Chapter 212: Red

"Alright, alright, I admit defeat!" Gengar's voice sounded with a hint of embarrassment. Its body instantly turned into a wisp of purple smoke, virtualizing and escaping from Charizard's fist wind, and in the blink of an eye, it drifted back to Huo La's side.

Hearing Gengar take the initiative to admit defeat, Red was stunned for a moment, then raised his hand to recall Charizard.

Charizard flapped its tired wings and landed beside him, the scars on its chest still faintly red, but it still held its head high, exuding an unyielding pride.

"Gengar, your strength is far more than this; isn't admitting defeat too hasty?" Red looked at Gengar, who was drifting beside Huo La, his tone carrying obvious doubt.

"Ouch, I just don't want to fight anymore!" Gengar hallucinated two soft hands, rubbing its round face hard, and deliberately twisted its cheeks crooked: "This Charizard's claws scratched me so painfully; if I keep fighting, my face will be disfigured!"

"Huo La, this..." Red turned his gaze to Huo La, clearly wanting him to give a definitive answer.

Huo La only came back to his senses after this question.

The moment Gengar called out its admission of defeat, the system popped up a task completion prompt—he had ultimately lost to Red, a result that left him stunned for quite a while.

At this moment, meeting Red's gaze, he could only smile bitterly: "Brother Xiao Chi, Old Ghost said he lost, so this round is your win."

"Gengar surrendered voluntarily, the winner of this round is Charizard! In the final 3-on-3 battle, Red wins!" Bilan immediately announced the final result in a loud voice, her tone still carrying a hint of unfinished business.

Red also smiled, carefully putting away Charizard's Poké Ball, and walked to Huo La: "Fine, since it's your partner's decision, I won't dwell on it. I have to go find Nurse Joy to restore my Pokémon's condition first; I'm leaving Cinnabar Island tonight."

"Ah? So urgent? Brother Xiao Chi, aren't you staying in town for a night before leaving?" Huo La was a bit surprised; after all, having just finished a wonderful battle, he still wanted to chat with Red a bit more.

"No." Red looked up at the sky outside the window, a casual smile lifting the corners of his mouth: "Compared to the soft bed in the Pokémon Center, I prefer the entire starry sky I can see overhead when camping in the wild."

Huo La nodded knowingly; everyone had their own travel rhythm, so naturally, he couldn't persuade him to stay.

"By the way, send me a copy of the battle video you just recorded." Red suddenly remembered something and took his Rotom Phone out of his pocket.

The phone buzzed and hovered, its screen lit up and aimed at Huo La's Rotom.

"No problem." Huo La raised his hand to signal his Rotom to step forward, the two Rotoms touched lightly, and the battle footage just recorded was transmitted quickly.

Putting away the Rotom Phone, Red waved at the three of them—Huo La, Xiao Gang, and Bilan: "Then I'm off, see you at the League Conference later; don't lose to me again by then!"

"Rest assured, the next winner will definitely be me!" Huo La reached out and made a fist, his tone full of unyielding fighting spirit.

Red laughed loudly, turned around, and walked quickly away from the training ground, soon disappearing at the end of the corridor.

"No, I have to go find Professor Oak for a Rotom too!" Bilan dropped this sentence and also ran hurriedly toward the end of the corridor. Looking at that posture, she probably wouldn't take no for an answer from Professor Oak.

Xiao Gang walked to Huo La's side, reached out and patted his shoulder, looked at Gengar again, thought of some unpleasant things, and also turned and left hurriedly.

Soon, the training ground returned to quiet, and Huo La took Gengar back to the room in the Pokémon Center.

In the room, the man and the ghost struck the classic "big eyes staring at small eyes" pose again.

"Old Ghost, you suddenly took the initiative to join the battle this time; it couldn't really just be because you were itchy for a fight, right?" Huo La broke the silence first, his tone carrying a hint of probing.

Gengar swayed its translucent body, let out a "hehe" weird laugh, hallucinated two soft arms again, and pulled its round ghost face hard, only then speaking slowly: "Yo, you brat's brain, you really saw something?"

"How could that be." Huo La spread his hands, looking frank: "Just probing casually, didn't expect to really ask it out."

Gengar's laughter stopped abruptly, its tone becoming serious for once: "That kid named Red has a special scent on him, just like you."

"What scent? Could it be that he also has a scent of 'being dead' like me?" Huo La joked; he always felt that his ability to bind the system had something to do with his special "reborn" state.

"Different." Gengar floated up and down slowly, as if trying hard to recall: "The scent on him is very faint but very bright, but I vaguely remember smelling it somewhere, just that it's been too long, and I can't remember it for a moment."

Huo La stared at the flickering purple figure before him and suddenly said mindlessly: "I always feel that you don't look like a Pokémon that has lived for two thousand years, but rather more like a person."

As soon as this was said, Gengar's swaying figure paused abruptly, and even the mist around it shook.

The next second, an enlarged ghost face "slapped" onto Huo La's face, its voice dragged long and eerily: "Do... you... think... I... look... like... a person..."

Huo La waved his hand in front of him, his palm passing through Gengar's body without any obstruction, bringing a burst of cool chill.

He didn't ask any further, but in his heart, he began to ponder Gengar's words just now.

The system would specifically issue battle tasks for Red, but it didn't give this treatment to Ash, whom it had always defaulted to as the "protagonist." Was this random or fixed?

Now Gengar said Red had a special aura, which forced Huo La to think deeper—could Red's identity be far more complex than in his memory?

Seeing Huo La lost in thought, Gengar also felt it had lost interest in teasing. Its figure swayed lightly, turning into a wisp of pale purple green smoke, silently seeping into the wall, preparing to go to the room next door to "wander around."

Gengar's wall-passing movement didn't make a sound, and Huo La was still pondering Red's affairs, not paying attention to its movements at all.

But not long after Gengar completely hid in the wall, a sharp female voice suddenly pierced the tranquility of the Pokémon Center. The voice was surprised and panicked, and carried a hint of crying, coming exactly from Bilan's room next door.

Huo La raised his brows at the sound, but didn't get up, even leaning slowly onto the bed—he knew Old Ghost's temper too well; this was definitely it running to the room next door to play a prank and scaring Bilan. At most, it was a false alarm, not a big deal.

And on the other side, in Bilan's room, it was indeed as Huo La thought, a "bathroom horror" was being staged.

Bilan had just finished showering, wrapped in a pink bath towel, and walked out of the bathroom, her hair still dripping with water.

She was reaching out to grab the towel on the table to dry her hair when she looked up and bumped straight into a purple figure floating at the bathroom door.

It was currently tilting its round head, its ghostly green eyes leering at Bilan, its scarlet long tongue slowly drooping from the corner of its mouth, swaying under the light.

The man and the ghost stared at each other, and the air froze for three seconds instantly.

Bilan's brain went blank. She was stunned first, then saw the eerie ghost face clearly, and a scream that resounded through the corridor instantly erupted from her throat: "Ah——!!!"

This scream was high and urgent, and even the chandelier in the corridor of the Pokémon Center shook along with it.

Gengar clearly hadn't expected her reaction to be so big. It was shaken by this scream, actually floating back half a foot in a very unclassy way, then let out a "hehehe" weird laugh, deliberately leaning its ghost face closer. ===== CHAPTER 213 =====