Chapter 354: Rongcheng

In Rongcheng, the largest city in Sichuan Province, a fully orange Pokémon with a professional license flapped its wings and landed outside a grand battle arena.

"Thanks for your hard work, Dragonite~"

Su Hao patted the orange "fatty" beneath him, feeling very pleased.

He set off from Shuizhou City and spent two days just to barely arrive in Rongcheng on June 1st, the official start date of the High School Cup provincial tournament.

"Brother Su, over here!"

Outside the arena entrance, the sharp-eyed Li Hua spotted Su Hao's figure at a glance.

"Coming, coming!" Su Hao waved his hand, signaling he would be there in a moment.

Dragonite looked at him with a dazed expression, holding a QR code with its claws to signal Su Hao to scan it: "Bo-wu~"

"Beep~"

After scanning the code and saying goodbye to the Dragonite taxi, Su Hao walked quickly toward Li Hua.

Once Su Hao got close, Li Hua nudged him with his elbow: "Our school is only sending the two of us, Brother Cheng, and that psychic Kong Lingwei to participate in the competition this time."

Su Hao asked in confusion: "Isn't it eight people?"

Li Hua said awkwardly: "Because of some reasons, the other four couldn't participate. Teacher Zhong is so angry."

"What's the situation?" Su Hao was very puzzled; what did "some reasons" mean?

Li Hua looked left and right, then said mysteriously: "The spots were given to other schools, so they just took the four of us with the highest strength to participate. But those guys still got some compensation."

Speaking of this, Li Hua also felt a bit depressed.

"They could have actually participated if they had just persisted a bit longer, but it seems that after the last exhibition match, they realized they might not even pass the selection rounds, so they all chose the compensation."

Su Hao said speechlessly: "This... no wonder Teacher Zhong is angry."

"Forget it, let's not talk about them. Let's go to the waiting room and wait for the draw." Li Hua shook his head and pulled Su Hao toward the inside of the arena.

"Because there is a spectator area for this battle, we will spend most of our time in our respective waiting areas, except for the opening ceremony where we have to appear."

Su Hao asked in confusion: "Waiting room?"

Would this arena arrange a waiting room for every school? That doesn't seem likely...

"Hehe, it's called a waiting room, but it's actually just a circle of temporarily built waiting areas on the edge of the arena. We're in Zone B1." Li Hua scratched his head and replied.

"I see, understood."

Su Hao nodded. Actually, it made no difference to him where he was. If he didn't dominate the High School Cup, he might as well go back to his hometown and be a fruit farmer planting trees.

"You're here. Sit down." Zhong Li freed her right hand and pointed to the empty seat beside her.

Zhong Li was holding a thick stack of forms. According to Li Hua, this was the opponent intelligence she had spent a great deal of effort collecting during this time.

"Finally here. You always arrive right on time, don't you?" Jiang Chengcheng muttered to Su Hao in a low voice.

Jiang Chengcheng had her hair in a high ponytail today and looked full of fighting spirit.

She was mainly worried about Su Hao being late; he always arrived at the very last second when they were picking up their starter Pokémon.

"It took a lot of time to get here. How are you all feeling?" Su Hao gave a chuckle and laughed it off, shifting the topic to Jiang Chengcheng and Kong Lingwei, who was sitting quietly nearby.

Kong Lingwei joined the conversation. To avoid disturbing Zhong Li, who was organizing materials, she lowered her voice and said: "We're doing fine, but you, the big celebrity, have attracted quite a few people to wander around our area~"

"Celebrity?" Su Hao asked in confusion.

He hadn't done anything recently, had he?

Li Hua leaned over and gossiped: "Hehe, I know about this. A while ago, there was a high-traffic post pinned on the Sichuan section of the Trainer Forum for a long time. The content was a review of the top three strong contenders in our competition zone."

"It introduced quite a few geniuses, but the OP admires you the most!"

Jiang Chengcheng showed her phone to Su Hao: "It's this one, look."

Su Hao stepped forward and stared at it for a long time, then said: "Whoa, I can't stand this the most. What if I get jinxed to death by this?"