I caught a Pokémon

"What? You don't want to wait until tonight? You want to go save Aunt Hanako now?"

Upon hearing his voice, Xiao Zhi turned around in surprise to look at Xia You, only to see Xia You sitting quietly on a rock, smiling at him, as if she had anticipated his actions and had been waiting there for a long time!

Xiao Zhi was quite surprised to see Xia You here, but he still nodded.

"Xia You-ge? What are you doing here? Did you come to tell me not to go?"

He held Xia You in the highest esteem, regarding him as both his greatest rival and a role model. He couldn't help but think that if Brother Xia You really came to call him back and suggested they wait until night to take action, he would be somewhat reluctant but would definitely obediently go back with him!

"I understand how you feel." Xia You stood up and walked to his side. "But rushing over there so rashly won't do!"

Sure enough, Xia You really did come to persuade me to go back...

Ash sighed inwardly and was about to turn around and go back to the Pokémon Center with him, but at that moment, Xia You suddenly changed the subject.

"But actually, I'm not here to stop you; I'm planning to go with you!"

"What!?" Upon hearing this, Ash's eyes widened in surprise!

"You seem surprised?" Xia You laughed. "I don't feel comfortable letting you go there alone to take the risk, so I have to come along!"

"Brother Xia You is right!"

Just then, Xiaoxia's voice suddenly came from a distance.

The two turned around and saw Xiaoxia and Xiaogang running over, panting!

When they got closer, Xiaoxia was panting heavily, her chest heaving: "I want to go too!"

Xiao Gang, not to be outdone, chimed in, "Me too!"

Looking at the two of them, Xia You smiled and shook her head: "I knew you two would be involved in something like this! Now that everyone's here, we can set off together!"

"Of course!" Xiaoxia said proudly. "How could we possibly let Xiaozhi go alone!"

Xiao Zhi was deeply moved: "Everyone..."

At this moment, Xiaoxia looked around again and asked in surprise, "Huh? Where's Miss Lijia? Didn't she come with us?"

Xia You shook her head: "She and Xiao Ling stayed there to deal with Professor Oak and Officer Jenny. If Professor Oak and the others find out that Ash went there secretly, they will definitely stop him. So I had Rika stay there to distract them!"

"As expected of Brother Xia You!" Xiaoxia's eyes lit up when she heard Xia You's arrangement. "So you had this planned all along!? You've thought of everything!"

"Stop flattering me!" Xia You said, gently tapping her head. "Alright, let's get going!"

After the group reunited, they continued towards the Crystal Forest. It's no wonder it's ranked number one as "the place girls most want to go to." Along the way, the mountains and fields were covered with sunflowers, a beautiful sight to behold!

If it weren't for the vast crystalline forest on the other side, completely out of place here, it would surely be even more breathtaking!

They hurried across the plains and, upon reaching the edge of the forest, having confirmed that the crystallization would not affect them, Xia You and the others did not linger and directly stepped into the crystal forest!

Upon entering the Crystal Forest, all was silent, as if all life had vanished, leaving only the sound of their running and heavy breathing.

The ground beneath our feet was covered in hard crystals, and we were surrounded by crystals, forming various strange plant crystals that resembled amber.

Xia You stomped on it hard, but couldn't break the crystal at all.

Xiao Gang also kicked it, and because he used too much force, the hardness of the crystal almost broke his toe!

"It's so hard! If we accidentally get encased in the crystals, that would be terrible!"

As they ran, Xiaoxia suddenly asked, "By the way, how are we going to deal with that Entei? It's a legendary Pokémon!"

Before Xia You could speak, Xiao Zhi seemed to have already made up his mind. He glanced at Pikachu and said in a confident tone, "As long as we go all out, we can definitely defeat it!"

“Xiao Zhi is right!” Xia You agreed. “We are trainers, after all. We don’t care if it’s Entei or not. As long as it’s a Pokémon, we’ll definitely find a way to deal with it!”

Chapter 363 Going Against the Current

As they ventured deeper into the Crystal Forest, the path became increasingly difficult, and the crystals grew denser. The various strange and wonderful trees were not only lush and leafy, but also extremely sturdy after crystallizing, making it impossible for them to break or bend. This made it almost impossible for them to move forward, and sometimes they had to climb to very high places to continue.

To avoid being discovered by Emperor Ent and thus revealing their location, they dared not ride Pokémon and fly over so openly in the sky.

Fortunately, they soon discovered a small river that was still flowing. Perhaps because it was constantly flowing, the water had not crystallized!

This is great news!

You should know that the river is wide, and even if there are tree crystals on the side, they cannot extend into the river. If you can go upstream along the river, you can reach the manor without any obstacles!

With that in mind, Xia You went into the water to try it out.

The stream is not deep or particularly turbulent; it only covers the ankles, and at its deepest point, it only reaches the calves. Most importantly, it is a direct route, saving them a lot of time and energy!

Although this inevitably gets their shoes and pants wet, these are all trainers who live on air and dew, so no one cares about such a small thing.

The river water was a bit cold, and after walking for a while, my feet inevitably started to sting. But no matter what, it was still much better than walking on the bank.

Seeing him wave, the others went into the water and went upstream.

After walking for a few minutes without encountering any danger, they relaxed a bit. However, Xia You still reminded them to stay vigilant and keep their voices down to avoid being discovered by Emperor Yan.

No sooner had he finished speaking than a streak of fire suddenly flashed across the sky, hurtling past their heads!

The group looked up and saw that Emperor Yan was standing on a towering rock in the distance. It was he who had launched the attack, but the target was not them, but a hot air balloon in the sky!

Flames streaked across the sky and struck the airship precisely!

After a violent explosion, the balloon was destroyed. Amidst the countless shattered fragments of the airship, several screams suddenly rang out. Then, three figures of different sizes plummeted into the crystal petals like meteors!

Needless to say, the only ones who would still be following them at this point are the unlucky trio of Team Rocket!

It seems that Team Rocket's airship was too eye-catching, and Ent Emperor was drawn to it, which is why he was attacked!

Although these guys were unlucky, in a way, the Team Rocket trio did relieve Xia You and the others of some of their attention!

Seeing Emperor Yan turn his neck, Xia You had an idea and quickly signaled the others to go ashore and hide.

Just as they had concealed themselves, Emperor Yan scanned their surroundings with a scrutinizing gaze.

Seeing that nothing was amiss, it returned to the petal tower.

That's incredibly cautious...

Xia You felt a surge of emotion, then looked in the direction where Team Rocket had crashed.

He chuckled softly, "Thank you so much to Team Rocket this time. They really drew our fire. I hope they land safely. To be honest, I admit I was too harsh on those guys before. If we meet again, I'll definitely go easy on them!"

Hearing Xia You's joke, Xiao Xia couldn't help but laugh and say, "I agree! I just wonder if they'll be happy to hear this news!"

After this incident, they went into the water again and traveled several hundred meters before finally arriving at the foot of the manor.

At this moment, the entire manor is completely surrounded by crystals. From the outside, there is no trace of any building. It is truly no different from a petal made of crystals!

Fortunately, there was still one drainage outlet that had not been blocked, allowing them to enter the interior of the petal tower from there.

However, the outlet is more than ten meters above the ground, and the walls are extremely smooth, so they cannot climb up by themselves.

A continuous stream of water flows down from the heights, merging into the river and splashing up countless droplets.

Xia You and Xiao Zhi exchanged a glance, knowing that they had to rely on the power of the Pokémon at this moment!

The two took out Poké Balls and summoned their respective Flying-type Pokémon.

Xia You sent out Charizard, while Xiao Zhi sent out his shiny Noctowl.

As the blue light flashed, Charizard appeared in front of Xia You on its own.

Xia You reached out her hand to Xiaoxia, and when she came over, Xia You picked her up and jumped onto the fire-breathing dragon, which carried the two of them to the top of the drain.

Ash's Noctowl, given its size, was simply unable to carry him and Brock to the drain.

However, out of pride and not wanting to trouble Xia You, Xiao Zhi could only resort to a slightly more troublesome method.

He took out two more Poké Balls and released his Bulbasaur and Chikorita. Then he had Noctowl take the two Pokémon to the drain first, and then had them use Vine Whip to tie their bodies up from above, and slowly climb up with Brock.

Although this is a bit slower, they are not girls like Xiaoxia and should be able to support themselves.

After Ash came up, Xia You couldn't help but ask, "Where's your Charizard? Why didn't you just send it out?"

Ash shrugged: "I left it in Charizard Valley so it could train there!"

Charizard Canyon, huh? So Ash's already been there!

If she has time, Xia You would like to go there and take a look, and also let her Charizard train there.

Of course, unlike Ash, he wouldn't leave his Charizard there forever.

After a short rest, they entered the petal tower through the drain and arrived at a greenhouse.

The noise from the flowing water masked their conversation and footsteps, but they remained cautious and watched their surroundings carefully.

Looking around, Xia You discovered that the place had been completely eroded by crystals. The once beautiful plants had all turned into crystals. Only a greenhouse on a piece of land surrounded by a pool had survived and remained intact.

but……

No wonder he's a PhD; his family is incredibly wealthy. This greenhouse is almost the size of a Pokémon Center. He's so rich!

Just as the group was wading through the water to enter the greenhouse, he suddenly received a call from Lijia.

As soon as the call connected, before Xia You could even speak, Li Jia's rather helpless voice came from the other end.

"I have some bad news for you: Professor Oak has discovered your actions!"

"Huh? How come it's so fast!?"

Xia You had considered that this operation would be discovered, but she didn't expect that Professor Oak would find out about it so soon after she arrived!

After Lijia explained for a while, Xia You realized that they had just been spotted by a TV reporter while crossing the river, and the whole thing had been recorded!

Professor Oak and his friends only learned through the live television broadcast that the other party had secretly slipped away!

Chapter 364 Xiao Mei

Since Professor Oak can see them on TV, if I'm not mistaken, Mei must also be able to detect that they have invaded Petal Tower through the news broadcast!

Seriously…

I never imagined that after traveling so carefully for so long, I would be exposed by the TV station in the end! What a waste of all my efforts!

At that moment, Professor Oak seemed to grab the phone from the other end, complaining, "You guys just slipped away there without a word! Why couldn't you wait until night to act!?"

Sensing the hint of reproach in his tone, Xiao Zhi looked embarrassed and quickly apologized, "I'm sorry, Doctor, this was all my idea, it has nothing to do with Xia You and the others! They came to stop me, but it was my insistence that led them to this adventure..."

Fortunately, Professor Oak didn't take it to heart. In fact, even if Ash had caused a huge uproar, Professor Oak wouldn't have held him accountable. He was just angry that these people hadn't informed him before the operation!

They're treating him like a complete outsider!

Moreover, entrusting this matter to Xia You and the others was his original plan, so why are these people in such a hurry?

But blaming Ash now is useless. He sighed and said helplessly, "Alright, since you're already there, I don't plan to call you back. It's up to you now! You must rescue Hanako!"

No sooner had he finished speaking than John suddenly interjected, "After you got there, did you discover any unknown totems?!"

"Unknown totem? None!"

“I see…” Upon hearing their reply, Professor Oak pondered for a moment. “Based on Professor Shuri’s papers and notes before his disappearance, Unown seems to have the ability to sense the consciousness of other beings. In other words, it can sense people’s thoughts and materialize those thoughts. Therefore, we deduce that these crystallizations that occurred in the Green Field must have been created by Unown after it sensed Mei’s thoughts!”

Is there any way to solve this?

"Right now, the only thing I can think of is to find those unknown totems and reverse their crystallization through reverse thinking!"

Hearing this, Xiaoxia couldn't help but interject, "Doctor, do Unknown Totems really have such powerful abilities?"

“If it were just a single Unknown Totem, it wouldn’t be possible,” Professor Oak explained. “Therefore, we deduce that there might be more than one Unknown Totem there! You all need to be extra careful!”

Finally, Professor Oak added, "Of course, if things get tough, prioritize your own safety. The rescue team will arrive tonight! Don't be reckless!"

After hanging up the phone, Ash breathed a sigh of relief that Professor Oak hadn't criticized him, but he also felt a little displeased that Professor Oak had underestimated them.

"Professor Oak is really underestimating us! We don't need any rescue team at all!"

Shaking her head, Xia You smiled and said, "He meant well. After all, he's a Pokémon professor invited to solve this problem, so he has to consider all aspects and can't possibly disregard our danger."

After this incident, the group continued on their way.

They crossed the pool, entered the greenhouse, and then walked through a long connecting corridor before finally arriving inside the manor.

So far, they haven't encountered any danger, which has eased their tense nerves a little.

Seeing that the place was a maze of interconnected passages, eroded by crystals, the group did not hesitate and climbed directly to the top of the tower.

Even if they had never been there before, they knew that Xiaomei and Hanako must be there!

After passing through the jagged crystals, they reached the upper level, only to find that the scenery had changed. All the crystals had disappeared, and in their place appeared a vast, lush green grassland!