Pokémon Detective Case Files.

Zhu Lan's calm voice came from ahead, sounding particularly solemn in the echoing cave.

“Miss Officer Jenny, do you remember who told the police about the existence of this Forest Mansion?”

Without hesitation, the latter replied, "It's Hades, the chief science officer of the Galactic Group, who's imprisoned in the Alliance prison. We only recently managed to get him to talk... Wait a minute!"

“That’s right, that’s the most unsettling element of the whole incident,” the champion said.

"Although we discussed it on the way, I, as the Sinnoh Champion and Mythology Scholar, am indeed the best candidate to search the mansion. But even if I am the best candidate, I am not the only option. The fact that I was able to take time out of my busy League affairs is a very lucky coincidence."

The events that occurred in the mansion today were not a chain reaction caused by the champion's visit.

Officer Jenny had no doubt that if Cynthia wasn't here, that mischievous Thunderbolt would have stormed out of the basement and, with its godlike white light, would have overwhelmed all the residents of the Forest Mansion and the investigators from the Alliance.

"That Hades guy wants to use the Mischievous Thunderbolt to kill me?"

A bone-chilling cold seeped from the investigator's spine.

"This possibility is quite high. It's not just about the information on the Voltorb; the Galactic Group also has some knowledge of Hayden Pharmaceuticals' research on creating androids."

The Sinnoh champion solemnly warned—

"Remember that android head with the same hair color as yours, Officer Jenny? Don't forget, that's the signature dark green hairstyle of Team Galactic. Why do you think that is?"

“I had considered this question before,” Officer Jenny said. “At the time, I thought it was probably a technological achievement that Hayden Pharmaceuticals obtained from the Galaxy Group before its bankruptcy. Professor Medan doesn’t have much political sensitivity; he must have just installed the technology on the androids because he saw that it was useful.”

“I basically share that view, but the problem lies in time.”

Zhu Lan continued leading the way, holding up two fingers towards Officer Jenny behind her—

"Two years ago, on the eve of Team Galactic's destruction, when Hayden Pharmaceuticals received intelligence from the Development Project, Professor Medan's androids were already basically complete. Even if they acquired some new technology from Team Galactic at that time, they absolutely wouldn't have had time to apply it to the already completed androids—unless..."

"Unless Hayden Pharmaceuticals and the Galaxy Group have more than just the Space Energy Development Project! They started cooperating as early as two years ago, or even earlier!"

Officer Jenny reacted quickly, gritting her teeth and angrily saying—

"Damn it, that old fox Hayden! I should have known better. If he has the guts to collude with a suspicious organization across the ocean, how could he possibly let Team Galactic, which is right here in Sinnoh, go unpunished!"

Zhu Lan continued the original topic: "And that technology is very likely the mind transfer technology that Mei Dan was fully in charge of—the transfer device that injects the soul of an elf into the human brain."

"We can't be sure that the device is definitely located in the head, can we?"

Officer Jenny, who had personally studied the bionic head, asked a serious question in return.

"If it's just to give the soul-like Rotom a place to live, can't the device be placed in other parts of the body? Like the chest cavity or the lower abdomen or something."

"I don't think Medan and Hayden would do that. After all, what they want to create is a cyborg from the concept of science fiction, not just a robot that has a humanoid shape. They should try to simulate real humans as much as possible in terms of organ placement."

“Ah, that’s right. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to explain ourselves to our clients…” Officer Jenny seemed to remember something and immediately agreed with her companion’s opinion.

Zhu Lan continued—

"At that time, the Galactic Group was at its zenith, and Hayden Pharmaceuticals had a very good cooperative relationship with the Space Energy Development Corporation. So Hayden went a step further and directly spent money to buy semi-mature technology and product prototypes from the Galactic Group headquarters, and handed them over to Medan for further research. Only in this way can the strange shape of the android's head be explained—the entire skull frame was made by the mad scientists on the Galactic Group's side, which is why the android's hair is that color. And in this process, Pluton, the Galactic Group's chief scientist, was very likely to have learned about the progress of the android research."

"Ah! I see. Not only the bomb buried underground, but even the fuse that almost completely ignited the whole incident was already in the hands of that Hades guy!"

The enemy's conspiracy is like a dwarf planet hidden in the asteroid belt; although its existence is almost invisible to the naked eye, the threads of its gravity still effectively control the puppets in the distance.

"A miscalculation! Such carelessness! It's like a trainer walking down a main road being ambushed by a easily defeated Werewolf, the sudden 'Electric Shock' shooting from their heel all the way to their hair."

Officer Jenny clenched her fists, gritting her teeth—

"Those Team Galactic members have been in prison for over two years, and they're still plotting this? What good does it do them?"

"Since they're locked up in prison, their plot is most likely related to a prison break, right?"

Zhu Lan rested her fingertips on her chin and analyzed the situation logically.

"To be honest, I'm not good at this kind of reasoning with obviously incomplete conditions, so I can't make any guarantees. Maybe you can wait until Hugo wakes up tomorrow and consult him. That guy seems to have some experience with this kind of reasoning in the United States."

"That is, if our new Unova Champion can spare the time," Zhu Lan added with a smile.

"Never make this kind of joke. It's extremely dangerous in every sense of the word."

Officer Jenny had a bitter face—

"To be honest, it's not funny at all. Especially from your point of view, it's like when the Burnt Tower in the Johto region was destroyed by war, the legendary Ho-Oh suddenly fell from the sky and said to people with a smile, 'Don't worry, I don't care at all.'"

"Your jokes aren't much better. Especially what you just said, it's like you haven't learned anything from the Naughty Razor incident."

Zhu Lan responded with the same phrase.

Just as Officer Jenny was about to say something—

"Ah, we've arrived."

Zhu Lan stopped in her tracks.

Unbeknownst to them, the two had already arrived at a wide underground area.

"As expected, this is the final mystery in the Forest Mansion incident. Huh?"

Just as the Sinnoh Champion was about to say something like a detective solving a case, something on the ground in front of her caught her attention.

Is this just a coincidence, or some kind of unforeseen fate?

"Miss Zhulan, what did you find?"

Officer Jenny walked over to the Sinnoh champion, curiously peering at what he had discovered, and was then startled.

What appeared before the Sinnoh Champion and the League investigators was none other than a dusty, lifeless, android head.

"This guy is so persistent!"

Chapter 296 The Solution – The Mechanism of the Ultimate Truth

"Ladies and gentlemen, all the strange things that have happened in this Forest Mansion since yesterday, all the mysteries, all the secrets, and all the truths have now been completely solved."

In the half-ruined Mori Mansion's reception room, the morning light struggled to filter through the hazy glass into the messy room.

Although the exterior walls of the Mori Mansion remained standing during the massive earthquake, the parts of the mansion that had been renovated two years prior—the furniture, cabinets, wooden tables and chairs, the chandeliers that had hung above the hall, the staircase connecting the two floors, and the three bedrooms at the end of the staircase—had all been tragically reduced to a pile of dusty ruins.

The only exception is the first-floor reception room, which was protected by the Cynthia Champion Pokémon during the earthquake and is still relatively intact.

The long table, whose leg had been broken by falling rocks, was re-supported by a wooden frame. This solid wood plank, cut into a rectangular shape with a length, width, and height ratio of 1:4:9, became the only regular shape in this broken world, as if symbolizing some kind of stubborn and unyielding order.

Zhu Lan, Officer Jenny, Director Hayden, Professor Medan, Miss Venetian, Assistant Neil, Maid Zina, Steward Aying.

These eight individuals, each with different backgrounds, were finally reunited after surviving the ordeal.

"Before we begin the final answer, I'd like to confirm one more time: were any of you injured in the previous earthquake? If you were, please don't push yourself. This isn't some kind of deduction contest to catch the culprit. If you're feeling unwell, it would be best to ride your mount Pokémon to the nearby Eternal City Pokémon Center."

“Bamboo Orchid Champion, you don’t need to worry about that. We’ve already confirmed it with each other before.”

Ah Ying, the manager of the Hayden board, bowed to Zhu Lan at the end of the long table and said.

"Thanks to your help, no one was injured in this tragic disaster... However, Professor Medan seems to be in poor spirits. His research was destroyed in the earthquake, and he remains depressed to this day."

"Is that so?" The Sinnoh champion pondered for a moment.

"In that case, let's begin the answer from this perspective, Mr. Medan—"

The old professor, whose name was called, looked up in a daze and saw the blond champion from the Sinnoh region placing the ancient book he had been holding onto the wooden tabletop.

The wooden cover made a crisp sound when it touched the tabletop.

Zhu Lan slowly opened the cover, but didn't look at the contents inside.

“‘Faith and doubt complement each other; without doubt, there is no true faith’—scholars well-versed in religious studies often like to utter similar phrases as their usual opening line when dealing with scientists. However, for Professor Medan, the reverse is also true.”

Without faith, one cannot engage in genuine doubt.

Standing side by side with Orchid on the right, Officer Jenny gently shook her head—

Using this sentence to summarize the root cause of Meidan's tragedy is quite insightful.

Just as an object without direction cannot maintain its motion, a researcher cannot conduct research without a subject of study.

Once the research begins, the questioning begins, and the experiment is designed, the research subject at the end of the doubt will transform into a persistent obsession like a faith, echoing in Professor Medan's mind again and again, like Darkrai in a nightmare world.

The more Mei Dan tried to conceptually disprove a supposedly omnipresent existence, the more real and tangible this supposedly omnipresent thing became to him, and the more painful and conflicted he became, the deeper he sank into the quagmire from which he could not extricate himself.

Does Miss Zhulan intend to expel the professor's inner demons here?

The Sinnoh champion stared at Madan for a few seconds, as if assessing his opponent's strength and searching for a weakness in his defenses, before calmly speaking—

"Professor Mei Dan, although I cannot fully empathize with the obsession that is choking you, I have a general understanding of it."

"I think the reason you attach so much importance to that experiment of calculating the names of gods is not because you have any confidence in its success, but simply because you hope to use this experiment to bid a complete farewell to the atheistic theory you trust."

Miss Winnie looked at her father in surprise, while Medan remained silent, though his body appeared increasingly hunched.

It seems that what was predicted was correct.

"The reason you are so dejected right now is not because the destruction from underground interrupted the experiment, nor because the current results have confirmed or refuted your theory. In fact, the reason you are in such a state where you cannot even speak has absolutely nothing to do with the experiment that proved the existence of God!"

"Please stop talking..."

Like a sea cucumber struggling to expel its entrails, the old man squeezed out words of pleading from his throat.

"No, I must say it. Otherwise, do you want to spend the rest of your life swallowing that death knell-like curse alone in every lonely night?"

"Champion, please speak properly."

Director Hayden, indignant on behalf of his friend, displayed the toughness of a businessman towards the rulers of the Sinnoh League.

"Either you tell us directly what difficulties Meidan is facing and we can work together to find a solution, or you respect his personal wishes and don't keep pressuring him."

“It’s a wonderful friendship.” Zhu Lan shook her head almost imperceptibly. “But even so, there are parts of life that we have to face alone.”

She looked at the professor as if seeking his opinion.

The latter stared blankly at the empty space before him, as if immersed in a feeling of frustration.

Finally, Mei Dan nodded with a sigh.

"Let me explain it myself."

He slowly turned his head, looked at Hayden across the long table, and gave a wry smile—

“I’ve felt this way since we were young, before we were even friends. Hayden, I think I’m actually just like you, a liar who likes to lie and fabricate stories. It’s just that my lies are always easy to see through, while yours are always easy to believe. So, I ended up becoming a socially awkward technician, while you became a successful businessman.”

"Why bring this up now? Like you said yourself, everyone knows your character."

Hayden looked at his old friend with disdain.

"As long as you have money, brains, power, and connections, even the most absurd and ridiculous lies can become reality."

Whether it was because the interrogation techniques used by a certain intelligence investigator were still effective, Hayden was completely different from his previous hypocritical evasiveness, and he no longer even pretended to be humble and elegant in front of others.

He glanced sideways at Professor Medan and continued shamelessly—

"To put it bluntly, the concept of 'language' itself is ambiguous. Lies can be taken as truth, and heartfelt words can be fabricated. No one can guarantee that those grand and solemn truths will not ultimately turn into a colossal lie. It all depends on how we, the ones who utter those words, act."

"So, whether it's extremism or conservatism, God or science, this world is made up of one continuous series of lies. Just like the theoretical systems in the history of science that are constantly overturned and then reconstructed, when the previous lies are exposed, a more sophisticated new deception will naturally emerge to cover them up. And throughout this whole process, the world continues to operate as usual, no different from the past, or even better."

"People cheer when they discover new lies and rejoice when they create new conspiracies—that's how the world works."

"Those who understand this logic will naturally thrive in the world; those who don't understand its intricacies will live in a world of lies in complete ignorance, like sea creatures that don't know what water is. Only a half-baked person like you, Meidan, would plunge headlong into the intricacies of deception and confine yourself to the laboratory for the rest of your life."

Is this a conspiracy theory or skepticism? Officer Jenny pondered silently.

Rather than describing Hayden as a conspiracy theorist who questions the truth of the world, or a skeptic who questions everything, it's more accurate to say that he simply views the whole world as a hoax and is a complete nihilist.

Doubt and questioning are pointless.

It is precisely because everything is a lie in his eyes that he can lie so freely to make a profit.

Even if you say that, to me, a lie is a lie.

However, Professor Medan, seemingly oblivious to any malice in Hayden's long speech, sighed in a self-deprecating tone—

"Even if you can fool others and the world, you can't fool yourself."

He shifted his gaze from his old classmate and turned back to Zhu Lan.

"As Miss Zhulan said, when faced with that white light coming from the basement, I finally understood the real contradiction in my heart, which is that I did not actually believe in my atheistic theory as I had thought in the past."

"Tch, there's no need to expose a lie of this magnitude."

Hayden muttered to himself, shaking his head in exasperation.

"Just like when you're stabbed by a sharp blade, wouldn't leaving the weapon in the wound temporarily prevent massive bleeding? Why rush to pull it out?"

"I think it's probably because only by cleaning the affected area can the wound be treated smoothly."

Standing next to the merchant, Aying unusually took the initiative to speak, quietly addressing her employer.