The ocean, covering over 70% of the Blue Star’s surface, has been explored far too little by humans.
Mu Li and his group departed from Stay-Stay Island early in the morning for deep-sea fishing the next day’s filming.
Under the scorching sun, Mu Li yawned irritably, forcing his nearly closed eyes open, and said listlessly, “Why do we have to fish here? More importantly, we haven’t caught anything for an hour.”
Wang Yijia, on the other hand, was quite excited, holding his fishing rod tightly and staring intently at the sea surface: “Isn’t that something you should ask yourself? Why do you think we’re here? Isn’t it all for filming material for your show?”
“So annoying.” Mu Li casually tossed his fishing rod aside, pointing at Fu Peiyao and Mu Qingqing on the yacht’s upper deck, and said, “Why do they get to lie up there while we have to desperately fish down here just for a few shots?”
Wang Yijia retorted, “Mainly because no one would watch if you went up there and lay down!”
“What you said makes a lot of sense.” Mu Li collapsed onto the deck again. “This kind of day is perfect for sleeping.”
“Go ahead and sleep, it’s your show anyway,” Wang Yijia grumbled. “If there are no shots later, it’s your own doing.”
Before Mu Li could answer, Wang Yijia gazed at the horizon, somewhat puzzled: “What’s that?”
Mu Li lazily opened his eyelids, glanced over, and said perfunctorily, “It’s a Wailord.”
“Oh, so it’s a Wailord.” Wang Yijia also recognized the enormous Pokémon. “Only, it seems to be swimming towards us…”
“Let it swim, it’s not like it can fly…” Mu Li was still muttering when he suddenly stood up and exclaimed, “It’s swimming towards us?!”
The Wailord, like a blue island, accelerated and charged towards Mu Li’s group’s boat.
“Gyarados, stop it!” Mu Li’s expression darkened. The Wailord was massive; if it collided head-on with the yacht, he figured his group would have to swim back. More importantly, he rented this yacht! He’d have to pay if it was damaged!
A red light flashed, and the crimson Gyarados appeared.
“Use Surf, send it back!”
Following Mu Li’s command, a twenty to thirty-meter-high wave directly rose in front of Gyarados, rushing straight towards the Wailord.
But the Wailord seemed to completely ignore it, still charging towards the flat surface of the giant wave.
The giant wave struck the Wailord, actually sending the enormous Wailord flying into the air.
With such a huge commotion, everyone on the boat was startled and rushed to the deck, just in time to see the Wailord being sent flying.
The Wailord, hit head-on by Surf, let out a painful cry.
Mu Li felt that the Wailord’s state was off. Just as he was about to ask Gardevoir to inquire, he heard Mu Qingqing exclaim, “Look at its tail, it seems to be entangled by something.”
Mu Li looked as prompted, and indeed, there was a dark, circular object around the Wailord’s tail, but the distance was too great for Mu Li’s vision to discern it clearly.
“Gardevoir, go see what’s going on,” Mu Li instructed.
The next second, Gardevoir appeared directly beside the Wailord, and a faint blue light emanated from around the immensely large Wailord’s body. The Wailord’s body actually floated in the air, though it continued to struggle.
“It seems to be some kind of artificial device,” Gardevoir’s voice transmitted. “It should be man-made. I can feel a strange sound wave coming from this device.”
“Sound wave?” Mu Li frowned deeply. “That must be what’s making the Wailord so uncomfortable. Gardevoir, can you remove that thing?”
“It’s difficult to remove it intact,” Gardevoir’s voice sounded again.
“Then just shatter it,” Mu Li said decisively.
The next moment, a blue light flashed in Gardevoir’s eyes, and the black ring on the Wailord’s tail snapped in mid-air, breaking directly into two halves, like a shattered bracelet, falling off the Wailord’s tail.
As the black ring fell, the Wailord seemed to return to its normal state, gradually ceasing its struggles.
After a while, the Wailord finally returned to normal, slowly swimming beside the yacht, letting out joyful Growls.
“What’s wrong with it?” Mu Li asked Gardevoir.
Gardevoir floated over and, after communicating with the Wailord for a long time, flew back.
“The Wailord said it doesn’t know what happened,” Gardevoir said somewhat strangely. “The Wailord said it was sleeping peacefully at home when it suddenly got that thing put on it. It felt very uncomfortable, so it went around looking for things to Tackle, wanting to smash that thing.”
“How despicable!” Mu Li suddenly stood up, angrily saying, “How could anyone do such a thing to a cute Wailord? I’d like to see who is so cruel!”
Wang Yijia stared blankly at Mu Li’s performance: “Bro, being this righteous isn’t your usual character, is it?”
Mu Li gave Wang Yijia a look of disappointment, quietly saying, “Do you want to keep fishing here? And not catch a single fish for several hours, then be mocked by those two women upstairs? And after the show airs, be mocked by the whole country?”
Wang Yijia’s face immediately showed a look of anger. He threw his fishing rod aside and shouted, “How could anyone do such a thing to a cute Wailord? I’d like to see who is so cruel!”
Mu Li’s mouth twitched: Hey, hey, you didn’t even change your lines?
Although Fu Peiyao and Mu Qingqing found the two men a bit strange, the Wailord was indeed a little pitiful.
It felt like sleeping soundly at home and suddenly having an unremovable alarm clock put on you.
The production crew, however, was still concerned about everyone’s safety, but with Mu Li’s assurance, everyone still followed the Wailord, embarking on a journey to find the owner of that black ring.
Two hours later, Mu Li sat slumped on the deck, bored, watching the still-advancing Wailord, and grumbled, “Do you think the Wailord forgot its way home? Why is it taking so long? If I had known this, I would have just stayed put and fished.”
Wang Yijia retorted, “Do you think you can catch fish? It’s not that I don’t believe you, bro, have you ever actually caught a fish before?”
Mu Li froze, seemingly trying to recall memories of catching fish, but after a full 10 minutes, Wang Yijia was almost falling asleep, and Mu Li still maintained that constipated expression.
“Some things can’t be recalled just by trying hard,” Fu Peiyao also grumbled. “The premise of recalling something is that it actually happened.”
“Nonsense!” Mu Li refused to admit the fact that he had never caught a fish. “I’ve caught fish in 《Wonderful Life》! Two half-meter-long sea fish, practically too much to eat!”
“Are you sure you caught them?” Fu Peiyao’s beautiful eyes revealed a hint of disbelief. Based on her understanding of Mu Li, in such matters, Mu Li would almost certainly lie. “I’ll be watching the show when it airs. If I find out you lied to me, hehe…”
Mu Li immediately panicked and quickly explained, “Togekiss caught them, but I’m Togekiss’s trainer, we’re one, so what it catches and what I catch, there shouldn’t be any difference, right?”
Fu Peiyao just rolled her eyes at him: “Togekiss can fly, so why don’t you fly to the sky?”
Seeing his lie exposed, Mu Li grumbled resentfully, “This hateful woman!”
Fu Peiyao’s eyes narrowed, and she sneered, “What did you say?”
Mu Li immediately put on a happy expression, pointing at the Wailord in front and shouting, “Oh! The Wailord seems to have reached its destination!”
Fu Peiyao was about to grumble about Mu Li’s crude way of changing the subject, but then she saw Mu Li’s expression turn somewhat serious. She subconsciously looked in Mu Li’s direction and saw three large ships without any national markings.
“That’s…” Fu Peiyao felt like she had heard of such ships before, but couldn’t recall it at the moment.
“Those are pirate ships!” Mu Li frowned deeply.
“Pirates?!!” Everyone gasped in alarm.
People who frequently deal with pirates know that real-life pirates are not as benevolent as those in comics; they kill, plunder, and commit all sorts of evil deeds—that’s what true pirates are like.
Most pirates are stateless individuals whom no country is willing to accept, or criminals who have fled their countries and gone to sea.
When Mu Li and his group discovered the pirate ships, the other party had clearly discovered them too.
“Wait for me here, I’ll ask them what they’re doing,” Mu Li instructed.
Wang Yijia was stunned: “Are you sure they’re that easy to talk to?”
Mu Li smiled: “Trust me, they’ll definitely be willing to talk nicely.”
With that, Mu Li leaped from the deck, and accompanied by a flash of red light, Mu Li directly rode on a crimson Gyarados over ten meters tall.
“Holy cow! What a huge Gyarados!” Wang Yijia couldn’t help but exclaim.
The crew members ignored any danger and quickly filmed the scene, afraid of missing anything.
In the footage, Mu Li was seen riding Gyarados over. As Mu Li approached, the other party also summoned some Pokémon.
Immediately after, a Destructive Beam appeared from the crimson Gyarados’s mouth. The Destructive Beam grazed the three ships, directly splitting the nearby seawater in two. Then, the recently appeared Pokémon immediately returned to their Poké Balls.
It’s unknown what Mu Li said to the other party, but a few minutes later, the Gyarados suddenly roared. Immediately after, a blue light enveloped the three ships, and the people on board flew up like tiny ants, directly flung into the sea.
Everyone stared blankly at the pirates struggling in a heap on the sea surface, their mouths twitching slightly.
Mu Li returned, smiling cheerfully, and sighed helplessly, “I originally wanted to talk to them nicely, but they just wouldn’t tell me their purpose.”
“So you just beat them up?” Wang Yijia couldn’t help but ask.
Mu Li glared at Wang Yijia, as if insulted, and clarified, “Bro, in your mind, am I really such an unreasonable person?”
Wang Yijia’s mouth twitched: “We all saw it, okay?”
“Things are certainly not what you saw!” Mu Li explained. “I used a little trick to make them tell the truth. They came this time to salvage some treasure.”
“Treasure??” Everyone gasped in surprise.
“That’s right.” Mu Li pointed downwards. “They said there’s some ancient ruin or sunken ship down there, anyway, they said there’s treasure, but this sea area is guarded by the Wailord, so they had to use an expulsion device to get the Wailord away.”
After Mu Li finished speaking, he turned to look at everyone, only to see their eyes had turned into the shape of gold coins.
“What? Are you interested?” Mu Li asked, his gaze shifting to Fu Peiyao and the other two. “It’s one thing for others to be interested, but why are you three interested too? You’re not short on money.”
“Nonsense, that’s treasure, you know.” Fu Peiyao retorted, “Money isn’t important, I’m mainly curious about what’s inside.”
“Exactly!” Wang Yijia and Mu Qingqing nodded simultaneously.
Mu Li shrugged: “Since you want to see, then go see.”