“Oh, Peng Peng, your good friend is here.” He Lin immediately spotted the new guest—Liu Xiaoran.
Mu Li’s impression of Liu Xiaoran was still from when he filmed “Detective Chinatown” back then, but he wasn’t very familiar with the real Liu Xiaoran.
However, since they were all young people, and with Peng Xiaochang connecting them, everyone quickly became familiar with each other.
“Today we have a task: to build two rafts for going out to sea. We’ll set sail tomorrow morning,” Huang Xiaochu explained today’s plan.
“Yay! We can go out to sea!” Mu Li was incredibly excited. In his joy, he immediately started making a raft with two large pieces of foam.
The process of making this raft was quite simple; they just needed to wrap it with two layers of fishing net and secure it.
Mu Li, Peng Xiaochang, and Liu Xiaoran finished making the raft in no time.
Mu Li glanced at the busy crowd and whispered, “How about we go for a swim? It’s a good chance to test the stability of this raft, what do you say?”
“Hehe…” Peng Xiaochang showed a mischievous smile, “Shall we go then?”
“Let’s go!” Liu Xiaoran also looked excited. His Pokémon was a Quaquaval, and its love for water goes without saying.
The three hit it off immediately. Mu Li quietly led his Golden Magikarp, Liu Xiaoran brought his Quaquaval, and Peng Xiaochang brought his Lucario. The three of them, along with their three Pokémon, secretly slipped into the sea while no one was paying attention.
As soon as it entered the sea, Magikarp immediately darted towards the deeper parts.
“This fish has been cooped up for the past two days…” Before he could finish speaking, Magikarp swam back, followed by a white Seel, which seemed to be treating Magikarp as a toy.
As soon as it saw Mu Li, it immediately hid behind Mu Li, staring at Seel with a fearful expression.
“This kid, really, always gets into trouble with other Pokémon as soon as he goes out.” Mu Li was a bit speechless. The reason he hadn’t let Magikarp play around these past two days was because Magikarp seemed to have a special constitution.
As soon as Magikarp enters the sea, it quickly attracts a bunch of Pokémon looking to play with it. Of course, sometimes it also encounters Pokémon that see it as food.
Fortunately, Seel had no ill intentions towards Magikarp; it seemed only curious about this unusually colored Magikarp. Seeing Mu Li and the other two from afar, it did not approach any further.
After this experience, Magikarp dared not stray too far from Mu Li, only swimming around the three of them.
“Do you think there might be sharks near our beach?” Liu Xiaoran suddenly asked.
“Didn’t they say there were small sharks?” Mu Li explained, “They say that a long time ago, everyone here used to see sharks, but in recent years, the sharks have disappeared.”
Liu Xiaoran couldn’t help but swallow, his finger trembling as he pointed towards the deep sea: “Then what do you see over there…”
Mu Li and Peng Xiaochang instinctively looked in the direction Liu Xiaoran was pointing. They saw a fin-like object suddenly appear on the previously calm sea surface, rapidly approaching the three of them.
“No way, it can’t be a real shark, can it?” Peng Xiaochang’s voice also trembled slightly.
Mu Li frowned and replied, “It must have been attracted by Magikarp. You two go back to shore first.”
As if sensing the approaching danger, Quaquaval directly blocked the three of them. Although Lucario was not good at fighting in water, it stood on the raft they had made earlier, looking vigilantly in the direction from which it came.
On the other side, the program staff also seemed to have discovered the situation here.
“Director Wang, it’s not good, there seems to be a shark on the beach,” a staff member quickly informed Wang Xiang, “A Li, Peng Peng, and Xiaoran are playing on the beach. Will that shark attack them?”
The staff member’s shout was clearly heard by He Lin and Huang Xiaochu as well, and everyone came out.
“What’s going on?” He Lin asked.
“It seems a shark has come to the beach, and A Li and the others are playing over there,” the staff member replied anxiously.
“Then what are you waiting for? Go rescue them!” He Lin said as he was about to rush to the beach.
“It’s alright, Teacher He.” Wang Xiang slowly stood up, “With A Li there, they’ll be fine.”
“What are you talking about? That’s a shark,” He Lin thought Wang Xiang hadn’t heard clearly, so he emphasized it again.
“It’s alright, it’s just a shark, isn’t it? Even if a Sharpedo comes, it’s not a problem,” Wang Xiang affirmed.
While everyone was still arguing, a staff member suddenly shouted excitedly, “They’re back!”
Everyone looked up and saw the three of them, each with their three Pokémon, walking back excitedly.
“How are you? Are you alright?” He Lin rushed over immediately, “Didn’t you say you met a shark?”
Peng Xiaochang explained excitedly, “What shark? It was just a silly Gible.”
After hearing Peng Xiaochang’s words, everyone saw that Mu Li was holding a round, ball-shaped shark-like Pokémon.
He Lin asked, “Shouldn’t Gible live on land? How did it end up in the sea?”
“It might have been accidentally swept into the ocean by an underground current or something. The Gible Family can also survive, so it wouldn’t drown in the sea. It’s just that this Gible seems a bit silly; it couldn’t catch food in the sea and was extremely hungry, so it set its sights on Golden Magikarp,” Mu Li complained irritably, “We just happened to run into it when it was chasing.”
Before he finished speaking, Gible’s stomach rumbled, as if responding to Mu Li’s words. Gible’s cheeks flushed, and it buried its head directly in Mu Li’s arms.
“Bori??”
Suddenly, Mu Li heard a familiar angry Growl. His face immediately changed, and he subconsciously blurted out, “Don’t do it, Jigglypuff.”
The next moment, a pink figure suddenly appeared in front of Mu Li, followed by a huge energy slap that appeared out of thin air, directly swatting the Gible buried in Mu Li’s arms dozens of meters away.
The poor Gible, who was seeking comfort in Mu Li’s arms a second ago, now had swirling eyes and had fainted on the beach.
And the spot where Gible had been was now taken by Jigglypuff.
“Bori! Bori, Bori!” Jigglypuff stood with its hands on its hips, pointing at Mu Li and muttering incessantly.
Mu Li sighed and quickly nodded in response, “I know, I know, stop muttering.”
Only then did the rest of the group react. Peng Xiaochang couldn’t help but swallow and asked Mu Li, “What’s wrong with her?”
Mu Li said irritably, “She’s jealous, that’s all. Besides my own Pokémon, she won’t let me hold any wild Pokémon, not even Pokémon that others have caught. Otherwise, it ends up like just now.”
“What about that Gible? It’s not dead, is it?” Liu Xiaoran also looked at Jigglypuff with some fear.
“It’s fine, Jigglypuff knows how to hold back. At most, it just fainted. Gardevoir can heal it later,” Mu Li was already skilled at handling these matters.
Everyone was suddenly a bit amused and exasperated, but fortunately, it was just a false alarm. Otherwise, the program team would probably have made headlines because of this incident.
Seeing this, everyone returned to their work. Mu Li looked at Zhang Xiaofeng and said, “Sister Xiaofeng, why don’t you take care of Gible? If I take care of it, I’m worried she’ll be knocked out by Jigglypuff again.”
What Mu Li didn’t say was that Jigglypuff was fine, but there was an even more formidable jealous one in the room—Sylveon was still resting.
If it had been that one just now, Gible would at least have learned why the Fairy type is called the Dragon slayer.
“Me?” Zhang Xiaofeng said a little uncertainly, “I’m not very good at taking care of Pokémon.”
Mu Li waved his hand, indicating that she shouldn’t worry: “It’s nothing, Pokémon are tough. It doesn’t matter if they get a few bumps and scrapes. The main thing is to watch her and make sure she doesn’t trash the place.”
So, the task of taking care of Gible was temporarily handed over to Zhang Xiaofeng.
However, regarding the food ingredients, the program team was also very considerate this season, providing some ingredients every day. However, everyone needed to exchange them with labor—each person needed to pick up 5 kilograms of trash on the beach to exchange for these ingredients.
This was an easy task for everyone and fully demonstrated environmental awareness.
The only thing that the Mushroom House residents were not satisfied with was that these ingredients did not include seafood.
According to Director Wang, “You’re already at the beach, and you have your own tools, so why don’t you go fishing yourselves?”
The words were crude but made sense. Everyone felt that they should indeed be self-reliant. Isn’t experiencing local life one of the meanings of the show?
For Mu Li, as long as he had something to eat, he wasn’t picky about the food itself. This was one of the things Huang Xiaochu and Zhang Xiaoyang admired most about Mu Li.
Cooking, in fact, requires some proficiency. Although Huang Xiaochu often cooks and enjoys cooking, he is not a professional chef, and the taste of some dishes inevitably falls short.
Even more so for the novice chef Zhang Xiaoyang, whose stir-frying skills were inconsistent.
At this time, Mu Li’s role became apparent: as long as it wasn’t too difficult to swallow, he could eat it all with rice.
It must be said that a body modified by a Legendary Pokémon is truly good. Not only is its digestion strong, but it also burns calories quickly, and its basic metabolism is strong. This also causes Mu Li to be in a state of excess energy every day, with good physical strength, and he doesn’t gain weight.
These past two afternoons, Peng Xiaochang, Zhang Xiaoyang, and Zhang Xiaofeng, the three siblings, were incredibly envious.
Today, Togekiss went off to play somewhere and didn’t catch any fish for Mu Li, which dashed everyone’s hope of fish falling from the sky.
However, after Gible woke up, it immediately devoured several bowls of rice, plus two Energy Cubes. It was clear that the kid was really hungry.
He didn’t know how this kid survived before. Did it just wait by the river for food to jump into its mouth?
As for the new guest Liu Xiaoran, Mu Li didn’t know how to describe him. He looked like a sunny and cheerful big boy, but Mu Li always felt a strange melancholy shrouding him, somewhat like the old Zhang Xiaofeng.
However, he had only interacted with the other party for one afternoon. At least from that afternoon, the other party’s character was very good. But after all, the other party was from the entertainment industry, and he didn’t have many topics in common with him.
Mu Li suddenly felt what it was like when his brother’s friends came over. Everyone seemed to want to get close to him, but it was hard to achieve that effect in a short time, even when Liu Xiaoran was quite familiar with everyone (except Mu Li and Zhang Xiaoyang).
Mu Li suddenly looked forward to his friends visiting. Among his current friends, the only one confirmed to be able to come to the show was Chichi.
“I wonder when Chichi will come, and who will be the new guest tomorrow?”