The tenth day after Pokémon descended.
Nothing happened.
The whole day was spent either feeding the fish or eating.
The eleventh day after Pokémon descended.
A few more newcomers arrived at the camp from Xinghai Residential Complex, and Lu Li made a point of going over to meet them.
The newcomers were a mother and her two children. According to the mother, her husband had gone out to look for food yesterday morning and had not returned for an entire day and night.
Her two children had been crying from hunger at home. With nowhere else to turn, she could only bring them to the mall and try her luck.
Lu Li did not ask what she would do if her husband had merely been delayed by something and came back only to find them gone.
After all, he had already been missing for a full day and night. Even if he had run into a Pokémon like Mimikyu, he should have been back by now.
Seeing that she had brought both children with her to the mall, Lu Li asked curiously, “You came out looking for food and still brought both children with you. Did you already know there was a survivor camp in this mall?”
The woman gave a bitter smile. “I didn’t know. I just thought that if I couldn’t make it back either, I might as well bring the children with me. Even if we died, at least we’d die together.”
“Live well in the camp. This place is pretty friendly toward children. From now on, you won’t need to take the two of them with you when you go out looking for food. Even if something happens to you, the camp will help raise them.”
Although Lu Li sympathized with the mother’s situation, in an apocalypse like this, similar things were definitely far from rare.
Besides, she had already been lucky enough.
She had managed to reach the mall safely while dragging along two burdens, happened to be stopped before going any farther, and most importantly, the woman had been obedient enough to listen.
If even one of those three conditions had not been met, the entire family of three would have died.
After seeing off the pitiful yet somewhat lucky mother, Fatty Lei took the opportunity to report, “Brother Lu, Zhao Zhu came back today. That ghost demon beast kept them for a whole day.”
Hearing this, Lu Li nodded.
Mimikyu had already eaten its fill yesterday, so it probably would not be hungry today.
With that thought, Lu Li decided to make a trip to the arcade, have a chat with Mimikyu, and build up their relationship a little.
In Mimikyu’s eyes, he was a fake person.
And in Mimikyu’s own eyes, it was also a fake Pikachu.
Round it off, and they were both fakes.
Under those circumstances, Mimikyu probably would not look down on him, right?
Lu Li’s imagination began to run wild. After telling Fatty Lei that he was going to the arcade to take another look at that ghost demon beast, he left the camp alone.
Fatty Lei did not stop him either. After all, the reason Lu Li had been able to become the camp’s deputy leader was precisely because his research into demon beasts was so extensive.
If Lu Li wanted to study a ghost demon beast, there was naturally no reason for him to interfere. Besides, if Lu Li really did run into trouble, that would actually bring him some benefits too.
After arriving at the arcade, Lu Li first knocked lightly on the door.
“Pikachu, can I come in?” Lu Li asked softly.
Mimikyu, inside the claw machine, looked curiously toward Lu Li at the entrance.
It remembered this fake human very clearly. In fact, one could say he had left a deep impression on it, because ever since Mimikyu had come to this world, Lu Li was the only person it had encountered who was not afraid of it.
That made the somewhat lonely Mimikyu a little happy. The only regrettable thing was that the other party was a fake human.
“It would’ve been nice if he were real,” Mimikyu thought to itself.
Seeing that Mimikyu did not respond, Lu Li simply took its silence as permission.
After entering the arcade, Lu Li walked straight up to Mimikyu.
This time, he came even closer. Previously, he had deliberately stopped one meter away from the claw machine, but now there was barely the distance of a single fist between him and it.
Lu Li switched on the wireless desk lamp he had prepared in advance and placed it beside the claw machine.
“Pikachu, let me tell you…”. [TN: Author has made a mistake here of using Mimikyu instead of Pikachu.]
Lu Li familiarly began sharing everything that had happened recently with Mimikyu, deliberately mentioning how the “evil” Rattata had tried to destroy the mall.
After recounting his experiences over the past few days, Lu Li began trying to manipulate it.
“Pikachu, those Rattata are way too bad. They’re practically trying to gnaw this whole building down. If that happens, you’ll lose your home.”
“And if everyone in our camp is gone, you won’t have anywhere to get food anymore. I think you should go warn those ‘evil’ guys.”
Lu Li was not trying to morally blackmail it. Instead, he was trying to use practical interests to carry out his plan of setting one predator against another.
Mimikyu would not make enemies of other Pokémon for the sake of humans, but it would fight other Pokémon to protect its food.
That was why Lu Li deliberately classified them as food being raised by Mimikyu.
Strictly speaking, that was not even wrong. The camp arranged for people to deliver food every day. Wasn’t that basically being raised in an enclosure?
In truth, Mimikyu could not understand what he was saying at all. It only roughly grasped Lu Li’s meaning.
In Mimikyu’s simple little mind, these fake humans like Lu Li were its “grain reserves.” Since it was too lazy to go out hunting for food, it had simply decided to raise the whole group of them.
Having food delivered straight to its door every day was a wonderful thing.
Although it could never eat its fill, Mimikyu was not greedy. It thought simply not starving to death was already good enough. After all, the quality of fear from these fake humans really was rather poor.
But today, this fake human had brought bad news.
Someone had set their sights on the fake humans it was raising!
How could that be allowed? These were a key part of Mimikyu’s grand plan to live a lazy life!
Mimikyu’s first reaction was anger. Its second was to go cause trouble for that group of Raticate.
But there were too many Rattata downstairs, and it did not seem to know which Rattata were targeting these fake humans.
Thinking of this, Mimikyu felt that it should ask the fake human in front of it for more details.
But the fake human had babbled on and on for so long, and Mimikyu had only managed to understand the general idea.
“Forget it. I’ll just keep a closer eye on these fake humans from now on. If something really happens to them, I’ll step in then.” In the end, Mimikyu chose the lazier approach.
Rather than exhausting itself trying to guess the exact meaning of Lu Li’s words.
In any case, when it came to communication, after spending enough time together, they would naturally come to understand what the other meant.
That was already one of a Pokémon’s natural talents. More precisely, it was a two-way talent brought by Pokémon.
Lu Li, who felt like he had nearly talked his mouth dry, was also feeling rather helpless.
Because he realized Mimikyu still looked completely indifferent.
Realizing he was very likely talking to a wall, Lu Li sighed, said a few more things to himself, then stood up.
“Do you want this desk lamp? If you do, I’ll leave it here.” Lu Li pointed at the lamp beside him and asked.
As a Ghost-type Pokémon, Mimikyu naturally had no need for a desk lamp to provide illumination, but as a Fairy-type Pokémon, it did somewhat like glowing things like this.
Mimikyu could not understand human language, so it simply chose to express its meaning through action.
Confuse Ray activated.
Looking at the familiar pink glow, Lu Li instantly fell into a daze.
By the time he came back to his senses, he was already standing outside the arcade.
Glancing at the desk lamp inside that was giving off a faint glow, the corners of Lu Li’s mouth curled upward slightly.
The good news was that Pokémon really could communicate. At this point, that was practically confirmed.
The bad news was that humans could not understand the “language” of Pokémon, and Pokémon could not completely understand human speech either.
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