When Mu Li walked onto the stage, Li Xingyang was momentarily speechless.
Seeing Li Xingyang remain silent, Xu Wei quickly interjected, "Don't you have a lot of questions to ask? Why don't you ask them?"
The others wore expressions of anticipation, as if watching a good show unfold.
Li Xingyang knew Xu Wei was teasing him, so he retorted, "I just have too many questions, and I don't know where to start."
He turned his gaze to Mu Li and asked, "Mu Li, right? First of all, this song really hyped me up, and I love it. But, I want to ask, how do you interpret our theme for this episode—regret?"
"I've thought a lot about things related to regret—love, life, dreams, and so on. But after much deliberation, I always felt that these themes of regret were too heavy, so heavy that they felt like a burden, making people unsure how to make amends," Mu Li explained. "So I simply flipped the theme around. If everyone doesn't want to have regrets, then why don't we act now and not leave ourselves with regrets?"
"And that's how this song, 'Some Things You Don't Do Now, You'll Never Do In Your Life,' came about."
Li Xingyang continued to ask, "Why did you choose the band format?"
Mu Li scratched his head a little sheepishly, "To be honest, the reason I chose the band format is because a band's live performance has more impact, and the synergy with other members on stage can somewhat compensate for my vocal shortcomings."
Li Xingyang's eyes lit up, and he said excitedly, "Since you mentioned the band members, I want to ask, how did you do it? How did you manage to get the Pokémon to learn these instruments and coordinate so smoothly?"
"Exactly," Liu Zhengqing suddenly interjected. "As far as I know, teaching a Pokémon an instrument isn't difficult; Pokémon themselves have strong learning abilities. The key is coordination. To achieve such a harmonious state of cooperation, honestly, even for humans, it would take at least ten years of practice, wouldn't it?"
Mu Li didn't hide anything: "To be honest, regarding this aspect, I cheated."
"Cheated? What do you mean?" Liu Zhengqing asked, puzzled. "I didn't see you make any other moves?"
"Actually, it's not about moves, but about Gardevoir," Mu Li explained. "After training, Gardevoir can use telepathy to make the minds of the four of us—myself and the three Pokémon—mutually responsive for a short period. It's this state of telepathy that allows our tacit agreement to reach almost its peak."
"Haha! Unheard of!" Liu Zhengqing excitedly shouted to the audience, "Don't let this kid fool you with how easily he says it. I've lived for so many years and have never heard of anyone truly achieving it. Forget mutual telepathy; even achieving telepathy with Gardevoir isn't an easy feat."
Mu Li was startled, then explained, "It's not completely unachievable; it just requires enough trust between the four of us, and Gardevoir's control over Psychic powers needs to be a bit more powerful."
A bit more powerful, just reaching the Champion level would give a chance to achieve it.
Mu Li didn't mention one more thing: the faint blue aura at the beginning of the performance was actually another application of telepathy—using Mu Li's mind as a base, to briefly spread Mu Li's emotions to the others.
Although the effect of this emotional contagion wasn't very strong, its main purpose was to broadly elevate the audience's mood.
And achieving this was something that couldn't be accomplished at the Champion level.
After listening to Mu Li's explanation, Liu Zhengqing could only shake his head with a smile: "Now that we've discussed the questions, let's talk about the originality of this song."
"I personally think the greatest value of this song lies in its unconventional approach, from regret to leaving no regrets. I must say, several lines of the lyrics truly moved me."
"If all human faces looked the same, then your difference from others would depend on how you live."
"As soon as this line came out, I felt that the song's depth directly elevated to a philosophical level. The biggest difference between a person and others is their unique life experiences."
"When I first heard this line, for some reason, I always had an urge to do something, to show the world my unique life."
"And then there's the last line, 'Every tiny reason traps freedom, if you don't do some things now, what will be your reason?'"
"This rhetorical question directly pierced my heart. Why don't I pursue my ideals? What is the reason that holds me back?"
"Precisely this point is the most interesting part of this song. It's not just about telling you to abandon everything, disregard all, and simply pursue your ideals; more importantly, it offers people an opportunity to reflect."
"It makes you think, what would be your reason for not pursuing your ideal?"
"You need to weigh the importance of your reason. Is it for family, money, or something else? If this reason is important enough to you, then even if your freedom is constrained, you won't feel regret, because it's something you willingly sacrificed for."
After listening to Liu Zhengqing's words, everyone fell silent, seemingly savoring the moment.
At this time, Mu Li also fell into reminiscence. It was when he had just established the farm. There were very few Pokémon on the farm back then. At that time, a band suddenly came to the farm.
The lead singer of the band was Jigglypuff, the drummer was an Eevee, the guitarist was Ditto, and the bassist was Kirlia.
It was this band, carrying dilapidated instruments pieced together from who knows where, that came to perform outside the farm.
How to describe it?
Mu Li only remembered that it was a chaotic mess at the time.
Eevee's drum had several holes and couldn't be played, Kirlia's bass only had two strings, and the only decent instrument was the guitar, which still had four strings.
What the entire band performed couldn't even be called a song; it could only be described as noise.
But luckily, they had Jigglypuff. No matter how terrible the song was, everyone could sleep soundly.
Mu Li still had some spare money at the time and felt that this band was truly inspiring, so he bought a set of instruments and gave them to them. As a result, he was directly stuck with them, and this sticking has lasted until today.
Eevee evolved into Sylveon, Kirlia also evolved into Gardevoir, Ditto was still Ditto, but Jigglypuff was deprived of the lead singer's rights and was now sulking in her Poké Ball.
Actually, Xu Ming was wrong before. The reason Sylveon evolved into Sylveon wasn't because she liked playing games, but because she wanted to play the drums. Only Sylveon's ribbons could make her feel the vibration of the drumstick hitting the drumhead.
The performance ended, and the results were out: 202 points.
This also meant that Mu Li would become one of the top 16 qualifiers as the group leader.
At this time, Mu Li had already left Hang City and returned to Yangcheng.
There was no other way; to appease Jigglypuff's anger, Mu Li had to bring Jigglypuff's band back to the farm to hold another concert.
Mu Li hadn't seen the band perform in a long time, but he didn't have much expectation for their performance.
Because of Jigglypuff's presence, as soon as Jigglypuff started, no matter how lively the atmosphere was, the result would be everyone falling asleep.
However, Mu Li clearly underestimated the potential of this band too much.
After the opening, Sylveon directly burst out a pink mist, instantly enveloping the entire venue.
Under the cover of the mist, all the Pokémon surprisingly did not fall asleep immediately.
This move completely stunned Mu Li.
"Misty Terrain against Jigglypuff's Sing! Do you guys have to be this playful?"
PS: The Misty Terrain move prevents Pokémon in the field from falling into abnormal statuses, including sleep, for a period of time. Here, it's set as a Fairy-type buff, so it has a pink special effect. (The author isn't sure if it's actually Fairy-type, but for the pink effect, let's just set it that way.)
Over the next two hours, whenever a Pokémon couldn't resist and was about to fall asleep, Sylveon would reset the Misty Terrain, forcing many Pokémon to resist Jigglypuff's singing and stay awake.
Imagine, for two hours, the constant repetition of "Bo Li Bo Li" in your head, and you can't even sleep.
Mu Li could only say, "You guys had it tough."
The "Vocal Creation Chapter" competition would be three weeks later.
After three recorded broadcasts, the production team would switch to a live broadcast format. The topic would be announced a week in advance, giving contestants a week to make their choices.
Out of the remaining 16 contestants, 11 would advance through the competition format, and from the five eliminated contestants, one would be revived through audience votes to continue participating in the competition.
This time, Mu Li returned to Yangcheng not only to hold a concert for Jigglypuff but also to prepare for going out to sea.
He had previously invited Fu Peiyao and Mu Qingqing to go out to sea together. Later, Wang Yijia also heard about it and insisted on joining, so the original trio became a quartet.
And before going out to sea, Mu Li brought Tapu Fini back to the lake where Tapu Fini had stayed for four years.
After returning, the familiar dense fog once again enveloped that lake. Tapu Fini also stayed there alone for an entire day, along with that Golden Magikarp.
After coming out, Tapu Fini asked Mu Li to take a picture of her. The background of the photo was that lake, along with Tapu Fini, Mu Li, and that Magikarp.
Seeing Tapu Fini carefully put away the photo, Mu Li asked, "Is there anything else you want to bring?"
Tapu Fini shook her head and went directly back into her Poké Ball.
At this moment, Gardevoir, who was resting, suddenly heard a familiar voice: "That place is yours again."
Gardevoir instinctively looked in the direction of the lake. The familiar dense fog had already disappeared, leaving only a solitary lake.
For some reason, Gardevoir felt that she no longer liked that place.
After resting for a day at the farm, Mu Li returned to Modu.
This trip out to sea also required filming for "I Live Alone." Mu Li felt it would be best to bring only a few staff members, as the boat was only so big, and this time, his destination for going out to sea was very far.
Early the next morning, everyone gathered on the yacht.
The sea breeze in Modu seemed different from the sea breeze on South Island; both were sticky, but Modu's sea breeze also seemed to have a refreshing quality.
After a day's journey, everyone arrived at a special island.
Mu Li and Fu Peiyao would also temporarily separate from the others here for a day.