Live Stream Treasure Appraisal: Your elf isn't thriving!

Chapter 672 The Evolution of the Mischievous Frog: The Poison Skull Frog! Spring comes but the snow on the mountain doesn't melt; could it be that the mountain god is angry?

It was a head taller than the scoundrel frog. Its body was a deeper blue, almost dark blue. A red vocal cord was clearly visible on its chin. Each of its hands had three fingers on the back, with a thick, sharp, bright red venomous spur that looked like a fourth finger, specifically the middle finger.

Its leg muscles are strong, and a sharp, poisonous thorn extends from each heel.

Its steps were steady and unhurried, each step making a dull "thud" sound as it stepped on the wet mud.

It stopped when it reached the edge of the medicinal herb field.

A pair of yellow eyes swept over the thirteen unruly frogs in front of him.

Then it crouched down.

A finger with bright red thorns slowly reached out towards a medicinal herb.

The venom seeping from the fingertips was a deeper color than that of the wicked frog. It wasn't purple, but a deep red that was almost black.

It applies the venom to the stem of the herb.

Just one drop.

The leaves of that herb visibly unfurled within three seconds.

The live chat exploded with comments.

What is this? An evolved form of the Delinquent Frog?

[They're here! The big brother's here! The boss's here!]

[It just dropped a drop of venom, and the herb immediately started to bloom?]

[Dude, are you using a frog-shaped palm-shaped bottle?]

Ye Yinchuan looked at the Pokémon that emerged from the depths of the reeds in the image, his eyes surging with golden data.

Pokémon: Toxtricity

[Attribute: Poison/Fighting]

【Characteristics: Suitable for dry skin】

[Rank: Lv.52]

[Status: Healthy/Alert/————]

The last piece of additional information made Ye Yinchuan's gaze tighten suddenly.

[Note: Trace amounts of artificial drugs were detected on this individual. It had previously been kept as a domestic animal.]

Ye Yinchuan tapped his fingers lightly twice on the table.

Zhou Yingqiu's voice came from the screen, filled with suppressed excitement.

"Mr. Kirby—what's that big one?"

Ye Yinchuan did not answer immediately.

He looked at the poisonous skull frog in the picture.

After processing the herb, it stood up, its red vocal cords throbbing slightly. A low "gurgle" echoed from deep within its throat, reverberating in the wetland air.

Thirteen unruly frogs started moving at the same time.

They crouched down again and continued to apply the venom.

The movements were faster and more precise than before.

The poisonous skeletal frog stood at the edge of the medicinal field, its arms crossed, its yellow eyes scanning the actions of every unruly frog.

That posture didn't seem like that of a leader.

More like a mentor.

"Pharmacist Zhou," Ye Yinchuan said in a low voice.

"Um?"

"You'd better compile a copy of your medicinal herb formula and planting records for me."

Zhou Yingqiu was taken aback: "Why?"

"Because of that poisonous skull frog," Ye Yinchuan paused, his gaze darkening.

"It's not wild."

Zhou Yingqiu's voice came from the screen, carrying a restrained curiosity.

"You say it's not wild—what's your basis for that?"

Ye Yinchuan did not rush to answer.

His gaze remained fixed on the poisonous skull frog in the picture.

A dark blue figure stood at the edge of the medicinal field, arms crossed, the red vocal cords under his chin rising and falling slightly with his breath.

The posture is relaxed.

But Ye Yinchuan noticed a detail.

On the back of its right hand, there is a slightly lighter-colored ring mark on the fingers.

It's not a scar.

These are marks left by uneven skin pigmentation after wearing a certain restraint for many years.

"Look at the mark on the back of its right hand," Ye Yinchuan said to the camera.

The camera zooms in.

Some viewers in the live chat noticed something.

[Was that ring left from wearing a bracelet?]

[No, that position and width—it looks like a Pokémon identification ring! The kind that large farms and industrial breeding facilities put on their working Pokémon!]

Ye Yinchuan nodded.

"That's right. Those are marks left by industrial breeding identification rings. Wild Pokémon wouldn't have these marks."

His gaze shifted to the way the poison skeletal frog processed herbs.

a drop.

Precisely to the point three centimeters below the stem.

no more, no less.

"And then there's the way it applied the venom." Ye Yinchuan's voice was calm. "When wild poison scorpion frogs attack their prey, they release venom by slapping their entire palm, allowing it to penetrate a large area. But this poison scorpion frog used a single finger to apply the venom, controlling the dosage with extreme precision."

He held up one finger.

"This is not an instinctive behavior. It is a trained operating procedure."

Zhou Yingqiu's breathing quickened: "You mean someone specifically trained it to treat plants with venom?"

"It's not just about processing plants."

Ye Yinchuan leaned back in his chair, his gaze darkening.

"Pharmacist Zhou, you work in the pharmaceutical industry, so you should know better than me what status the venom extracts of the Bad Frog and the Poison Skull Frog hold in the pharmaceutical industry. And—in the past, the companies that best utilized them, and the products that were all the rage."

Zhou Yingqiu remained silent for two seconds.

Then she said a name.

"Baijedang".

The comments section started moving.

[Baijitang? The one that makes back pain patches? My dad uses them every day!]

[One of the largest manufacturers of Pokémon-derived drugs in the country, a giant with a market value of hundreds of billions!]

Their logo—it looks like a delinquent frog?

Ye Yinchuan did not respond.

But his expression said it all.

Zhou Yingqiu adjusted her glasses, her voice becoming very calm—the kind of calmness typical of researchers working with data chains.

"Baijitang's flagship product, the 'Frog Venom Meridian-Clearing Patch,' uses an extract of the venom from the fingertips of vile frogs as its core ingredient. They..."

Pokémon breeding bases are located in various places, specifically for breeding Delinquent Frogs and Toxicroaks for venom collection.

She paused for a moment.

"Three years ago, Baijitang's Fengze branch was forced to shut down due to environmental issues. At the time, news reports said that all the working Pokémon in the base were properly relocated."

"But her voice dropped by half a octave during the twenty years I lived in Fengze Town."

"The month after the shutdown, a lot of blue frog-like Pokémon suddenly appeared in the wetlands outside the town—I never expected them to be the legendary Delinquent Frog!"

The live stream chat exploded with comments.

Relocation and resettlement? Bullshit! Simply dumping them in the wild is what resettlement is?!

So this Toxtricita was a working Pokémon of Baijitang, and was thrown away after the base closed?

It worked in the base for who knows how many years, was taught how to treat herbs with venom, and then just kicked them away?

No wonder it brought wild, unruly frogs to the medicinal herb field—it was still working!! It thought it had a job!!

The last comment.

Ye Yinchuan's gaze lingered on it for a moment.

Ye Yinchuan's voice was very soft.

"Under human influence, this behavior has become ingrained in its very being—"

In the video, the poisonous toad has finished its patrol and returned to the edge of the medicinal field. It lowers its head and glances at the light-colored ring mark on the back of its right hand.

Then, it crouched down again.

Deep red venom seeped from his fingertips.

Precisely, the needle landed on the stem of the next herb.

Three centimeters below.

a drop.

no more, no less.

Countless comments flooded the live stream, but Ye Yinchuan only saw one type: all of them were cursing Baijitang.

He was not involved.

His professional ethics kept him objective. But he didn't omit a single word he was supposed to say.

"I will compile a complete chain of evidence and submit it to the Pokémon Rights Protection Department of the League. If Baijitang did indeed abandon its Pokémon, there are regulations to determine how to handle the situation."

Zhou Yingqiu stood at the edge of the wetland, the camera still pointed at the medicinal herb field. A poisonous skeletal frog squatted by the field, its fingertip having just finished applying the deep red venom to the last herb. It stood up and flicked its finger.

The movements were swift and decisive.

It's no different from clocking in and out on an assembly line.

The thirteen unruly frogs also finished their work one after another, standing crookedly in a row, all staring at the Poison Skull Frog.

The poison skeletal frog glanced at them.

The red vocal cords throbbed slightly.

"Glug."

The thirteen mischievous frogs turned around in unison, formed a single file, and headed deeper into the reeds. The smallest of the three, walking at the very back, took a couple of steps, then glanced back at the medicinal herb field.

It tilted its head, its two orange venom sacs bulging.

It's like they're checking if they've finished today's work.

Then it took off on its short legs and hopped and skipped to catch up with the group.

The poison skeletal frog did not follow immediately.

It looked down at the light-colored ring mark on the back of its right hand.

three seconds.

Then it raised its head and strode into the reeds.

The dark blue figure was swallowed up by the reeds.

The medicinal herb field fell silent. Only the evening breeze swept across the wetlands, carrying the bitter scent of earth and herbs.

Zhou Yingqiu remained silent for a long while in front of the camera.

"Mr. Kirby."

"Um?"

"Will they be taken away?"

Ye Yinchuan knew what she was asking. The League had intervened to investigate Baijitang, and if the abandonment was confirmed, then how to deal with these former "working Pokémon" was an unavoidable issue.

"No." Ye Yinchuan's answer was straightforward.

"They have already established a stable social structure in this wetland, with leaders, division of labor, and habitats. Forcibly relocating them would only disrupt their existing survival patterns."

Zhou Yingqiu's eyes lit up.

She's a pharmacist; her professional instincts don't need reminders.

"You mean—cooperation?"

"What I mean is, if you're willing, you can try to establish a symbiotic relationship with these unruly frogs. You provide the medicinal fields and a safe habitat, and they use their venom to help you improve the quality of the herbs. It's not employment, it's not raising them—it's symbiosis."

Zhou Yingqiu pondered for a moment, then nodded.

"I'll give it a try."

Ye Yinchuan smiled.

"I have a suggestion."

"Please speak."

"That poisonous skull frog—every time it finishes inspecting the work of the other bad frogs, it stands for a while at the edge of the medicinal field. If you observe where it stands, the soil pH in that spot will definitely be different from the other areas."

Zhou Yingqiu was taken aback.

"It uses the venomous spines on its heels to regulate the soil's pH balance," Ye Yinchuan said. "The spines on the poisonous skull frog's heels can secrete another type of toxin. It knows what kind of soil is best for medicinal herbs to grow."

Zhou Yingqiu opened her mouth, then after a long pause, finally managed to ask, "Just how much was it taught at the base?"

Ye Yinchuan did not answer the question.

He simply looked at the quiet medicinal herb field in the picture and said one sentence.

"Some things, once taught, cannot be taken away. Baekjedang threw it away, but it could not throw away the skills it had learned. It was thrown into the wilderness, but instead of complaining, it taught what it knew to a group of wild kin."

"The herbs whose quality has been improved also become a source of natural toxins for them. This helps to enhance their population's competitiveness —"

Could this be considered a blessing in disguise?

[It feels a bit confusing, but it's a good thing that the Pokémon can be relocated.]

Ye Yinchuan ended his call with Zhou Yingqiu.

He leaned back in his chair, picked up the water glass on the table, and took a sip. Snorlax rolled over beside him, its snoring changing tone.

"continue."

My finger swipes across the list of live chat connections.

The next application has appeared.

The text is short, but the wording conveys a sense of anxiety and confusion.

[Hello, host. I'm Sun, the village chief of Baihualing. Something strange has happened here. Baihualing is 2,300 meters above sea level. Every year, the snow on the mountain should start to melt at the end of March, and the flowers should be blooming by mid-April. But this year, it's already mid-May.]

The snow hasn't melted. Not a single bit. The temperature on the mountain isn't dropping, it's rising—no, it's dropping? I can't explain it. Something's just wrong. The rice seedlings have already been planted in the fields down below, but it's still snowing on our mountain. The village elders say it's because the mountain god is angry. I don't believe in that, but I can't explain it either. What's even stranger is—three days ago, a villager saw something on the mountain path. It was white, very small, wearing a hat, like a snowman. It stood by the roadside watching people, and as soon as someone approached, it ran away. It disappeared into the snow. Later, someone else saw it twice more. Both times in different places. I suspect it's related to the snow not melting on the mountain, but I'm not sure. Please take a look, host. [Attached are a few blurry photos.]

Ye Yinchuan clicked on the attached photo.

Three.

The first picture is so blurry that it's almost impossible to see; all you can see is a tiny white outline on the vast expanse of white snow.

The second picture is slightly clearer. You can see a short figure, with a white upper body and a brown lower body, and what looks like a ball of snow on its head.

The third one is the clearest.

Although still trembling slightly, the small figure, magnified, now clearly revealed a conical body. The upper half was snow-white, the lower half brownish-red. A white, conical structure adorned its head. The tips of its hands were green, shaped like new shoots.

Ye Yinchuan's expression shifted slightly.

He recognized him just by looking at the photo.

Connect the cable.

An old man with rough skin and a wrinkled face appeared in the picture. He was wearing a thick cotton-padded coat, and the sky behind him was gray and hazy.

"Village Chief Sun?"

"Hey there! Hello, host!" The old man rubbed his hands together. "You saw the photo? What exactly is that little white thing?"

'

"Don't rush," Ye Yinchuan said. "Aim your camera at the mountain. Let me see what Baihualing looks like now."

Old Sun held his phone up high, with the camera pointing behind him.

Birch Ridge.

What greets the eye is an incongruous expanse of silvery white.

In mid-May, the world below the mountain was already lush and green, but the upper slopes of Birch Ridge were completely covered in snow. The branches of the birch trees were bent under the weight of the thick snow, and the distant ridgeline was hidden in the low-hanging leaden-gray clouds.

It's very windy.

Snowflakes swept across the screen at an angle.

This doesn't feel like May. This feels like December.