Chapter Ninety-One: Crossing: Something Feels Wrong, as Though There Is Something Unclean Here

“Come, then—now?”
Zhu Suihan glanced at the television screen. “It’s rare to find a show I can actually watch.”
“Half an hour from now, he’ll be at your dorm to visit. I don’t think it’ll keep you from finishing the show.”
Qiao Yijing smiled. “Maybe you can even look forward to the little gift he’ll bring.”
Zhu Suihan laughed too. “Either way, it definitely won’t be a Dragon-type egg.”

If he really did have a Dragon type on his team, and he wasn’t familiar with them yet, he would probably spend every day trembling.

Half an hour later, a knock sounded at the door right on time.
Xian Cream raised a hand, only to be lifted up by Zhu Suihan and placed on his head.
“A guest has arrived. I’ll get the door.”

If it had been someone he knew well, Zhu Suihan might have been too lazy to move at all.
No, if it had been someone he knew well, not smashing the door down would already have counted as the height of courtesy.

When the main door opened, the red-haired young man in a cape with a card-gamer’s hairstyle glanced at Zhu Suihan. The two of them froze at once, each a little unsure how to begin.

Zhu Suihan was wondering why this kid was already wearing a cape; he had thought that was the sort of outfit Lance only adopted after becoming one of the Elite Four.
Lance, meanwhile, was thinking of something else entirely.

This guy in front of him looked familiar.
No, not merely familiar—there was a deeply familiar feeling about him. Both extraordinary powers within Lance were warning him of one thing.

He had seen this person before.

Lance remembered now: when he had come to Joy Academy for the meeting about the bottle plan, he had once sensed a gaze full of malice while walking around the great lake.
Was it this person?
But at the time, he had checked his surroundings carefully, and there had been no one there at all.

“You’re Lance, right? Dragon Master Lance. The dean has already told me. Come in.”
Zhu Suihan opened the door wide. “I’m curious why you wanted to come and meet me in person. It shouldn’t be only because of family orders.”
“Mm. I’m curious too—what kind of person could research something like that.”

Lance nodded in thanks. Once inside, he very politely did not look around, and simply followed Zhu Suihan into the living room.
“Please sit. I don’t have much here to entertain you with, just some milk and snacks.”

Lance looked at the Moomoo milk and the little dish of energy cubes and slowly raised a question mark in his mind.
The milk was normal enough, but did energy cubes count as snacks?

“I’ve heard for a long time that your method of making energy cubes is unusual. This is my first time seeing it with my own eyes.”
When in another’s house, one follows the host’s lead. Lance picked up an energy cube and put it in his mouth, discovering that the flavor was unexpectedly good—so good, in fact, that it could almost be called excellent. The only drawback was that it was too sweet.

“I’d like to know the reason too.”
Zhu Suihan leaned back on the sofa. “You’re curious why Magikarp have become what they are now?”

Lance nodded. “With Senior Jing as a guarantor, I don’t doubt the authenticity of the research results, but I am indeed curious about the question you raised.”

“That’s simple.”
Zhu Suihan snapped his fingers. “Have you ever used a computer, or rather, do you have any experience with one?”
Lance looked a little puzzled. “Yes. It’s very convenient for looking up information and contacting family and friends. Is that related?”
“I’m only making an analogy.”

Zhu Suihan casually took a book and placed it on the table.
“As everyone knows, when some files become too large, or when one wants to transmit certain unspeakable things—including, but not limited to, pieces of delusional writing like Gardevoir marrying humans and bearing children—one uses a certain program format.”

Lance fought down the twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“I know what a compressed file is, but I don’t think we’re discussing sexual literature, or even interspecies sexual literature, right now.”

“No, no, I’m only making a comparison. And that seems to be nothing more than a legend anyway, with a larger audience in the Unova region.”
Zhu Suihan shrugged. “In short, the Magikarp of the modern age, and even of ancient times, are compressed files, while the medicine I developed is a decompression program.”

“And as for what comes out after decompression, all I can say is that it’s a blind box. After all, it has to do with the individual Magikarp’s own talent.”
“Some may have sturdy builds, like those Fighting-type Pokemon; some may simply be better at using moves.”
“I can’t control what file gets unpacked. The medicine is only an emotionless decompression program.”

Lance thought it over and found that it actually made a certain amount of sense.

“Then do you know the reason why Magikarp as a species became compressed files? Of course, by reason I mean the kind that led their entire race to evolve in that direction.”

Zhu Suihan shook his head. “It’s nothing more than some disaster. As for what disaster it was, I don’t know.”

At a smaller scale, it could mean racial war—an enemy deathmatch like Seviper and Zangoose, where the moment they met they had to decide victory or defeat, or even have one side perish before it was over.
At a larger scale, it became even vaguer: an invasion by some dark and wicked force meant for villains alone, a catastrophe that brought such heavy losses to the species that they were forced to evolve into compressed files to preserve a spark of life.

Go and summon the little savior, little Lance!
Ah, right—the fellow in front of him seemed to be Lance himself.

Lance was momentarily at a loss for words. That did seem plausible.
The definition of a disaster is an event or process, caused by objective or subjective factors, that harms human life, property, and safety.

If one simply replaced “human” with “any intelligent species,” Zhu Suihan’s reasoning could be applied without any issue at all.

“In any case, it’s a very bizarre thing. Evolving in a weaker direction to improve survival—about the only thing we can be sure of is that they encountered some irresistible force.”
Zhu Suihan drank his milk. “None of this may be very convincing. How about you come with me to the great lake and let them put on a little performance for you?”

Lance hesitated. “When I came, I seemed to only see a Gyarados inside that had mastered the Heart of Rage.”
“That’s normal. They’re hiding.”
Zhu Suihan said, “Decompressed Magikarp are still very smart, though of course nowhere near Alakazam or Metagross.”

“Alright.”
Lance seemed to wake from a dream. “Oh, right. This is a gift for you. I nearly forgot something so important.”

Inside the gift box were ten ten-year berries, and the choice was clearly thoughtful.
Normally, Lance would never forget such matters of etiquette, but one could only say that from the moment he saw that certain monkey, the initiative in the conversation no longer belonged to him.

Everything had been strange: the inexplicable source of malice he had first suspected, the use of energy cubes as snacks, and Zhu Suihan’s bizarre talk of compressed files and all the odd theories that followed.
It had nearly fried Lance’s CPU.

He felt as though he were sitting before a strangely disguised eccentric, no different from the usual sort of researcher with a few peculiar habits.

“Let’s go.”
Lance looked at the Lapras and Xian Cream beside Zhu Suihan and felt a certain malice stemming from type advantage and disadvantage.

“You took part in that interregional cultural exchange event last time?”
Zhu Suihan nodded. “Mm. What about you? Did you choose a partner? For you, it would definitely be a Dragon type.”

Jangmo-o? Dreepy?
Surely not Duraludon and Turtonator—though even Applin and Alolan Exeggutor would be weighty choices.

The first two were still understandable, but the latter pair’s appearance more or less shattered Lance’s understanding of what a Dragon-type Pokemon looked like.

“I have quite a few partners, so I haven’t really thought about that yet.”
Lance displayed the four Pokeballs at his waist.

“When you do have a thought in mind, obtaining Pokemon from other regions is quite convenient too, isn’t that so?”
“Yes. By then, whether with the family’s support or through my own strength, it would be easy enough to obtain Dragon-types from other regions.”
Lance said, “To tell the truth, I also find Dragon-types from other regions very novel. After all, for regions too far from Blackthorn City, there’s no chance of Dragon Pokemon migrating there.”
“Being interested is a good thing.”

Zhu Suihan agreed with Lance’s view. As a people who lived alongside Pokemon, the moment one lost the will to strive, one was probably not far from becoming a weakling.

“We’re here.”
Zhu Suihan stood by the lakeshore. “Big fellow! Bring out your brood!”

“Gara.”
You were looking for me?

The Gyarados rose from the water like a structure emerging from the sea, its huge eyes fixed on Zhu Suihan.

Lance’s expression changed at once.
This Gyarados was a bit too large. The Pokedex said an ordinary one was only about six and a half meters long, but the one before him was absolutely twice that size!

While stronger Gyarados could also vary in build, this only confirmed how formidable the Joy Academy Gyarados really was.

Zhu Suihan frowned in confusion. “Where are your brood?”
“Ko-li!”
Patron, we’re here!

The first Magikarp, the one Zhu Suihan had been feeding, burst up from beneath the water, drawing a nearly perfect arc in midair before falling back in, then looked at Zhu Suihan with great familiarity.

The remaining nine Magikarp appeared in turn, neatly lined up.
Naturally, they had also remembered to keep their jumping height below the Gyarados’s head.
They couldn’t beat the boss.

Familiar?
Lance immediately noticed the problem. Since when could Magikarp make such rich, expressive faces?

“Alright, everyone’s here. Show us your training results.”
Zhu Suihan pointed at the caped man beside him. “Whether you get a special treat today depends on whether this patron in front of you is satisfied.”
“If he is, then he’ll pay for today’s extra meal.”

Lance: ?

“Ko-li!”
Let’s go, brothers! Momentum’s here!

Magikarp One let out a roar, and the rest swiftly changed formation, lining up side by side with their tails aimed at Zhu Suihan and Lance.

“Timing. Begin!”

Boom!

Ten waves surged up in an instant, and all the Magikarp shot forward at remarkable speed.

“First event: a high-speed round trip.”
Zhu Suihan looked at the Lance who seemed to be questioning reality itself. “How about it? Satisfied with that speed?”

Lance was astonished. “Is that short-burst acceleration, or sustained sprinting?”
“Sustained. I’ve tested it. Maintaining that speed for forty-five minutes is no problem.”

Compared with these ten Magikarp, the Sharpedo in the sea could only be called weak.
So long as they were continuously trained, so what if someone had a Rotom Bike? They could chase until the bike’s battery died.

Zhu Suihan coughed lightly. “As for why it isn’t their absolute top speed, it’s because top speed makes it too easy to crash into passing students and teachers. The venue doesn’t allow it.”

Although he treated the great lake as an experimental site, he still had to consider other people’s feelings. He couldn’t act as recklessly as he would out in the wild.

Zhu Suihan handed Lance a bottle of energy cubes.
“Even if I don’t know whether your Dragon Master clan has some special methods, using this to improve their affection is never wrong.”