Pokémon Detective Case Files.

“He might know some inside information. But you have to understand, even the police couldn’t get that information out of him. As amateur detectives, it would be even more difficult for us to do so.”

Hugo shrugged, flipped the file to a page containing his conversation with Douzi, and continued—

"The only information left is what Mr. N provided. He said it was eyewitness testimony from a Bean Dove that flew by – at the scene of the explosion, all seventy-one Pokémon in the entire power plant died, and their shattered bodies were in the deep crater at the center of the explosion, and were disposed of by the police afterwards – this is something that did not appear in the report."

“I’m not sure whether to accept this testimony or not,” the assistant said hesitantly. “It’s not just a matter of the source of the intelligence; it’s a revolutionary lead. If we believe this lead, the whole picture of the bombing will change completely. The casualties are much more serious than the official reports, and even the behavior of everyone in Liyong City has become strange… Could there be a cover-up that even the local police have had to actively cover up?”

"Well... it's not impossible that a terrible scandal has occurred, to the point that the entire city has to be covered up with a devastating and complete explosion to cover up the whole truth."

The detective stroked his chin thoughtfully—

"If this is an internal scandal within the Alliance, it's no wonder that His Highness the Prince of Team Plasma is so interested in it."

"Should we still participate in this investigation? Isn't the Plasma Group our enemy?"

As the passengers who had been led to the deck by Wailord gradually returned to their cabins, Azure looked around and asked in a low voice.

“Of course.” The detective leaned back in his chair, casually folded the case files in half, closed his eyes leisurely, but his tone was resolute.

"I've always believed that only by bringing the truth to light and exposing the wounds to the air can they possibly heal. Plasma clusters don't appear out of thin air. If we simultaneously clear away their sprawling branches while continuously watering and fertilizing the soil that breeds them, the Unova problem will never be truly solved. And, Azure—"

The detective assistant, who was engrossed in listening, was startled when he suddenly heard his own name.

Hugo, at that moment, resembled a hunter on the move, his grey eyes hard and focused, like two steel needles capable of piercing the heart. He faced me, a smile playing on his lips, and said—

"We're detectives, after all. We can decide on the next steps after we've uncovered the truth—the mystery of this perplexing case is still unknown."

Chapter 118 The Wharf, Smog, and Crowds of People in Liyong City

Navigating a coastal passenger ship seems to be more complicated than operating a whaling ship. At least Captain Doug can no longer leave his post at will, nor does he have the leisure to smoke a cigar and enjoy the sea view.

Hugo and Azure observed for a long time but couldn't find an opportunity to visit the captain's cabin. After discussing it, they decided not to bother the busy Mr. Doug and disembarked when the ship docked in Liyong City.

Life is full of encounters, and there will always be a time for them to meet.

.

The "Liyong" in Liyong City actually refers to "steam rising straight into the sky." From this name alone, one can see the city's strong industrial character and its relatively short history.

Indeed, Liyong City is a newly emerging city in western United States that has prospered in recent years, and its most important pillar industry is heavy industry, represented by steel and coal mining.

The local population is also dominated by working families, with almost every household having at least one family member working in a factory.

The Pokémon kept by the residents are also closely related to elements such as fire, electricity, steel, and steam. Electabuzz, Magneton, Magnemite... these Pokémon, which are rare in Unova Center, are everywhere in Lishui City.

Looking out, the skyline of Liyong City resembles an electrocardiogram of a healthy person, with countless chimneys rising and falling. These gun muzzles pointing towards the sky are constantly releasing exhaust fumes left by industrial operations, making the city seem like a double-barreled gas canister magnified countless times.

But this steam and black smoke also signify that the steel and electricity produced in Liyong City are flowing continuously through cables and railways to every corner of the United States, becoming the skeleton and blood of distant cities and the driving force for their development.

Liyong City is like a fully powered engine. Despite its noise, fog, and mess, it is precisely the existence of this industrial city that supports the United Alliance to keep moving forward and shake the world with its unprecedented economic growth rate.

"Even so, the air quality here is terrible."

Bilan frowned and wrinkled her nose. From the moment the ship entered the port, she had been very uncomfortable with the smoky and polluted air in Liyong City.

"Liyong City is a coastal city, and it had just rained recently, so it usually doesn't have such serious air pollution problems. It seems that the air quality here has only recently started to deteriorate."

Hugo handed one of the newly purchased masks to his assistant, saying astutely—

"Look, didn't we recently have a power plant explosion? That's why the city's energy structure has been adjusted. To fill the gap left by the Liyong Power Plant, Liyong City had to restart many old-style coal-fired power plants to restore power. In addition, with winter approaching, the demand for electricity has surged due to indoor heating. These two factors combined have naturally led to the current situation."

The detective casually pointed to the headlines of newspapers sold by the roadside, where the words "Reactivation of an Old Power Plant" stood out prominently in the city news section.

"It really is a case of one small thing affecting the whole situation. Is that power plant really that important?"

Bilan's surprised voice came through her mask. She had thought the explosion at the Liyong Power Plant was a small factory, otherwise, how could the security be so inadequate?

"The factory that exploded was one of the city's leading enterprises, and it was named after the city itself. In terms of both scale and production capacity, it was one of the city's top pillar enterprises."

The detective stood in front of the city map display board by the dock, carefully examining the map while muttering to himself, his mind multitasking as he described the situation at the Qiliyong Power Plant—

"Liyong Power Plant is the most outstanding factory in the city in recent years, without exception. In the first half of this year, the factory completed its second round of expansion, becoming the leader in the city's energy industry. As I hinted earlier, unlike traditional thermal power plants, Liyong Power Plant adopts a cleaner power generation solution. It makes comprehensive use of the power of ocean tides, wind turbines, solar panels, and even Pokémon to establish a low-pollution power generation system that is completely different from other factories, and it has been performing exceptionally well before."

"Then it exploded." Azure curled her lip, offering a rather result-oriented critique. "So where should we go first to investigate? The Liyong City Police Department?"

"No, Miss Officer Jenny has already given us a lot of internal information. Even if we went to her door to ask for the rest, we wouldn't get any results."

Hugo pointed to a spot on the map.

"This is where we're going."

.

Where am I?!

In the crowded throng, Bilan felt like a drop of water in the ocean, surrounded by tens of thousands of her kind.

This is clearly just a street that isn't very wide, but it's packed with people!

Even the evening rush hour in Feiyun City isn't this outrageous!

Moreover, the people in front of me were behaving strangely. They were all dressed formally, but each one of them was nervous with their heads down, holding a form, and slowly moving in long lines towards different windows along the street.

The crowd stretched as far as the eye could see, yet even more people kept pushing their way in from behind. The value of the individual seemed so cheap in this time and place.

"Hugo! Detective! Where are you?!"

The girl called out loudly for her employer, but amidst the surging crowd and the vast expanse of the world, the figure in the white coat never appeared...

All she could hear were the sounds of people's clothes rubbing against each other, the overwhelming sound of footsteps, and a jumble of whispers. Azure realized with despair that unless she brought a flying Pokémon with her, there was no way to get out of here.

"Oh, right!" Azure slapped her forehead and pulled out the Poké Ball containing Archaeopteryx.

I never expected that the Flying-type Pokémon I caught in Unova would come in handy so soon!

She struggled to carve a gap in the crowd and released the Pokémon from her Poké Ball: "Archaeopteryx, quick! Use Fly to get me out of here!"

The little guy still stared with those dead fish eyes, not reacting immediately. Then, it hopped around in place, nodded, flapped its wings, and shook its head.

"You mean you can jump very high but can't fly?"

The Archaeopteryx nodded, and the girl wanted to cry but had no tears.

The crowd behind them surged forward again, and the Archaeopteryx, as if on its own, flew—no, hopped—onto the chestnut-haired girl's head. Having completely given up struggling in the face of reality, the girl and her pet drifted along with the flow of the crowd.

Before she knew it, Azure had joined a queue along with the slowly moving crowd.

.

A vulture named Na, covered in black feathers and decorated with bones, flew in from afar and slowly landed at the entrance of the street. A black-haired girl wearing a baseball cap was hanging from its talons.

"Long time no see, Hugo! Oh? Isn't Sister Blue with you?"

Miss Touko, as always, was full of energy and greeted the detective with great enthusiasm.

"I got separated at the entrance. A porter who was passing by me stumbled for some reason, and the wooden stick he was holding hit his toe, causing quite a commotion nearby. When I turned around, Azure was gone."

"Sigh, you..." Douzi was already used to this, and peeked into the surging crowd inside the park. "Sister Xiaolan wouldn't have gone in there, would she?"

Hugo sighed: "They've probably already gone in. I've been waiting here for a long time, but no one answers the phone. Maybe it's because there's too much background noise and I didn't hear the phone ring."

Douzi and her bald eagle Na could only look at each other, gazing at the long queues on the street, and mourn for the tragic experience that Little Blue Sister was going through.

Above the heads of the two people and their pet was a huge banner that read—

"Liyong City Industrial Alliance Joint Recruitment Fair"

Chapter 119 Methods for Identifying Key Witnesses

Near the entrance to the job fair, the detective and Touko chatted idly while waiting for their assistant to arrive.

The job fair was held in an enclosed plaza with all entrances and exits in one location, so there was no need to worry about the assistant wandering off.

"Aren't you going to meet with N?"

Just like her fighting style, the girl with the high ponytail went straight to the point, asking Hugo a question—

“After all, he is the client this time. Shouldn’t we go and have a face-to-face talk with him? With Sister Xiaolan and me here, we don’t need to worry about his nominal subordinates doing anything underhanded.”

"No, it's better not to. I'm not worried about the plasma clusters." The detective in the white coat shook his head.

"Countless myths and legends tell us a common truth—it's best for two creatures with strong opinions but unable to convince each other not to meet, otherwise they'll most likely end up arguing."

At this moment, Hugo's gaze was absentmindedly fixed on the endless stream of people in front of him, his brows sometimes furrowing and sometimes relaxing, as if he were browsing the books on the shelves of a bookstore.

"Arguing?" Douzi blinked. She couldn't imagine the scene of the always aloof green-haired youth arguing with this polite detective.

It'll probably be quite dramatic...

"Speaking of which, Hugo, why did we choose to meet here today? Aren't we here to investigate the truth behind the bombing? What does the bombing have to do with this job fair?"

"Of course it's related. Let me ask you, if we want to know the condition of the factory before the explosion, who should we ask?"

"Normally, we should go to the factory employees, since only they have firsthand information."

“That’s right, but now the power plant has been destroyed by the explosion and may not be able to be rebuilt. The employees are unable to work and are scattered in their homes. So where are we supposed to find these employees?”

While talking to Douzi, Hugo's eyes continued to scan the crowd quickly, as if he were looking for a specific target.

"Oh! I see." The girl with the high ponytail thumped her palms, suddenly realizing.

"The closure of the power plant will definitely lead to unemployment. Those laid-off workers will definitely come to this job fair to find other jobs... Not only that, maybe this job fair is set up by other factories to recruit these people, which is why there are so many people here!"

“That’s right, so I came here to look for my target.” The detective nodded.

"But if that's the case, Hugo, what are you looking for now?" Douzi still didn't quite understand. "You should be able to get information from any applicant you randomly pick up here."

"I'm looking for employees who are most connected to the explosion."

Hugo glanced again at the crowded throng, still seemingly unable to find his target, so he simply turned around and began to explain to Douzi—

"The official report stated that the explosion was caused by a Pokémon's mistake. Photos from the scene also show that the explosion's epicenter was located in a bio-powered area where Electric-type Pokémon were concentrated. Such an area would typically have at least one employee responsible for managing, feeding, and caring for the Pokémon. And that's the person I'm looking for."

Seeing that Hugo's explanation was logical and reasonable, the girl nodded repeatedly, but still did not fully understand: "But in that case, how are you going to identify such an employee from such a large group of people?"

The detective held up three fingers: "For the first screening, we can start with the applicants' hand shapes. The people we're looking for aren't professional workers; they're closer to Pokémon trainers who have been breeding Pokémon for a long time. Therefore, they wouldn't have thick calluses from operating machinery for a long time. At most, they would only have slight callus marks on the joints used when gripping Poké Balls."

"Ugh... Ah!"

Douzi couldn't help but examine her own hands, and then inadvertently gasped in surprise. Upon closer inspection, she also discovered similar faint calluses on her palms.

This mark is proof of being an excellent Pokémon Trainer.

“Second,” Hugo continued, shaking his perfectly intact, slender fingers.

"These special employees were originally responsible for the large-scale management of Electric-type Pokémon at the Liyong Power Plant. The job requires a high level of expertise, including knowledge of electrical engineering and Pokémon training methods. Even when applying for a job, they show a difference that is quite different from ordinary job seekers."

"What is that? A breeder's certificate? A high-quality Pokémon that I raised myself?" the girl speculated.

“Of course not, how could we possibly find out such details just by standing at a distance and observing?” the detective said with a smile. “It’s all about where they were standing.”

Although the crowd in front of me was bustling, if you looked closely, you could see that even at the entrance, the job applicants had consciously lined up in different positions.

"The more specialized a person is, the less likely they are to change careers just to switch jobs. And when companies hold joint recruitment events, they will naturally place signs at the entrance pointing to different positions so that applicants can find their place. However, these signs face the people in line, and they are not easy to see from where we are now. That's why Bilan and I had to squeeze through the crowd."

The detective pointed to a group of people directly opposite him: "Look, in this group closest to us, aren't there quite a few people who meet the first condition? This is where I got separated from Azure. These people are the employees who came to apply for factory training positions, but unfortunately, most of them are not from the Liyong Power Plant where the explosion occurred."

“Hmm…” Douzi pondered for a moment before asking the natural question, “So how do you identify the former employees of Liyong Power Plant from among these people?”

“This is the most obvious part of the reasoning.” Hugo shook his remaining index finger.

"According to your friend's testimony, all the Pokémon in the power plant perished at the scene of the accident. The employee responsible for raising them may not bear any responsibility, but their mental state is certainly not good. Such a state is not suitable for applying for a job, and the interviewer will relentlessly question them about the explosion incident. After all, no company wants to hire an employee who has caused a serious incident."

Finally, Hugo pointed to the crowd behind him and, facing Douzi, said—

“Normal interviewees don’t know immediately whether they’ve been hired, but our key witness probably already guessed his fate and became discouraged in advance. If you see a listless, sighing, and returning home after failing the interview in front of us, then he is undoubtedly the target we’re looking for.”

“Um… Hugo…” Douzi suddenly stammered, “I saw someone who perfectly fits your criteria, but I assure you she is definitely not a witness to the bombing.”

The detective turned around in surprise and saw a chestnut-haired girl looking listless and sighing as she retraced her steps.

Her eyes were exactly the same as the Archaeopteryx above her head.

Azure drifted aimlessly in the direction of the crowd, and when it passed by Hugo and Douzi, it was pulled back by the girl with the high ponytail.

Douzi shook Bilan vigorously and leaned close to the girl's ear, asking loudly, "Sister Xiaolan, what's wrong? What happened?"

Azure was stunned for a moment, then looked dejected and said—

"They...they said that someone like me, without a breeder's certificate, without even a diploma, can only work in an electronics factory tightening screws..."

Chapter 120: Admitted to the ICU