In a two-story wooden house on a mountain full of flowers in the suburbs of Yangcheng, a young man in his twenties was lying on a hammock in the yard, scrolling on his phone.
“It’s been five years since the strongest Champion, A Li, retired. How is he living now?”
“What about the Pokémon of those Trainers who evolved Eevee into Sylveon? How are they doing now?”
“Sino-Western Pokémon cooperation has further strengthened. Hua Country will further introduce research technologies such as Gigantamax, Mega Evolution, Terastallization, and Z-Moves.”
… …
“So boring!” The young man yawned, just about to lie down for a nap, when a pink, cat-like Pokémon sat squarely on his face, rubbing its rear end against his face repeatedly.
“Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey…” The young man grabbed the Pokémon by the scruff of its neck, glaring at it with wide, angry eyes. “Skitty, didn’t we agree you wouldn’t rub your butt on my face?”
Skitty looked innocent, as if saying, “I didn’t mean to!”
Seeing such a cute Skitty Charm him, the young man immediately forgot his anger. He wished he could bury his face in Skitty’s embrace and sniff to his heart’s content.
“Alright, alright, but no more of that from now on!” The young man casually tossed Skitty. Skitty flipped in the air, landed steadily, then stuck out its tongue at the young man, made a funny face, and wiggled its rear end as it left.
The young man wiped his face with his hand and couldn’t help but sniff it, seemingly detecting no strange odor: “I wonder if Skitty wiped its butt after doing its business…”
Just as the young man was about to lie down and rest a bit longer, his phone rang. He picked it up and saw the caller ID: Li Yu.
After answering the call, an excited voice came from the other end: “A Li, when are you coming back? The graduation ceremony is in two days!”
“Graduation ceremony?” The young man subconsciously checked the time on his phone: Pokémon Calendar, June 20, 1075. “How did time pass so quickly? I remember I just got back?”
The young man’s name was Mu Li, a soon-to-be graduate of the Broadcasting and Hosting Department at Yangcheng Conservatory of Music.
“What? Are you addicted to staying in the countryside? Not planning to return to modern life?” Li Yu said irritably, “Hurry up, come back. Our dorm’s Four Heavenly Kings are only missing you.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll be back tomorrow…” Before Mu Li could finish speaking, Li Yu on the other end of the phone interrupted him.
“Don’t think I don’t know your little tricks. You say you’ll be back tomorrow, but it’d be good if you arrived before 10 PM tomorrow night.” Li Yu complained, “I’m giving you until 6 PM this afternoon to get back to the dorm, otherwise I’ll tell Shi Miaomiao that you have a crush on her.”
Mu Li’s mouth twitched: “How many times have I explained? I said I don’t like her.”
“I don’t care. I’m just a messenger. If you’re not afraid of Shi Miaomiao clinging to you later, then feel free to come late.” With that, the call ended.
Shi Miaomiao… A pure and lovely girl with her hair usually in twin pigtails floated through the young man’s mind. Like Mu Li, she was a student at Yangcheng Conservatory of Music.
She entered the school in the same year as Mu Li, but she studied musical theater performance.
Shi Miaomiao was a rather generous girl, but she would blush whenever she spoke to Mu Li.
Everyone at Yangcheng Conservatory of Music knew that Shi Miaomiao had liked Mu Li since the year they enrolled, but Mu Li, that beast, always pretended to be clueless.
The place where Mu Li lived was not far from Yangcheng, but it still took nearly four hours to drive, after all, Yangcheng was too big, and the traffic wasn’t great either.
“There are still more than four hours until 6 PM. I played Pokémon Glory too late last night. I’ll take a nap first.” Mu Li felt a wave of drowsiness wash over him and soon fell asleep.
He didn’t know how long he slept, but Mu Li felt a rumble of thunder, and soon, large raindrops poured down, drenching Mu Li like a drowned rat.
The sudden rain finally woke Mu Li from his sleep. However, his eyes now seemed to be ignited by flames, glaring at a yellow fat Dragon and a black-and-white-gold long Worm flying in mid-air.
“Dragonite, Giratina, how many times have I told you! If you’re going to fight, don’t use Rain Dance, okay?! Ah?! Do you have any public morals?!” Mu Li roared at the sky.
After roaring, Mu Li shouted towards a small single-story house not far away: “Ninetales, use Sunny Day for me!”
As soon as he spoke, a beam of light shot out from inside the house, directly blasting a large hole in the originally overcast sky, and the remaining dark clouds quickly dissipated under the light’s illumination.
Sunlight shone down once more.
Dragonite and Giratina, flying in the sky, exchanged a helpless glance. Dragonite shrugged helplessly and gestured in another direction, meaning: “Shall we continue over there?”
Giratina roared to the sky: “Let’s go, who’s afraid of whom?”
The two Pokémon, one after another, instantly vanished above the farm.
Seeing the two Pokémon leave, Mu Li complained helplessly: “These two unlucky kids, why do they like to fight for no reason? They don’t even know how to help me with some real work.”
After the sun came out, Arcanine, who was out for a walk, passed by Mu Li and rolled its eyes at him: “What kind of real work could you have? If you could do some real work, we wouldn’t have to be self-sufficient.”
After the storm, many Pokémon emerged from the farm and the woods, and began working on the farm grounds.
Mu Li’s farm was very large, almost the entire two mountains visible to the naked eye were within the farm’s boundaries.
Five years ago, he was just a high school student.
At that time, he was already Hua Country’s first Champion Trainer—A Li, and it was this mysterious young man who always wore a mask on the field who, from his first year of debut, brought enormous changes to Pokémon battles worldwide.
Participating in the Olympics Pokémon Battle event for the first time, while Hua Country’s other three Champion-level Trainers were eliminated, A Li, with the demeanor of an Elite, fought beyond his rank against foreign Champions, single-handedly securing a bronze medal for Hua Country, becoming the first Pokémon Trainer in history to win an Olympic medal at the Elite Level.
In his second year of debut, he was promoted to Champion, leading Hua Country to crush Champion players from other countries, winning all the highest honors in Pokémon battles, forcing the Pokémon battle events to change their rules for him, prohibiting Champion-level Pokémon from appearing on the battlefields.
In his third year of debut, A Li, with a Ninetales that had just been promoted to Elite Level, once again crushed all opponents.
However, a prominent tree in the forest will inevitably be destroyed by the wind.
At that time, Hua Country’s performance in Pokémon events was acceptable, but in terms of research technology, it was still slightly inferior to other countries, for example, in research on Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, and Gigantamax.
In order to obtain these technologies, Hua Country could only seek help from other forces in certain areas.
To promote the harmonious development between humans and Pokémon, the Pokémon Federation required all major forces to share their research technologies. Thus, other countries finally agreed to technology sharing, but at the same time, they also put forward a request—for A Li to retire.
So, the young Mu Li began his retirement life early.
Ever since Mu Li retired from his position as a Trainer, he leased two mountains around Yangcheng and became a farm owner.
The reason he had to lease two mountains was simply because he had too many Pokémon.
He originally thought two mountains were large enough, but he didn’t expect that after five years of retirement, his Pokémon grew more and more numerous. The Pokémon would even pick up some new Pokémon when they went out to play, resulting in the current situation.
Their descendants are endless.
In the beginning, Mu Li could still support his Pokémon’s expenses with his retirement fund, but as the number of Pokémon increased daily, his retirement fund was far from enough.
To cover the daily expenses of the Pokémon, Mu Li and the Pokémon came up with a solution—selling flowers.
And the main product of Mu Li’s farm was fresh flowers. The entire farm, apart from the woods, was filled with flowers.
As for why they planted flowers instead of other crops, that’s because the Pokémon themselves knew how to plant flowers!
What do you expect a high school student who only knows how to Pokémon battle to know?
Fortunately, the weather in Yangcheng was good, and there were many Combee, Venusaur, Flabébé, and other Pokémon on the farm, so the Pokémon themselves could sustain these flowers.
On weekdays, there would also be dedicated staff who came to collect the flowers, which was enough to support the entire farm.
Once the farm was on track, he also began his university life.
Four years passed in a blink of an eye, and his university life was about to end.
Mu Li felt a bit emotional about the fleeting time and casually grabbed the Arcanine passing by, vigorously stroking its head twice: “Arcanine, do you want to go to the city with me?”
Arcanine’s brow furrowed, revealing a troubled expression: “The free and unrestrained farm life, where I can play with other female dogs, versus the restricted city life, where I might be petted by unfamiliar Misses for no reason. It’s really hard to choose!”
After a moment of thought, Arcanine reluctantly nodded at Mu Li: “There’s nothing I can do. If I’m not there, who else will love you?”
“Arcanine! I knew I didn’t dote on you for nothing!” Mu Li was a bit moved. The thought of Arcanine abandoning its harem to go to the city with him—this friendship alone was worth a fortune.
“Besides Arcanine, I need to bring a few more Pokémon.” Mu Li searched around, and his gaze met a Tyranitar crawling out of a cave. Mu Li quickly averted his eyes.
“That guy is too big. I’d have to bring a lot more Energy Cubes to feed him.” Mu Li immediately ruled out Tyranitar, and Tyranitar quickly hid back in its cave.
Tyranitar: “So dangerous, I almost got taken to the city by the Trainer.”
“I have to bring Blissey, what if I get injured?”
“Might as well bring Gengar too, that guy can help me with my luggage.”
“Might as well bring Togekiss too, otherwise it’s inconvenient without a Flying-type Pokémon.”
“Oh, and my Jigglypuff. What will I do if I can’t sleep and get homesick without that guy?”
… …
Mu Li was still thinking about which last Pokémon to bring when a pink and white Sylveon, with ribbons wrapped around its body, suddenly appeared, staring with large lake-blue eyes, tears welling up in the corners.
Mu Li immediately got a headache: “Alright, alright, I’ll bring you, I’ll bring you…”
As soon as he spoke, the tears in Sylveon’s eyes immediately dried up, and it jumped into Mu Li’s arms with its head held high, snuggling comfortably.
The pink Jigglypuff nearby immediately puffed up in anger, about to slap Sylveon a few times: “This green tea Eevee, just you wait until I deal with you.”
Fortunately, Mu Li was quick, grabbing Jigglypuff and tossing it onto his head, thus avoiding a live brawl.
After giving instructions to the other Pokémon, Mu Li rode Togekiss and left directly.
In their senior year, everyone went out to find jobs, and Mu Li hadn’t returned to school for a long time. He even somewhat forgot his persona in college—an ordinary, plain person.
Although Mu Li wasn’t exactly plain-looking, he was quite low-key at school.
When he enrolled four years ago, he only brought a Sylveon and a Gengar hidden in his shadow.
The evolved form of Eevee had been discovered for decades, and because Eevee was so common, Sylveon wasn’t particularly rare either.
Coupled with Sylveon’s cute appearance, half of the girls at the Conservatory of Music owned a Sylveon.
For students at the Conservatory of Music, combat power was always secondary; beauty was paramount.
He brought a Sylveon, and when Mu Li first enrolled, he had invested all his money into planting flowers, so he was a bit tight on everyday expenses.
In the impression of his classmates, Mu Li was just an ordinary student with a good-looking appearance.
Apparently, Mu Li himself had forgotten his persona, but even if he remembered, he probably wouldn’t care.
In his eyes, whether it was Togekiss or Giratina, they were just his partners, with no distinction of high or low.
Togekiss: A legendary super rare Pokémon. Legend has it that Togekiss is synonymous with luck. To some extent, Togekiss is much rarer than pseudo-legendary Pokémon.
Giratina: A Legendary Pokémon. There is only one of it in the entire world, and it usually resides in the Distortion World.
At this moment, the classroom of the Broadcasting and Hosting Department at Yangcheng Conservatory of Music was already more than half full.
“Why isn’t A Li here yet?”
