Chapter 4: He’s A Man Of Status
“Li Wei!” At this moment, his parents’ voices sounded no different from those of the soul-reaping black-and-white impermanence. Li Wei didn’t know what they wanted to do. He only knew that now his dad and mom’s aura looked extremely irritable, as if they would beat him up at the slightest disagreement. He was very panicked.
Because he had just finished the physical examination, the aura stimulated by the special instruments made with this world’s crooked-neck tree technology would take about a day to calm down according to the doctor, gradually settling into the black iron level matching his own strength. So now, with his mind highly active, he could still clearly perceive the aura of the surrounding creatures.
Not only the parents and Mime Jr. in the car, but also the people and Pokémon in the passing vehicles on the road, or those walking on the street—as long as he wanted, by slightly focusing his attention to observe, he could ‘read’ the so-called ’emotions’.
The closer the distance, the higher the sensitivity to aura, and for Li Wei, the more panicked he became.
“Li Wei! Tell us! Are you planning to become a Trainer or a Contest Trainer!!!”
When he saw his dad and mom asking such a question in the tone of ‘If your girlfriend and I fell into the water, who would you save first?’, Li Wei admitted that his mood was somewhat collapsing and helpless.
“It’s not… you guys…”
Before Li Wei could finish his questioning words, his dad and mom started their mischievous operations.
“Contest Trainer, 30,000 allowance per month, 50,000 for Pokémon nurturing expenses.”
The generous Mrs. Li began.
As the top Pokémon Contest Master in the Zhonghua Family and someone who owned her own Pokémon luxury brand, using this small amount of money to trick her son into his future career direction was still effortless for her.
After all, in Mrs. Li’s view, going with his dad to become some traditional battle Trainer would really go against their family tradition.
As a Pokémon Family Scion, there was absolutely no need to mess with those dangerous, kill-or-be-killed things. Instead, be responsible for Contest training and elegantly live life, nurturing the son into a noble young master from a prestigious family—wouldn’t that be great??
But things didn’t go as smoothly as Mrs. Li imagined, because Mr. Li certainly didn’t want to let his son be tricked away by his mom with a mere 80,000 in money.
“Traditional Trainer, 40,000 allowance per month, 50,000 for nurturing expenses.”
Just like some kind of auction, Mr. Li began to raise the bid.
As the top Pokémon Battle Master in the Zhonghua Family and a Top Gym Leader, he felt there was nothing wrong with his son following the same path as him toward becoming a traditional Trainer. He absolutely could not let his mom lead him astray to learn to participate in Grand Festivals.
This absolutely wouldn’t do!
The son following his path would be great! In the future, father and son soldiers on the battlefield, jointly managing the Gym as a family, two Battle Masters in one household—how wonderful would that be!
Whether Mr. Li or Mrs. Li, both of these people loved daydreaming, and this trait had perfectly been inherited by Li Wei.
But Li Wei, who was still trembling on the side and completely unaware of the two’s inner thoughts, had never seen such a terrifying scene. Now he was completely dazed by these two adults’ intimidation and inducements.
This… what was going on?
Was it really because they thought my ten years of studying by the cold window was too frustrating, so heaven sent me here to experience life?
At this moment, Li Wei unexpectedly felt a strong sense of déjà vu like a long-suffering wife finally becoming the matriarch, his eyes even getting a bit wet.
Ah! My dear father! My dear mother! Hurry and smash me to death with your money!
While Li Wei was feeling this emotion, the amount in his parents’ mutual bidding had already reached 150,000.
As someone who had never seen such a large amount of money, and in his previous life was just an ordinary child from an unremarkable family, Li Wei, seeing his parents being so generous for the first time, really couldn’t hold it together a bit.
“Um…”
Seeing the amount still gradually rising, Li Wei was very panicked, so he chose to interrupt.
For a moment, Li Wei even thought whether the Zhonghua Family’s money in this world had inflated to the point of being like Zimbabwe’s.
Was it the currency that was broken, or was his life that was broken???
“May I ask if I can have both?” Li Wei said weakly.
“Have both what?”
“I think that being an excellent Traditional Trainer and Coordinator actually doesn’t conflict; rather, they complement each other.”
Li Wei, the old Chinese language argumentative essay expert, opened with a thesis statement and then eloquently started spouting his made-up, fabricated nonsense theory.
About how Coordinators’ Grand performances would better help Pokémon understand themselves and develop their potential, while Trainers pursue great strength—it’s well known that top Coordinators also possess considerable combat power, and Battle Masters have a wild beauty in battle…
It can be said that when facing temptation, people always burst with infinite potential, using all sorts of logic and quoting classics to eloquently justify their desires.
This was exactly what Li Wei was doing now.
And with his silver tongue and the eloquence skills forced upon him by his mom in classes when he was young, five minutes later he easily handled his parents, who had some issues with their thought processes after turning young again.
“Fine, we’ll reluctantly agree,” after exchanging a glance, Li Wei’s dad and mom chose to compromise. “As for the expenses…”
“I’ll pay 140,000! The son has to listen to me!”
And while the two were haggling over the ‘living expenses’ that had skyrocketed compared to earlier, suddenly Mrs. Li’s voice came from Li Wei’s phone. The dignified Mr. Li and elegant Mrs. Li instantly froze in place.
“What’s the future in being a Contest Trainer? 150,000!”
“In your heart, your son’s future is only worth this much? 160,000!”
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“I don’t know what’s going on, I only know adults have to keep their word.” Saying this, Li Wei pressed pause, quickly stuffed the phone into his clothes pocket, and spread his hands helplessly toward his dad and mom.
In the rivers and lakes of life, all sorts of tricky tactics, impossible to guard against!
What Li Wei did actually meant something very simple: ‘Dad, you can’t welch on this bill~’
So, soon after, Li Wei happily obtained 330,000 in expenses.
Very comfortable. He had never touched so much money in his life; it felt somewhat dreamlike.
Extremely spinelessly, during the entire subsequent journey to the Pokémon Day Care, Li Wei stared blankly at the balance in his phone’s bank app, fantasizing about the lavish days of club tender models in the future.
The speed of getting the ‘Temporary Trainer License’ at the Pokémon Center was much faster than he imagined. After taking a photo on site, collecting biometric info, verifying related identification and ID card, etc., he got a small card named ‘Temporary Trainer Qualification’.
Hard and the same size as an ID card, it recorded his Trainer ID number, name, gender, and ID card number.
It was said that in a Trainer’s career, the Trainer License was used more frequently than an ID card—for transportation, participating in various events, and even Trainers with higher-level Trainer Licenses could enter countries visa-free or with visa-on-arrival; convenient, fast, and a national all-purpose card~
And so on—the benefits of being a Trainer were countless. At this moment, Li Wei couldn’t imagine what in such a perfect world could stop him from doing Pokémon.
The official Pokémon Day Care, compared to ordinary private ones, had more options and many ‘rare’ Pokémon Eggs controlled by the officials.
As a rookie Trainer who had obtained aura, Li Wei had many plans in his heart for this Pokémon Egg selection.
He was going to be a Pokémon Trainer galloping across Blue Star in the future; this first Pokémon partner had to have some face, right?
With aura, though he still didn’t know how to use it, asking for a Lugia wasn’t too much, was it?
Mewtwo also seemed pretty good; was it x or y mega?
Or Rayquaza was great too; a shiny black Rayquaza perfectly matched his aesthetics!
If really not, Naganadel could be settled for, right?
For a moment, Li Wei stood there conflicted looking at the Pokémon ads scrolling on the big screen at the Pokémon Day Care.
‘This Pokémon Day Care isn’t up to par? Scrolling for so long and only recommending this stuff?’
Looking at the posters of Pikachu, Rattata, and Applin flashing by, Li Wei felt a strong sense of disdain in his heart.
Just this?
Li Wei had really got ahead of himself, completely forgetting his past diligence when he diligently conquered the world with a Pikachu—what Pikachu paralysis world number one, all forgotten.
Of course, Li Wei’s parents naturally didn’t stand embarrassingly at the lobby entrance like Li Wei watching the ads on the big screen. They went straight to the front desk, showed their identification and appointment info, and then the staff led them to the private room on the fifth floor like ushering in a god.
At this moment, Li Wei sat on the sofa, drinking the tea brought by the server, and a sense of dissonance naturally arose.
He really hadn’t adapted yet to this damn upper-class treatment.
So it turned out they didn’t buy things at the shelves, but flipped through pictures on a tablet in the private room while waiting for staff to bring the real items.
For a moment, Li Wei felt the heavy weight of the money in his card.
So the lives of rich people were this simple and unadorned yet boring.
After sighing once again, Li Wei also leaned over to join the ranks of selecting Pokémon.
This matter absolutely could not be left to his parents, who were still conflicted whether the son should take the Coordinator route or the Battle Trainer route first.
Regarding his strength-worshipping father wanting him to take Timburr as the first Pokémon—wasn’t that a mistake somewhere?
His mother wanting him, a big boy, to take Spritzee as the first main pet—did she have something wrong with her brain?
Feeling like his backing mountain was collapsing, Li Wei thought it was more reliable to handle it himself.
Li Wei took a tablet from the nearby table and started browsing the store’s product Pokédex.
The system was very comprehensive, even allowing filtering by type.
A total of eighteen types from left to right.
“Oh? Fairy-type has been discovered too?”
Somewhat emotional; in the novels he read while obsessed with Pokémon before, the protagonists transmigrated to worlds where Fairy-type hadn’t been discovered.
When he first transmigrated, he had thought about exploiting the bug between the real world and game world, using his knowledge to become some researcher or scientist. But now, it seemed unlikely.
However, this thought just flashed by. After all, with a bit of thinking, if as a Trainer your Dragon-type Pokémon suddenly gets hammered by some Pokémon one day due to type disadvantage, discovering the Fairy-type category wouldn’t be difficult.
After all, Trainers are all confident; if you lose, it definitely wasn’t me wrong—it must be type disadvantage!
With such thinking, doing some research would make it strange if Fairy-type wasn’t discovered.
After a wave of failed daydreaming, Li Wei came back to his senses and continued flipping through the rows of eggs on the screen, choosing the Pokémon he fancied.
The first Pokémon wasn’t as important in a Trainer’s career as imagined; as the first Pokémon, its innate task was simply to grow up well.
After the Pokémon League unified, the requirements for entering Pokémon Academy were only these three: first, pass the physical examination; second, pass the written exam; third, pass the simulation battle.
Physical examination: no major illnesses means stable pass; written exam tests pure Pokémon knowledge, with corresponding textbooks and key outlines on the official website—if you fail that, don’t be a Trainer, go home and farm; the third simulation battle is also simple. Li Wei curiously checked it this morning; the simulation battle is apparently at a level where even slapping the assessment Pokémon can pass.
Ah this…
If it was just to enter Pokémon Academy, buying a cheap Pokémon to muddle through the qualification, then slowly nurturing and accumulating resources bit by bit, there really was no issue.
But after careful thought, Li Wei discovered the biggest problem with this so-called June unified exam: everything he mentioned earlier was the minimum standard for academy admission.
As everyone knows, the entire Zhonghua Family couldn’t have just one Pokémon Academy, and with multiple academies, they naturally divide into tiers.
Higher academies, besides the above conditions, have additional requirements, like performance in the new student confrontation races held by province—for the lowest, reaching ‘qualifying’ level, and some elite schools even arrogantly require incoming students to reach regional top 64 or top 32.
‘So considering the school’s admission regulations, how exactly should I choose the Pokémon…’
Thinking this way, Li Wei directly skipped those ugly and cheap ‘inferior’ Pokémon and flipped straight to the ‘premium zone’.
After all, he was someone with status; he had to buy Pokémon matching his identity.
For long-term development considerations, as an upper-class person’s goal, it couldn’t just be qualifying. If the school requirements weren’t high, he could sacrificially choose one with long growth period but explosively strong later stage without self-sabotaging.
Like Volcarona or Dragonite-slaying ones, both good choices.
If there were hard requirements to compete for ranking, he might need to pick a stronger one?
Like Gastly with innate type advantage, or Beedrill which evolves well and fights well.
He could accept Gastly, but for Beedrill, for someone who had been stung by a bee before, there was still some capture barrier.
After careful consideration, he was very confused, so he decided to seek help from his unreliable parents who were conflicted over which Pokémon looked good or had a sense of power.
“Mom, how should I choose this Pokémon?”
“Choose a good-looking one.”
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To be fair, this was the umpteenth time Li Wei condemned himself for why he asked his mom such a question.
He was now reflecting, feeling that the version of himself three seconds ago who asked the question was an idiot.
Seeking recommendations~ Need investment~ Need… need your little hearts~
