Chapter 50: Expanding Territory

"Three of them, four million in total."

After sitting down, Flobo named his price. Seeing that Baimu only silently poured water without responding, he added, "This price is already quite generous. Sure, they're all fully evolved and look decent in combat, but after all, they've taken drugs…"

"So their value is fundamentally heavily discounted. I understand."

Baimu nodded, sighing faintly in his heart.

Buying and selling Pokémon was common in other regions too, but whenever he heard a specific "value" placed on a single Pokémon, he still found it a bit hard to get used to.

"I'll pass, then. Please thank that person for the kind offer on my behalf. Keeping them is better for me." He spoke with an earnest look.

"Someone already placed an order?"

"No, I just don't want to sell them myself."

"…"

Flobo stared at his face, carefully judging whether the latter was trying to drive up the price. Realizing he probably wasn't, he tapped the table with his knuckles. "…I know you might think you don't need money right now, but honestly, ten million isn't much.

"It looks like a lot at first glance, but in practice it won't last long. Besides, you killed their trainers, so getting them to accept you won't be that easy. Are you planning to keep boarding them forever? That's no small sum!"

Just as he said, when he first got the money, ten million felt like an enormous amount, but actually using it, it felt genuinely little.

Living poor and living rich were two different states; Baimu hoped to step into the latter.

He still had at least two more mouths to feed.

"And I heard you haven't chosen your third Pokémon yet, right? This four million is enough for you to pick some Pokémon that are both strong and have potential."

Flobo tried to persuade again: "Pokémon that have taken drugs will have unstable mental states. Even if you truly tame them, they'll only disappoint you. Furthermore, adding three at once—you'll have a hard time handling them all."

Reasonably speaking, what this person said was very tempting, but he truly didn't want to sell those three pitiful Pokémon.

So Baimu shook his head once more.

Flobo fell silent, picked up his water glass, and took a sip. "…"

He had thought that at this point, if they couldn't reach an agreement, the man should leave. Unexpectedly, after a pause, the other party asked again:

"May I hear how you plan to dispose of them?"

"Of course." Baimu knew there was no need to be evasive about such things; even if he didn't say it, word would get out eventually. "I plan to find a few reliable people among my subordinates later and have them adopted."

"…Adopted?"

"Mm, you could also think of it as a team benefit? Forget about selling."

"…"

Flobo looked at Baimu quite strangely. "My client's offer of four million you won't take, but you'll give them away free to your underlings for adoption?"

"You can understand it that way."

He accepted the gaze of the man before him with perfect composure. Whether they laughed at him for being crazy or mocked him for being hypocritical, he didn't care.

Flobo stood up, his expression momentarily incomparably complicated, then sighed deeply.

"Forgive me. Just pretend I never came."

"Don't say that. I know you meant well too; thanks for making the trip." Baimu saw him off, and only after closing the door did he exhale a breath of stale air.

Four million—honestly, it was truly tempting.

He was just a hair's breadth from giving in.

Money really does make a person unrecognizable.

He shook his head, woke up Roggenrola and Chansey, and prepared to start moving.

During this time, Cheng Hong and a group of old brothers from Qingyi Street came by to help him.

"Once our training ends here, we're planning to throw in our lot with you. What do you think?"

Cheng Ho hoisted a box onto his shoulder, looking at Baimu with eager, pleading eyes.

Hearing this, the others unconsciously turned their gazes over as well, or pricked up their ears to listen in.

"What do you mean 'what do you think'? Besides you guys, who else could I pick?" The latter asked with a smile. "Stop looking at me so pitifully, it's disgusting, alright? We all grew up together—surely I can't just pretend I don't know you the moment one of us makes it?"

The predecessor, who had no parents, had been raised on the charity of neighbors before the age of ten. That counted as one of the few rays of light in his life, and besides, everyone had been banding together to resist "the powers that be" from the very start, so they already had a certain unspoken understanding.

Baimu didn't think anyone could be more reliable than them in terms of loyalty and trust.

Of course, it wasn't ruled out that money could turn people bad—but would complete strangers not turn bad? There was no difference. Everyone present had been tried by Shibata using money and power to drive wedges between them, so they all had some experience resisting corruption.

And hearing his words, Cheng Hong and the others unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief, breaking into brilliant smiles one after another.

Baimu had simply been running too fast—in the blink of an eye he'd become someone they had to look up to, and talking with him inevitably made their hearts uneasy.

But thankfully,

he was still the same as ever—sparing with words but deep in affection.

The group began chatting away in a hubbub.

"If Baimu's territory gets assigned to the Qingyi Street area, that would be great. Mom and the others wouldn't have to work so hard in the future."

"Idiot! Our hometown is so poor—of course it has to be assigned somewhere with fat to be had! Collecting protection money from those dance halls and pachinko parlors for a day could make you rich as fat! Once you take the money back, your mom won't have to work hard either!"

"Hahahaha!"

Young people of at most twenty-something laughed heartily, their words full of longing for the future.

——

The new house.

A square two-story small building with a pale yellow facade.

Filled with the style of self-built houses from rural areas or small towns in his previous life, yet it came with a not-small backyard, and in the backyard there was not only a rudimentary battleground.

There was even a tree.

For Baimu and Roggenrola, this was something of a pleasant surprise.

The location wasn't far from the Sand Group's egg-shaped headquarters, yet there weren't many people around, and the houses were spaced a certain distance apart, ensuring the residents' privacy.

No wonder they all said being promoted to squad leader was like a carp leaping through the dragon's gate.

The standard of living has improved way too much.

Baimu grumbled inwardly, then took a closer look and found that while the two-story building's exterior looked plain and shabby, the interior was quite nicely decorated.

He figured it was the hard work of the previous owner.

He thought it over, then had a small celebration in the new house with a bunch of his colleagues.

When Chenghong and the others went to their training course, the sapling and potted plant that Kodora had been looking forward to also arrived.

The delivery person brought along a Diglett, and after confirming with Baimu where to plant it, ordered it to dig a hole in the ground huffing and puffing, then transplanted the sapling in.

Kodora excitedly tried to go help, and only settled down after the trainer knocked on its forehead.

"Here's the cultivation manual, please come again!"

The delivery person left.

"Cultivation manual... should be able to keep it alive, right? That one's already been kept alive." Baimu flipped through it — couldn't understand it, but he glanced at the big tree that had already been there.

He felt it might still be possible.

However.

Wouldn't these two trees compete for nutrients?

He looked worriedly at the trees ten meters apart; it was really his first time raising this sort of thing, he had no idea how to handle it.

"Fertilizing, enriching the soil... hey, calm down, will you, stop grunting like a pig!"

Baimu pushed away the big head Kodora pushed over, and said with a pout: "You can't even read it and you want to look, I can't even understand it! Pokémon script is way too hard."

Kodora didn't care what its trainer thought, and started running laps around the backyard, releasing the energy it had nowhere to put once it got excited.

While running, it also let out muffled roars.

"Gudo! Gu!"

Even Chansey was left dumbfounded by it.

Baimu also didn't understand what was going on with this thing, until a voice sounded.

"Oh? Looks like your Kodora has taken your backyard as its own territory."

The visitor was Floeb again.

"Uh... what makes you say that."

Baimu felt this person was a bit strange — free all day long? Always running over here, or did they have some other purpose...

"Kodora is a kind of Pokémon that's very accustomed to planning territory, and has a very strong territorial instinct. Generally in the wild it would choose a mountain with buried iron ore and delicious spring water, but Pyrite Town doesn't have those conditions, so it lowered its standards."

Floeb saw the wariness in Baimu's eyes, and sighed, "Brother, I'm still here about that thing this morning. Can't be helped, I was just born with a life of toil, running errands and delivering messages for people every day."

"... You're at least a squad leader, aren't you."

"So what if I'm a squad leader, in the big shots' eyes I'm nothing, if they want me to go personally what can I do." Floeb's face showed a hint of pleading, "Give me a chance to discuss it, please."

Baimu: "..."

He always felt there was something off about this person — couldn't say exactly what was wrong for the moment — but out of consideration for testing the waters, he decided to agree.

Otherwise if the other party got annoyed and went from open to covert, it'd be troublesome if they schemed behind the scenes.