At six in the evening, Tina’s best friend Sarah and her husband Robert arrived together at their home.
"Tina!"
"Sarah!"
Ever since Sarah had followed her husband to Maplia, she had always stayed there, so the two hadn’t seen each other for eight years, though they kept in touch regularly via phone.
They hugged each other tightly.
Only after several minutes did they finally let go.
"Son, come say hello," Tina prompted.
"Aunt Sarah," Julian greeted.
Sarah smiled warmly, looking at Julian with amazement.
"When I was in Maplia, I heard that Drakoria had a new Champion named Julian. At first, I thought it might just be someone with the same name, but then the age and appearance matched up."
"I asked Tina about it, and it turned out it really was you!"
"Julian, you’ve really made us Drakorians proud!"
Her own best friend’s son—a Champion! She had watched Julian grow up and never imagined he would achieve such a status.
"Where’s Haley? Why didn’t she come with you?"
Tina noticed that besides Sarah and Robert, their daughter wasn’t with them.
"Haley had something to attend to, so she’ll come next time," Sarah explained.
Tina nodded, then pulled Sarah onto the sofa, where the two began chatting.
Slowking served them coffee.
Robert chatted with Jake. Since their wives were best friends, the two men also had a very good relationship.
Incidentally, it was Jake and Tina who had originally brought Robert and Sarah together.
"I thought you were going to stay in Maplia forever and never come back," Jake remarked.
"How could that be? It was just for the family business. Now that things are stable there, of course we’d return."
"So, you won’t be going back in the future?"
"Unless something major comes up, probably not."
Robert picked up his coffee, took a gentle sip, and his eyes lit up instantly. "This coffee is excellent! What kind of beans are used?"
"Just the regular ones available on the market," Jake said proudly.
"No way! Market coffee definitely doesn’t have such a rich, aromatic flavor."
"Well, it depends on who brews it. Slowking’s coffee is in a league of its own."
"You mean Julian’s Slowking?"
"Yep."
"No wonder, then."
Dinner was prepared jointly by Slowking and Love. The flavor was so perfect—even surpassing that of state banquet chefs—that Sarah and Robert felt they could almost swallow their tongues.
All four adults also had a little alcohol.
Meanwhile, Julian, Celebi, and Jirachi focused intensely on devouring the food.
"Jirachi, that piece is mine!"
"First come, first served!"
Celebi watched helplessly as the last large shrimp was eaten by Jirachi.
'I thought I had found myself a little companion, but it turns out I’ve actually brought in a rival.'
As for Jirachi’s identity, Julian didn’t elaborate much, only saying that it was an undiscovered Pokémon.
Sarah and Robert didn’t question it either—after all, Julian was a Champion, so it was easy to explain why he might have an undiscovered Pokémon with him.
The meal lasted nearly three hours.
After eating, the four adults stayed on the sofa chatting about everyday life, and of course, the topic of their children inevitably came up.
Slowking poured each of them a cup of tea to help cleanse the palate after the meal.
Jake was showing Robert the fish he had caught over the past few years.
"Check out this Magikarp—3.5 meters long, over 200 pounds. It’s absolutely the king of Magikarp!"
Alright, he was pulling out that Magikarp he caught last time to show off again.
As for that Magikarp, it was now being raised in the backyard pond. It was undoubtedly Jake’s most prized catch in recent years, so of course, he wasn’t going to release it.
"You call that the king of Magikarp? Let me show you mine!"
Robert was also a fishing enthusiast. He pulled out his phone to show Jake the fish he had caught back in Maplia.
Men were naturally competitive, and neither of them was willing to admit defeat. In the end, they agreed to go to the reservoir together the next day to see who could catch the bigger fish.
"Honey, come take a look at this!"
Sarah suddenly called out and handed her phone to Robert.
On the screen was a social media post from their daughter, Haley:
Haley: "The nightclubs in Drakoria aren’t as lively as the ones in Maplia." (Photo attached)
"She’s hanging out with those so-called friends again—and she even lied to us!" Robert’s face darkened instantly when he saw his daughter’s post.
While in Maplia, the couple had been busy expanding the market and had neglected their daughter’s upbringing, which led her to become somewhat rebellious.
After returning to Drakoria, she met another group of delinquent teens and had been spending almost every day with them.
"How did Haley become like this?"
Tina looked quite surprised at the photo on the phone, which showed a young girl dancing with several boys around her.
"I’ll go bring her back," Robert said grimly.
The post had a location tag, so he knew which bar it was.
"Don’t you go. You two can never talk properly without arguing," Sarah said.
"Then you go," Robert said coldly.
"I’m not going either. Haley won’t listen to me."
"Then why even bring it up?"
Sarah wasn’t angered by his tone—she knew her husband was upset because of their daughter. So she suggested, "Let Julian go. Your daughter really liked him when she was little—she used to follow him around calling him 'Big Brother' all the time."
"Julian, could you please go and bring Haley back?"
"It's no trouble. Son, go bring Haley back quickly. Those guys with dyed hair don’t look like good news—we can’t let her get bullied," Tina said.
Alright then, since his mother had spoken, Julian could only agree.
The bar was about thirty kilometers from his home. Julian didn’t ride Dragonite, nor did he ask Metagross to teleport him there.
Today, he opted for the Land Cruiser—or rather, Arcanine.
With Arcanine’s speed, it took Julian only about five minutes to arrive at the entrance of a bar called "Dugtrio." This bar was quite well-known in Lake City, rumored to be owned by a local family in the city.
Stepping into the bar’s main hall, he was met with flashing lights, vibrant atmosphere, blasting music, and unrestrained youthful energy.
Scanning the area, Julian quickly spotted Haley dancing energetically in the center of the bar.
At sixteen, Haley was young and pretty, dressed very fashionably, which naturally attracted the attention of many men in the bar.
Many men came to bars with less-than-pure intentions, and of course, some women did too. Those who genuinely came to vent their emotions actually made up only a small portion.
As for whether Haley, sneaking into the bar alone, might run into trouble—Julian wasn’t really worried about that.
As a young lady from a well-established family, no matter how rebellious Haley was, she still knew her limits. The few troublemakers trying to get close to her were subtly but firmly avoided.
Rebellious she might be, but she wasn’t careless. She was simply using this way to express her frustration over her parents’ neglect due to their busy careers over the years.
*****
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