Chapter One: A Man's Unspoken Secret (Please Subscribe!)

Although he was curious what sort of Pokémon could possibly earn a legendary rating from his cheat system, Hiss had no real interest for the moment in Quartz Plateau west of Evergreen City. He set the food truck to auto-drive to its usual morning spot and began business as dawn broke.

“Hiss, you’re up early again today,” said Mr. Yanin.

He looked a little worn out, with dark circles under his eyes. No one knew whether that had been worked out of him by Mrs. Yanin. In general, young men were at the peak of their energy, but as the years went by, and once adulthood meant daily work and commuting, it became increasingly difficult to possess the same boundless vigor one had in youth.

That was why so many people, after marriage, fell from being men of many nightly performances to men of once-every-few-days performance.

So when Hiss saw Mr. Yanin pressing a hand to his lower back, he felt genuine sympathy. The man already had a daughter, and yet his wife was apparently planning for a second child. What a trial Mr. Yanin must be going through.

“I get up this early every day, so after a while I’ve just gotten used to it,” Hiss said with a smile.

His body clock had settled into a fixed rhythm now; he woke at the same time each day, and once awake there was no falling back asleep. He had grown used to that way of living.

“Ah, youth is wonderful,” Mr. Yanin sighed, as though reminiscing about days gone by. “Please give me a scallion pancake wrap, with an egg.”

Hiss could only laugh and nod. Then he began preparing Mr. Yanin’s breakfast.

While making the wrap, Hiss glanced at the bag Mr. Yanin was carrying. It looked like the sort of bag one got after shopping at the market, and inside Hiss could see a fair amount of chives.

He paused.

The Pokémon world had rather interesting wordplay around chives. The word for chives sounded the same as a phrase meaning “long-time vegetable,” so could it be that Mr. Yanin was trying to...

“Mr. Yanin, although chives are called chives, they actually don’t do much for that particular problem,” Hiss said softly.

With a sharp puff of laughter, Mr. Yanin’s face turned red. He did not even react to the Caterpie perched on Hiss’s head making that sound.

“That’s not what I meant!” Mr. Yanin said in agitation. Any man would be unhappy to have his virility called into question, to one degree or another.

“Of course I know that’s not what you meant, Mr. Yanin,” Hiss said with a grin, waving it away, then handed over the finished pancake wrap. They got along fairly well, so he wasn’t about to argue over something like that.

Mr. Yanin accepted the food with satisfaction. After paying, he picked up his bag of vegetables and left, only for Hiss to hear something hit the ground.

Curious, Hiss climbed down from the truck to take a look, and found a black medicine bottle.

“Hmm... ‘Makes you hard as a Diglett at a glance’... huh?” Hiss stared blankly at the bottle in his hand. Diglett-brand virility medicine. The supposed purpose printed on it was, to say the least, a little strange.

“Mr. Yanin, you dropped your medicine!” Hiss called out quickly.

Mr. Yanin froze for a moment, then walked off without even turning his head.

Hiss’s mouth twitched. Good grief. Just how badly did he not want to admit this bottle was his?

When Hiss returned to the truck, Zorua was already pounding the floor with laughter. The sight made Hiss very concerned.

What worried him wasn’t Zorua, but whether the little fox would manage to pound a hole in the truck floor. If it did, that would be extremely troublesome.

“Is it really that funny?” Hiss rolled his eyes and casually tossed the bottle into the trash. After a moment’s hesitation, he even buried it deep inside the bin.

He did not want someone accidentally glancing into the trash and getting the wrong idea that, at such a young age, he was already taking medicine like that. A misunderstanding like that was entirely possible.

“Of course it’s funny. Your conversation with that human reminded me of something I saw before, about...” Zorua began excitedly, only for Hiss to flick it on the head expressionlessly. He had no intention of listening to any of Zorua’s bizarre stories.

Hiss reached a hand outside the truck and felt the air. The oppressive dampness of the southern return weather was still strong. He reckoned today’s customer flow would probably be better than yesterday’s, since there was no heavy fog today and no miserable business of stepping outside only to wash your hair.

“I wonder when this damp weather will finally end. Still, once I set out traveling, I suppose I won’t be affected by it anymore.”

He sat in the truck and yawned. Even though he had developed a proper body clock, he still felt sleepy when it was time to feel sleepy. Human nature was human nature.

Just as he was wondering when the second customer would appear, he saw several groups of Officer Jennys speeding past on motorcycles in a flurry before his eyes.

Hiss blinked.

The only other times the Jennys had been so stirred up were when the League chairman had come through. And yesterday, because of Jenny Xi, Hiss had caused a misunderstanding that made them think an inspector had arrived. But he had already told Sister Feng that the inspector had left. So why were they still so agitated today?

“Oh my, everyone looks quite neat and tidy,” came a familiar voice.

With both hands clasped behind her back, Jenny Xi approached the truck with a smile.

“Jenny, you’re up early today. Is being an inspector really that exhausting?” Hiss looked at her and felt a somewhat complicated emotion.

Jenny Xi was a ghost, but Hiss had no idea where she had come from. Evergreen City had never had any incident involving a Jenny’s death, so at present he knew almost nothing about her, aside from her name and the fact that she liked sour food.

What interested him even more was this: could ghosts really eat the food of the living?

Hiss looked at Jenny Xi with curiosity. He still did not understand how she had managed to finish that West Lake vinegar fish yesterday, or what had broken it down afterward. Weren’t ghosts supposed to be unable to eat like that?

“Of course it is exhausting. We Jennys are all terribly busy. We have to get up early every day to take assignments, and then fight those criminals,” Jenny Xi said proudly, touching the bridge of her nose as though she were entirely oblivious to the fleeting emotion in Hiss’s eyes.

“So, Jenny, is there anything you’d like to eat?” Hiss asked with a warm smile.