"Alright, I'm done!"
In the club activity room, Peter twirled his pen after finishing his writing. Compared to last year—probably because they had Felicia helping out—there were indeed a lot more freshman recruits in the Mystery Club this year.
Unfortunately, Jessica and Felicia would be graduating next year, which meant recruitment difficulty would likely spike when the time came.
Putting that aside for now, what Peter and the others were doing was quite simple: coming up with mystery puzzles for the new members. For Peter, this was a piece of cake; Harry, on the other hand, sat beside him with a miserable frown.
As for Amadeus, he had already finished writing his and was now busy solving math problems.
Bored with nothing to do, Peter started pondering Evangelical Ultron's previous words again. Ultron had told him to pay attention to nanomachines and prosthetics. Was he just trying to say that nanomachines could be used to build prosthetics? Peter couldn't shake the feeling that Ultron had something else to say—something he just hadn't voiced.
As he was thinking, a piece of paper was suddenly thrust in front of Peter. He turned his head and saw Cindy handing it to him. "Check this for me, will you? See if there are any issues."
"Oh, sure."
Peter took the mystery puzzle Cindy had written and began reading. Cindy leaned her head in to look together with him. As Peter read through the content, he found nothing wrong with the mystery's underlying logic. But how should he put it? Cindy's puzzle had way too strong of a narrative tone.
And it carried a heavy Stephen King vibe, coming off a bit creepy. Especially—
"Where did you get these details about the corpse? Isn't that a little too detailed?"
"From SHIELD's internal network. There are tons of reference cases for corpses in there, and some of them died in very interesting ways."
What did she mean by "died in very interesting ways"? Peter suddenly felt like he didn't truly know Cindy at all. He hurriedly shook his head, then gave it another check before nodding. "Looks fine. At least, I don't see any issues."
It wasn't realistic to ask Cindy to tone down her descriptions anyway, considering her mystery relied heavily on the bizarre manner of death. He just hoped the freshmen in the detective club could stomach it.
"I can't do this anymore. I can't come up with anything on my own. I always feel like the clues are too simple."
Harry finally threw in the towel, letting out a heavy sigh. "Whatever. After all, the absence of an answer is an answer in itself."
"Speaking of which, Harry, what do you think about the senior's proposal? Are you planning to accept?"
Harry took a moment to realize what he was talking about. "Oh, you mean becoming the club president after she graduates? I'm a bit hesitant—"
"Believe in yourself, you can do it."
Harry couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"That's not what I'm worried about. Being the president doesn't require much else besides organizing activities, recruiting new members, raising sponsorships, and handling collaborations—"
These tasks were indeed very suited to Harry. Besides, on another note, Harry was free—extremely free.
Unlike the others who had superhero duties to attend to, or the seniors in their final year who hardly participated in club activities at all.
"My worry is that no one else has any interest in being president. I'm starting to wonder if this position is a trap."
Amadeus helpfully offered a solution to ease Harry's mind.
"I don't think so. Most students who join the mystery club get busy with experiments or scientific research, so they simply don't have the time to manage the club. That's all."
Harry remained speechless for a moment, then placed his puzzle sheets on the activity room table. Tomorrow, these questions would become the assignment for the freshman members.
As for other matters, they weren't something Peter and the others needed to worry about for now.
However, as they were leaving the activity room, Cindy asked a question that Gwen usually brought up: "Do you have anything going on right now, Peter?"
"Not really. If there's anything, the Avengers will notify me."
As Peter spoke, he turned to ask Cindy, "Why? Is something up?"
"Nothing, I just want to buy a few books and wondered if you wanted to come along."
Peter hadn't planned on buying any books, but simply out of his habit of being unable to say no, he uttered an "Okay." So, walking shoulder to shoulder, the two headed toward a nearby bookstore. As they walked, Peter started looking for topics of conversation: "Cindy, do you have any plans for Christmas?"
"If possible, I hope I can spend it with my parents. Maybe Fury thinks it's safe enough for me over here now."
When Cindy brought this up, Peter recalled the incident with the Scorpion. It was precisely because of that situation back then that Cindy's residence was exposed, leading to her parents and younger brother being relocated. Currently, the ones living with her were just LMDs.
With Hydra still not completely dealt with, Fury might not actually agree to Cindy's request.
Peter then remembered what he had told Cindy before.
"If there weren't any crises right now, I could take you to visit other universes. Like the Shakespearean-style universe we went to last time, or others. I remember there's a medieval Spider-Knight—I really want to check that out."
At this point, Peter gave a slightly apologetic smile. "Though because of the Ultron situation, we probably won't be able to go anytime soon. Stark said before that we'd resolve all the Ultrons before Christmas, but it looks impossible now."
On Evangelical Ultron's end, he hadn't even resolved the issue with the heretics and apostates yet. As for Sword Ultron, no one had any idea what he was doing—there had been zero news from him for a long time.
Under these circumstances, even trying to find logical flaws would prove troublesome. The Avengers likely wouldn't be able to crack the remaining two Ultrons before Christmas.
"It's fine, we still have time in the future."
Cindy shook her head as she spoke, catching sight of the bookstore across the street not far ahead. She grabbed Peter's hand, pulled him over to the bookstore, and pushed open the door. Then, she asked Peter, "What kind of book do you think is good?"
With his hand still being held by Cindy, Peter didn't know what to say for a moment. In the end, he gave a very strained reply: "I've been planning to buy a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude. I'll take this chance to pick one up. It's a pretty good book."
And so, Peter ended up buying a book. After waiting for Cindy to finish buying all of hers, the two left hand in hand.
Peter felt that Cindy was acting a bit strange, so he asked, "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing. It's just that I've been having nightmares these past few days, and I feel like something is lurking nearby. I felt a bit uneasy, so I wanted to find you—at least having two people makes me feel a bit more at ease."
Cindy felt uneasy—?
-----------------------------------------------
I handpick only the finest and most captivating novels for you. Don't forget to check out my other novels!
p@treon HongMengZi