didn't hear him, he continued to reply.

"Me, I like the Chamber of Secrets, Time Turner, and Contest of Heroes the most."

"Hey! Speaking of the Chamber of Secrets, I remembered a joke I saw on INS... ahem, Tom Riddle's diary might be the earliest ChatGPT! Hahahahahaha!"

Ivy seemed to have her funny bone hit, clapping her hands and laughing out loud, while Joshua looked much quieter, just covering his mouth and shaking his shoulders.

The two of them were like a pair of good friends who hit it off immediately, chatting and laughing amid the puzzled looks of the crowd.

The feeling that only they understand each other's humor is quite good for Ivy and Joshua, especially Joshua.

After all, in the original 21st century, the life trajectories of the two people were like intersecting lines. The quiet overlap at a certain point was the end of the journey, but after the intersection, they would drift apart for the rest of their lives.

Joshua was lost in thought as he stared at Ivy's profile. It seemed so out of reach, but compared to how it was now within reach, it seemed too real to be natural.

"Hey, Joshua!"

Ivy stopped laughing at some point, and a shout brought Joshua out of his distraction.

Joshua blinked and saw that Ivy's smile was frozen on her face, completely different from the relaxed state she had just been in.

Her black eyes kept glancing to the right, as if she was thinking, and her tense expression made the air around them tense as well.

"Student Ivy, what's wrong?"

"Is there no content in our red book?"

"I looked through it this afternoon, and there was nothing."

The culprit that caused Ivy and Joshua to travel through time was the red book, which had not had any new content since Ivy gave it to Joshua as a relic.

It seems that after Raphael's false death announcement, Ivy began to reject the Red Book.

She couldn't describe how she felt, she just felt that the red book had become a hot potato. Whenever she looked at the red book, anxiety and uneasiness would force her to stay away from it.

Ivy simply threw the red book to Joshua, told him to read it every day, and waited for Joshua's report.

After nearly a month, there was still no writing on the red book. Something was wrong.

"Do you remember how Harry Potter talked to Tom Riddle?"

Joshua thought about it. It was a long time ago and he would need to think about it in his memory for a long time.

"Write it down, write down the problem." Ivy said anxiously.

Joshua's pupils tightened when he heard this, and then he opened his eyes wide.

"We can also try this method. Maybe there is a soul sealed in the red book... I said we should fight back. We have to be more proactive."

Ivy smiled brightly again, Joshua also smiled faintly, and the air around them became extremely smooth.

"In Chinese, this is called 'When you are surrounded by mountains and rivers and think there is no way out, you will find a new village when you turn around.'"

"Student Ivy, I don't speak Chinese."

"There is so much to learn that even a bottomless pit cannot fill it."

Holmes pulled down the newspaper in his hand, and his narrow eyes flashed with a cunning light, staring at Joshua so hard that his hair stood on end.

"It's just a kid's trick. It sounds quite interesting. Please help me ask a question as well."

"What's wrong with a famous detective? Didn't you say you prefer to use your own logic to find the truth? Would you also use such a tasteless method?"

Ivy spoke as fast as a cannon, using three interrogative sentences in a row.

Holmes did not deny it, but gently pulled the newspaper up again.

He shifted and settled into a more comfortable sitting position, and the muffled voice continued to come out of the newspaper like a drum in the water.

"As for McCovey, I can't find any clues about him. He always knows any of my reasoning. I have to say that he is much smarter than me from childhood to adulthood."

"This concerns the fate of the entire human race. I think I must get involved. Is this reason satisfactory to Miss Ivy?"

Holmes' voice was so distant and low that it made the cool night even colder.