Operation Red Book

"Antonio," the old voice asked, "answer me, did you sign this contract voluntarily?"

"I..." Antonio fiddled with his fingers, "I think so..."

"Of course!" a sharp voice drowned out Antonio's mumbling.

"I can testify that I was right next to them when Antonio signed the contract!"

"Antonio, is this true?"

"It's like this, Auntie..."

"Think carefully before answering. Is it true?" The old voice became louder.

"Oh, aunt, please don't scold me like this. My dear Lisa has always been with me and has never left me. It was like this when I signed the contract, attended the wedding, and met Bassanio..."

"Was your wife with you when you met Bassanio?" Moriarty asked, narrowing his eyes.

Joshua understood what Moriarty meant by asking this question.

Judging from this situation, Lisa is much smarter than the cowardly Antonio.

If Antonio is indeed Bassanio who met Lisa together, it is not ruled out that Antonio was deceived into the trap by these two scumbags and bitches.

"I'm not with him." The tobacco-chewing woman suddenly spoke up.

This really scared Joshua and others. You can guess the reason.

"I was not with him when the contract was signed, nor was I with him when he attended the wedding. On the night he first met Bassanio, I was in his and my bedroom, with no less than three strong young men..."

"No one is asking you, please stop trying to make yourself felt in front of His Highness, okay?"

Lisa's tone was very irritable, like an angry female cat.

"Who wants to listen to you talk about boudoir matters? So what if there are three of you? You're still a hen that doesn't lay eggs!"

"Who said I can't get pregnant?" The woman chewing tobacco raised her eyelids lazily.

"I already have two illegitimate daughters, who are being fostered in your Highness's home."

"Also, the one who can't have children is Antonio. The witch in the forest divined this on the spot with amethyst."

The corners of the woman's mouth inexplicably curled up. Joshua knew that she was gloating.

But what was she gloating about? Joshua looked at Lisa who was standing beside him.

Lisa fell to her knees, her lips trembling, her chest heaving violently, and looking closely, her shoulders were also twitching slightly.

She looked like a sparrow struggling to survive in the cold winter, as if she would be blown to the ground by the cold wind at any moment.

"Ah!"

The woman chewing tobacco spat loudly, and the straw-like, dry and yellow tobacco with saliva flew onto Antonio's face again.

"The baby in your belly is not Antonio's, but that child of Bassanio's."

The whole place was silent. The woman put a new tobacco into her mouth, and there was no expression on her funny and boring white face.

"It seems that the witch's curse has worked."

Joshua muttered quietly, rubbing his eyes to make sure the scene in front of him was not the dramatic Columbia Channel.

"So, you and Bassanio were introduced by Lisa."

Moriarty put his hands behind his back, seemingly unaffected by this, and continued to ask.

"Yes."

Antonio's face turned red, and his voice became much more erratic after what happened just now.

"More than three months ago, Lisa and I met Bassanio in a tavern by the river. He said he had set his eyes on Portia, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and that he would get a lot of money by marrying her. I could get 20% of it then."

"I was very happy. I could finally make my first pot of gold. Lisa's friends were my friends, so I decided on the spot to join my friend Bassanio's plan."

"In this plan, I only need to do one thing, which is to borrow money from the lender in my own name, and only attach a small condition - 'If you don't pay it back, I will cut off a pound of flesh from my heart'."

"They said that I only needed to sign the contract with this condition, and I didn't need to worry about anything else. They also said that even if we went to court later, my aunt the judge would side with us, and I wouldn't have to go to jail..."

"Oh, they really do say that."

The old voice slowed down a lot, as calm as dead water, but it was precisely because of its calmness that people felt chilled.

"Your Highness! I'm really terrified! Antonio... " Lisa's voice became anxious.

"I'm asking him!"

A sound that seemed to destroy everything pierced everyone's ears, as if the ancient gods had brought down their wrath.

Joshua frowned and covered his ears. He saw Antonio nod slowly, and then he saw the white-faced gentlemen jump into the water one after another like fish.

"Order, arrest Lisa and Bassanio, send Antonio to the dungeon, and burn Lisa at the stake immediately..."

"No! Your Highness! Your Highness!"

Lisa's voice was still sharp, but now it sounded like a series of pathetic and infuriating wails.

With a loud "boom", the floor under my feet suddenly shook. The wooden boards no longer swayed up and down with the waves, but were shaking in all directions.

I don't know when the sea water flooded around the wooden board, and white foam stained the edge of the board.

Dark clouds pressed forward, and the sea and the sky turned bottomless black in an instant.

The entire wooden board merged with the sea surface, and the people on the board instantly became slaves of the ocean.

"The board is sinking, we've broken another world!" Jacob cheered unashamedly.

"It's not that simple. If the plank sinks, we will sink too. Do you want to die in the sea?"

Moriarty quickly stepped back and gathered the five people together.

Joshua was a little confused. The sea water was surging onto the wooden board faster and faster, and was about to reach the center of the board.

But it seemed that only Moriarty and others noticed the rapid spread of the sea water, while the others remained silent and turned a blind eye to the strange scene before them.

They continued to carry out their work in an orderly manner.

The tobacco-chewing woman sat back in the shadow of the pile of documents, her eyes still blank.

The soldiers escorted Lisa and Antonio, stepping on different wooden boards.

The platform was descending, but the outline of the woman on top of it was still unclear.

"Fuck-"

Suddenly, a ferocious flash of lightning appeared from the low-hanging black clouds, like a branch spreading out in all directions, illuminating the eerie white faces on the wooden board.

"Rumble, rumble..."

The earth-shaking thunder startled the waves in the distance, and a wave high enough to overturn the heaven and earth could be seen in the distance.

"We can still see those wooden boards in the distance. Let's go over there!" Alexander pointed to the brown and yellow in the distance.

The sea water covered their ankles. Without further ado, Alexander was the first to set off, followed closely by the others.

One after another, ferocious sharks jumped out of the water, with their terrifying sharp teeth and human heads in their greedy little eyes.

The wooden planks under my feet were still slippery, and I would slip if I wasn't careful.

It would be fine if you slipped on a larger wooden board, but if you slipped on a small path that could only accommodate one person, you would probably fall into the mouth of a fish and become the afternoon tea of ​​a lucky shark.

Joshua gritted his teeth and tried to follow Thomas.

Seagulls were soaring in the distant sky, and their mocking cries could be heard clearly from hundreds of meters away.

Of course, in comparison, the sound from the execution ground is clearer.

Shrill screams, the clinking of fire, the burning of wood, angry curses, desperate sobs, low cries, and uncomfortable sobs...

All kinds of noises flooded into Joshua's ears, giving him a headache.

"Don't listen, don't look, that's a witch's illusion." Moriarty's gentle voice came from behind.

"As long as the road under our feet is solid, there is still hope."

Joshua breathed slightly. Moriarty's comfort was just right. At least his mood was not so heavy anymore.

He secretly made up his mind to put everything aside for the time being and focus on the road ahead.

The five of them ran one after the other without talking or taking a break.

The wooden planks above the sea seemed endless, and the path under my feet seemed to have no end.

The surroundings were vast and open, as if there were only five people running in the center of the ocean.

The noisy noise had long since dissipated in the sea breeze as they ran, and the white mist rising from the sea was becoming thicker and thicker.

Unconsciously, the white fog enveloped the sky and the earth, enveloped my figure, enveloped the path, enveloped my sight, and finally enveloped myself...