Operation Red Book

Chapter 272 The Witch's House in the Forest

When Joshua woke up, he shrugged his nose slightly. An unpleasant smell of burnt food floated in the air, disturbing his sweet dream.

At that time, he was still sniffing around vigorously, determined to find the source of the burnt smell. It was not until the temperature above his head became unbearable that he finally reacted.

"Ah! My hair!"

Joshua woke up from the fireplace, seeing an orange-red color and a high temperature that stung his eyes.

He quickly jumped to the side, picked up a few fallen leaves at hand and wiped them on his head. After a few times, he put the leaves on his right eye.

"so close……"

After feeling the comfortable coolness, Joshua let out a long breath. If he had not dodged in time, the flame would not only burn his hair, but also his eyelashes.

Joshua looked towards the fireplace in front of him. The dancing flames blew white smoke at him and made the black wood crackle.

If I could translate this sound, it would be this sentence: "Next time I'm going to kick your ass hard, you little brat!"

Joshua reluctantly put down the leaves and sat on the ground for several minutes.

"where is this place?"

An idea suddenly popped into Joshua's mind, just like a player who has just entered the game world, the first line out of his mouth must be this.

Classic, but cliché.

Joshua's glasses were missing again, but fortunately he was very adaptable to this blurry myopic world, and the absence of glasses did not affect his exploration.

This is a small and cramped space, filled with dampness and darkness.

The torches and fireplace directly in front are the main light sources, and there is also light seeping in from the gaps.

Having stayed in the darkness for long enough, Joshua had completely accepted the darkness. He took a quick look at the structure of the entire house and took a deep breath unconsciously.

Ordinary houses are square, but this house is neither round nor straight. The curved parts are concave, and the straight parts are sharp turns.

In the center of the house stands a thick tree, with its branches winding up along the walls of the house, capping the house with its thick crown.

The roots of the tree rose and fell across the floor, and hundreds of branches almost filled the entire house.

There were several protruding tree roots gathered together, three in total, with three layers of cushions nailed on the surface. They should be stools.

Three stools were placed around a large tree stump, which served as a table, and was filled with insect specimens in glass jars.

Mixed in among them is a wooden tray with a set of exquisite copper teapots standing quietly on the tray, which is out of tune with the environment of the whole house.

Oh, I just didn't see it clearly just now. The spout of the teapot was dripping with a sticky liquid that looked like a caterpillar, and there were a few pieces of stone green moss stuck to the body of the teapot.

"Same weird tone..." Joshua suppressed his nausea and looked away.

There was a protruding part on one of the walls of the room, with two thick branches standing on both sides.

A hammock made of green vines lay across the middle of the branches, with the vines intertwined and tightly woven.

Small yellow and white flowers are scattered alternately on the hammock, looking soft and comfortable.

There was no one sleeping on the bed, but there were two people sleeping under the bed, Thomas and Moriarty.

Joshua went over and shook them, but they were unconscious in the clouds and could not wake up no matter how Joshua shook them.

There was no other way, Joshua could only cheer himself up and look towards another part of the house...

Even as Joshua took a cursory look around the house, he knew who lived here.

Next to the blazing fireplace is a tall and large workbench, which consists of a nanmu table and a locust tree cabinet.

Half of the table was filled with various crystal balls, some transparent, some pure-colored, some blurred, and some mixed with three colors.

Joshua looked closer and saw a blurry figure in each crystal ball. Some of the figures flashed by, while others were clinging to the glass and knocking hard.

Dozens of animal hairs are arranged next to the crystal ball, some long, some short, some wet, and some fluffy.

Joshua opened his eyes wide to identify them, but he was not an expert in this area... He could not recognize the hair of any of these animals.

Don't be so stubborn, this is animal hair from the wizarding world, you can't tell it apart just like Joshua and I, Muggles...

On the other half of the table were various parchments, with several half-empty bottles of ink pressed on top.

A few drops of ink stained the parchment underneath, but the owner did not clean them up in time.

An unmanned quill was dipped in black ink and wrote on the top parchment.

At the same time, another feather pen stood up and drew butterflies and flowers next to the writing with blue ink.

Joshua moved closer, wanting to see what the quills were writing.

But when his face got just a little closer, the writing feather pen slowly stopped.

It shook the pen, and suddenly a large bubble of ink spurted out from the end.

"Ugh-"

Joshua's face was hit right on the spot. He wiped his eyes hastily, but only felt something slippery.

He spat the ink out of his mouth, feeling a surge of luck at having survived the disaster.

Fortunately, I closed my eyes in time when the ink sprayed on me, otherwise this "squid" would definitely not show mercy.

The writing feather pen shook the feathers at the end again and continued to write the elegant black words without distraction.

The drawing quill jumped back and forth on the parchment, as if it was bent over with silent laughter, and then rolled proudly on the painting a few times, not caring at all that the butterfly it had drawn was smudged by the ink from the pen tip.

There were several letters stacked on the edge of the table, and Joshua guessed that there should be several more letters here because he found some burnt remains on the edge of the fireplace.

There was also a half-full bowl of oatmeal porridge on the fireplace, with a few green beans and a few spoonfuls of blueberry jam sprinkled on it. The oatmeal was steaming, and if you smelled it carefully, you could smell some milk.

The workbench is divided into three layers. One layer is filled with puppets carved from various woods. The craftsmanship of carving these puppets is very poor. Many of the puppets require effort to be identified as human figures, and some cannot even be distinguished as goats or toads.

The only thing that matters is the eyes of the puppets. They are not carved eyes, but real, movable eyes.

But these eyes will only blink or roll their eyeballs when you are not looking at them. When you look at them, those eyes will never move at all. You know, they are very likely to act like a poorly carved puppet.

The second layer is filled with various books of different heights, shapes and sizes. The books are very old and without a speck of dust. It seems that their owners often read through them.

I just don't know how he flipped through the pages. Joshua rubbed his sore eyes. The words on the spines of the books moved around like black ants. Many words ran from one book to another without any order at all.

Joshua stared for a long time before he saw a simple word - Magic.

The result is obvious, this is the witch's residence, to be precise, this is the witch's magic tree house, more precisely, this is Beatrice de Popa's magic tree house.

What made Joshua firm in his idea was the wooden cabinet on the third floor, which was filled with trophies and moving photos.

Those photos are all gray and white, and from left to right, they correspond to Beatrice growing up little by little.

The photo on the far right caught Joshua's attention; it was the only one in color and a photo of two people.

Joshua was very familiar with the two people, Belle and Beatrice, one standing with a smile, the other jumping with a laugh, with a vast ocean in the background.

Unfortunately, this photo was crumpled into a ball and torn in half. Although it is now safely stored in a glass frame, the glass is covered with cracks, and it is obvious that it has been broken.

"What hatred do they have?" Joshua muttered and turned around.

"Ahhhh! A monster that looks like Joshua!"

A scream almost pierced Joshua's eardrum. It was Thomas who woke up.

He screamed and backed away until Moriarty's hand grabbed his shoulder.

"That's Joshua," Moriarty said helplessly.

Then he glanced around the room and, as expected, frowned.

"What's that smell... I can't see anything yet..." Moriarty muttered.

"Sorry, it might be better if you open the window."

Joshua wiped his nose and walked towards the only wooden window in the house, which was blocked by a painted glass tile.

"Kalah..." The window was opened easily.

"Did you just peek at my letter?" Beatrice stood outside the window with an angry look on her face.