Pokémon Detective Case Files.

Reluctantly, I stood up and saw a crowd of people in the hall with various expressions.

She cleared her throat: "Good evening, everyone..."

"Teacher Wanlong! Where's your new work?" A voice like a death knell suddenly rang out in the hall—

"Your new 'Shadow of the Night' series is a full year overdue to our publishing house! No matter how busy the Alliance is, shouldn't you give us, the publishing house, an explanation by now?"

A figure wearing glasses pushed through the crowd and lunged fiercely toward the judges' table.

It's strange. She only texted the editor to ask him to change the subject and attract the attention of others in the room, but his actions seem to deviate subtly from her request.

"King Wanlong, what about the sequel you promised to write for 'The Exiled Lightning'? We've been urging you for more than half a year!"

An ominous sound came from the other side of the stage. How strange, Wanlong clearly hadn't asked the other party for anything…

"The deadline for 'Visitors to the Snow Mountains' has long passed! Now the editor-in-chief is deducting my bonus every day, and you still have the leisure to be a judge here?"

"And there's also the resolution to 'The Murder Before the League History'! You haven't written a single word yet, have you?"

A tidal wave of angry roars surged forth, and the bespectacled editor was about to push through the crowd. The crisis surrounding the controversial topic had clearly passed for the time being, but Wanlong was far from happy…

"Excuse me, I'll be right back."

After briefly saying goodbye to the host and the other judges, the Ghost King quickly jumped out of his seat.

She threw out a Poké Ball and sent out her partner, Chandelure.

"Sneak Attack by a Ghost!"

The dim, cold light blurred everyone's vision. With a command, Wanlong's figure and the crystal chandelier spirit disappeared into the shadows of the wall, leaving the bewildered audience staring at each other in disbelief.

When Wanlong reappeared, it was already in the cold night of Karendor Town.

The dim streetlights cast a halo of light on the stone pavement, and the hustle and bustle of the distant meeting hall seemed like a distant memory.

The novelist leaned against the ancient brick wall and let out a long sigh of relief as the white mist slowly dissipated in the night sky.

"I'll just hide in the League's King of Fighters' room next month..."

Just as the Ghost-type Elite Four member was talking to herself, she heard footsteps behind her.

The crystal chandelier suddenly burst into flames, and Wanlong turned around in a daze to see an unexpected figure.

"I can't pretend I didn't hear about this."

The green-haired youth, a representative figure of the Elf Liberation Movement, and King N of Team Plasma, revealed himself under the moonlight.

"Would it be convenient for us to have a top-tier match before returning to the league?"

Chapter 373 Guskaf's Melancholy

At the bar in the beverage area of ​​the Sanyao Restaurant, Kohn put down a shaker covered in condensation and handed three light green mint milkshakes to three guests who had finished their meal.

Bert was not among the three brothers; he was in the kitchen, cleaning up the dishes and utensils left over from the dinner with the Pokémon.

"Specifically, what kind of flavor are you looking for?"

In the dim light, Cilan, the "food detective" of the Sanyo Gym, suddenly asked a question, facing Guscalf, who was sitting on the other side of the bar.

Wearing decorative glasses, he wore a linen trench coat over his waiter's uniform, a deerstalker hat on his head, and carried an open notebook. He looked more like a detective than Azure, the real detective.

“Hmm…” Guscalf’s large figure seemed uneasy on the high stool. “That was a long time ago, it’s a bit difficult to describe the taste directly…”

Seeing this, Azure couldn't help but break the awkward silence: "Mr. Guscalf, you must be looking for a special dish, right? But why did you suddenly have this idea?"

He thought for a long time before finally speaking—

"The reason I'm looking for that dish is that I'll soon be giving a feature interview to Galar's Outlook magazine as the food editor for the Unova region."

“Outlook Weekly? That’s a very influential world-class weekly magazine,” said Zhimi, who had been interviewed before. “This interview must be very important for the development of your food magazine, right?”

"That's right. Whether it's myself or 'Flying Cloud Culinary Exploration,' if we want to make a name for ourselves and enter the world beyond Unova, we absolutely cannot miss this opportunity."

Guskaf nodded and placed his thick palm on the bar.

“In such interviews, there are a few questions that are impossible to avoid. For example, what kind of cuisine do I prefer, what is my favorite dish, and are there any restaurants I would like to recommend to readers… But there is one question that I am almost certain to be asked, and I have never been able to make up my mind.”

"Oh, what's the problem?" Tian Tong pushed up her glasses, which had no lenses.

"Which dish led you onto the path of culinary arts?" This is the so-called "food of your soul"—as is customary, people asked this question usually answer with the food their parents made for them during their childhood.

“That’s really important,” the Grass-style shop owner said with a look of reminiscence. “Our parents used to run a coffee shop in this area, so we still remember the concept of simple meals like sandwiches and omelets. Now, before we design and develop new dishes, we still go to that coffee shop across the street together.”

"I'm a self-taught food critic, and my journey has been full of coincidences. So, unlike the members of the Sanyo Dojo, I don't have any particularly memorable dishes from my childhood. In fact, I don't remember much from my childhood at all..."

He patted his stomach, shrugged, and said—

"You see, because of my body type, it's hard not to hear sarcastic remarks when I talk to people my age, right? To protect themselves, people always like to forget those unpleasant memories, and for me, childhood is just that kind of thing."

The atmosphere fell silent again for a moment, until Miss Azure stepped forward: "I see. Even under these circumstances, you still remember that taste. This means that the last dish you recalled must have been quite important to you. What was that dish?"

"..."

Guskaf muttered something under his breath.

"What did you say? Which dish?" Tian Tong leaned closer, holding her notebook, her emerald-like eyes blinking behind her glasses.

The food editor, somewhat embarrassed, raised his voice: "It's a stew of potatoes and pork chops."

“I see.” The Cilan Pavilion Master stroked his chin thoughtfully. “The Ether Foundation’s bionic meat was already being promoted thirty years ago, and the history of artificial protein meat, which is the prototype of this food, is even longer. If this kind of meat is used, it is indeed a common family dish in Unova. Did Mr. Guscalf’s family make it for you?”

“It was my mother who did it,” Guskaf said in a low voice.

"Do you remember what that dish looked like? What ingredients were used? What was its unique flavor?"

The "food detective" wearing a deerstalker hat kept asking questions, but Guskaf could only silently shake his head.

"I don't remember at all, but I'm sure it was my mother who made it."

"Then your mother..." Tian Tong hesitated, unable to finish her sentence.

“She passed away when I was six years old,” the food editor replied directly, not shying away from the topic. “A year before that, our family moved from the remote mountain town of Shanlu to Lianyi Town at the foot of the mountain—but compared to here and Feiyun City, that place is just the countryside.”

“You look to be in your thirties, which means that the time your mother made you potato and pork stew was more than twenty years ago?” Tian Tong asked.

Guskaf looked up at the calendar in the drinks room and nodded: "That was twenty-eight years ago. I can remember playing with my mother, climbing mountains, and observing wild Pokémon. But I don't remember the taste of the food. I guess my taste buds weren't fully developed as a child. I only remember that it tasted good back then."

"Hmm... Potato and pork chop stew..."

The Grass-type Pavilion Master scratched the back of his head with his pen cap, looking deep in thought, but he had absolutely no inspiration.

Your deerstalker hat is crying… Azure sighed, looking at the “foodie detective,” and struck up a conversation with the gourmet again.

"So, what did Mr. Guskaf's parents do for a living?"

“At that time, my family ran a warehousing company, and my mother was a traditional housewife. My father would often proudly say that we were the richest family in town. I think we were indeed wealthy at the time, but in the end, we were just a remote mountain town.”

"Will life be the same after we move to Ripple Town?" Azure asked.

These questions may be beyond the scope of a food detective's investigation, but when faced with a clueless search, such persistent questioning is sometimes necessary.

Fortunately, Guskaf was not offended by this, and simply shook his head in response: "The entire company moved there, but it went bankrupt two years later. According to my father, it went bankrupt because the cost of treating my mother's illness was getting higher and higher, and they were unable to invest in the new equipment that was in place as planned. In the end, they could not compete with the large chain companies and lost almost all of their customers."

Ripple Town has now developed into a famous tourist destination in the Unova region. If the land where my father's factory was built could have been preserved, he could probably have made a fortune... But that was more than 20 years ago. No one can predict the future so accurately, otherwise the stock exchange would be full of magicians proficient in superpowers—the Gourmet added with a sigh.

"Was your mother sick for a long time back then?" Seeing that Bilan seemed to have found a breakthrough, Tiantong seized the opportunity to ask.

"She was bedridden for about a year and a half before she passed away; I think it was a serious illness." The food critic sighed. "Sigh, I really don't want to recall those times."

"Your father must have had a tough time too, he even lost the company trying to pay for his medical treatment."

“That’s hard to say,” Guskaf said, shaking his head with a slight smirk. “Less than a year after my mother died, my father remarried, and the woman he married was the same one who had cared for my mother.”

It sounds a bit... but the adult world is very complicated.

“You were only six years old then, right? Remarrying so early, maybe it was to take care of you when you were young?” Tian Tong cautiously guessed.

"Looking back now, that might be possible, but at the time, it just seemed like a stranger who suddenly appeared whom I had to call 'Mom.' Oh, right, there was also an older brother who was several years older than me, but he chose to become a trainer and was often away from home."

"It's a remarried family."

Bilan shook the cup containing the milkshake, feeling a bit overwhelmed, as if she were back in the pile of premarital investigation cases at the Feiyun City office.

"I'll just tell you what happened after that as well."

Like someone who'd given up entirely, Guscalf tilted his head back and downed the mint milkshake on the table in one gulp.

“After my father’s company went bankrupt, he started working desperately, which eventually ruined his health. He passed away from a sudden heart attack the year I graduated from elementary school. After that, I lived under the same roof with my stepmother and my brother. It felt like I was the only outsider among the three of us. I felt like I was living in pain every day. Because I couldn’t stand this situation, I made up an excuse after graduating from high school and went to Feiyun City to make my way in the world.”

Both of his biological parents died of illness when he was young, which explains why Guskaf subconsciously avoids his childhood memories; it's probably not just because of his physical appearance...

"I graduated from high school at eighteen, which means sixteen years have passed since then..." Tian Tong calculated the numbers in her notebook.

"Yes, from that headstrong young man who ran away from home, to a lowly handyman at a newspaper, and now to the editor-in-chief of a food magazine... I can now be considered to have a respectable position, and the magazine I host has gradually gained popularity in the United States, at least much more successful than my father's warehousing company back then..."

The food editor chuckled self-deprecatingly, staring at his own dark silhouette reflected on the wooden bar counter—

"I never imagined that I would run into that bowl of potato and pork stew from when I was six years old again at this time."

Chapter 374 The Taste in My Memory

"Why does it have to be that potato and pork chop stew?"

Everyone present was either a renowned chef or a professional gourmet, so Bilan had no choice but to ask this unromantic question herself.

"If you just want to answer a magazine interview question, why not choose another food that you remember the taste and preparation method of? You can even make up a fictional story that is related to these dishes. Why insist on a dish that you have almost completely forgotten?"

"Actually, I was thinking the same thing before I came to Sanyao Restaurant today."

Guskaf, looking dazed, shook his empty glass, using the glass to refract light onto the table, creating various patterns.

"Just like a magazine page, an interview should never be left blank. As an emergency measure, picking any food that you vaguely remember from the past is obviously the most reasonable choice. School meals, roadside pizzas, snacks from twenty years ago... With my expertise in food criticism, I can talk about any of these in front of the interviewing reporter without any problem—after all, this level of language processing doesn't even count as lying."

“However, if we were to accept this interview according to this plan…” the food critic’s tone inexplicably turned somber, “I feel like I’m betraying something.”

"Because this is the taste of my mother."

Zhimi, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke up.

“Human taste memory is very stubborn, Mr. Guscalf. Taste preferences formed in childhood often determine our lifelong food choices and aesthetic preferences.”

The culinary king from the Carlos region toyed with his light blond curly hair and spoke with unparalleled persuasiveness—

"A six-year-old child wouldn't imprint a mediocre dish deep in their mind for no reason. Although I don't know the specific details of that stew, it must have contained your mother's deep love for you—I can guarantee that. It is this maternal love that transforms into a sense of security and dependence, helping you smoothly embark on the path of exploring food."

"It's a pity... I don't remember the taste of that dish at all."

Guskaf rested his elbows on the bar, burying his enormous head in self-reproach—

"I call myself a gourmet, yet I can't even recall the taste of my own mother's cooking. This is probably the retribution I suffer for casually commenting on other people's dishes."

"What about the details besides the taste? Do you really have no recollection at all?" Azure pressed.

"Besides the taste..." the food editor frowned. "Speaking of which, aren't stews with potatoes usually yellow or brown? But in my memory, the stews my mother made were red."

"Red? Did they add ingredients like tomatoes?" Seeing that the investigation seemed to have made a breakthrough, the owner of the Tentong Pavilion perked up.

“I can’t be sure, but my mother only told me the name of the dish was ‘Potato and Pork Rib Stew.’ If it used tomatoes so obviously, it would have been called a different dish… By the way, speaking of which, I also clearly remember another Potato and Pork Rib Stew.”

"Another one?" Tian Tong, who was taking notes, raised her eyebrows.

"Yes, it's the potato and pork stew my stepmother cooked." A self-deprecating sneer appeared on the gourmet's face.

"The reason I remember that dish is entirely due to my feelings at the time, which were completely opposite to those of my mother. It was probably when I was in the third year of junior high school. That day, my adopted bright red roly-poly toy got sick, and I had to ask for leave from school in the afternoon to go to the hospital. When I returned home early in the evening, I saw the dinner that my stepmother had prepared."

Guskaf recalled, his expression somewhat complicated—

"That day, my sworn brother finished his long journey and was preparing to return to our home to rest. My stepmother also went out to buy daily necessities, so I was the only one at home. I happened to pass by the kitchen and saw two pots of stewed potatoes inside."

"Two pots?" The Grass-type Gym Leader paused, puzzled. "Is it because one pot can't hold all the ingredients?"

Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Guskaf shook his head sadly.

"Both pots contained yellow stews. I secretly tried the dishes in each one. One dish was special; it contained a lot of artificial meat chops and tasted better than the potato stew I usually eat. The other dish was the kind of stew I usually eat, without any meat chops at all. Although they gave me meat chops when they served me the meal that night, this kind of differential treatment still made me feel uncomfortable."

“The editor’s sense of taste is becoming more acute at this time. It seems that his talent as a gourmet is starting to show after entering puberty.” Azure cleverly brought up the topic, trying to break the awkward atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the editor was still immersed in his own emotions: "Although there was a vague sense of alienation from outsiders in the past, the feeling in my heart and the two pots that I saw with my own eyes were ultimately two different things. And what I was making was the potato and pork stew that my mother left me with important memories. From that moment on, I made up my mind that after leaving this family, I must make a name for myself in society and let those two people see my success with their own eyes."

"Although we've obtained a lot of information, it has absolutely nothing to do with the stew your biological mother made," Tian Tong sighed deeply.

"Hmm... I don't know if this can serve as a clue, but when I think of my mother's stew, I sometimes think of snowy winters."