That person's Pokémon turned out to be an Arcanine. Although it was only of yellow quality, its strength was decent, especially its scent-tracking ability, which was quite impressive.
When the patrol reached this spot, the Arcanine caught Zheng Qian's scent. After a thorough search, they dug up Zheng Qian's body underground.
Fortunately, there was no trace of Wen Qi's scent there, so the trail ended here. All they could find from Zheng Qian's body were traces of Sleep Powder; nothing else turned up.
Just Sleep Powder alone made it impossible to investigate—there were far too many Pokémon capable of using that move.
When Zhou Zhiwen heard his subordinates report that they had found Zheng Qian, he initially thought there would be a breakthrough. But what he saw was a corpse, the lead was dead, and the Dratini was nowhere to be found.
At least before, they knew to track Zheng Qian, but now they had no information at all.
Zhou Zhiwen reported this outcome to his superiors. Although they were displeased, there was nothing they could do.
The higher-ups also understood that this matter had indeed put Zhou Zhiwen in a difficult position.
With the trail now broken, there was no way to continue the investigation in the short term, so they had to let it go for now.
When Zhou Zhiwen heard that the higher-ups were no longer pursuing the matter, he finally breathed a sigh of relief. Later, he dealt with the damaged venue from that night and calmed the crowd, bringing the incident to a close.
Once he relaxed, he casually glanced at the documents on his desk and suddenly noticed the file on Wen Qi that he had obtained earlier.
It reminded him that last time at the door, he had seen Wen Qi's elite Pokémon. He had been too busy before and had forgotten to look over the file.
Now, as he reviewed Wen Qi's information, he found something interesting: the burial site of Zheng Qian's body was not far from Wenjia Village, where this kid lived.
Moreover, Wen Qi's hotel check-in records showed that on the night of the auction, he had stayed at an inn next to the flea market.
Could this be a coincidence? That night, Wen Qi must have gone to the black market. Plus, he left the next day, and Zheng Qian's body was buried not far from the roadside on Wen Qi's way back to the village. Given Wen Qi's strength, he could have pulled it off.
All of this was just too coincidental. As a search officer with over twenty years of experience, one coincidence wasn't scary, but when two or three piled up, it might not be so simple anymore.
Zhou Zhiwen's intuition told him that this Wen Qi definitely had secrets. But since the matter was already closed, he could take his time investigating.
Even if he reported this, he probably wouldn't gain much benefit, so there was no rush. He could visit Wen Qi when he had time.
Wen Qi was certainly not ordinary. Having just graduated and already possessing such a powerful Pokémon, with both parents deceased—it all seemed unusual no matter how you looked at it.
Zhou Zhiwen knew that becoming the captain of the First Search Team was basically the peak for him.
With his resources and background, it would be very difficult to advance further. Even if he went to curry favor with those from the major families now,
how many resources could he actually get? At his current level of strength, unless he was given a green-quality Pokémon, perfect-grade energy cubes, various high-level evolution stones, or rare potions,
it wouldn't do much to boost his power. But those precious resources—the major families barely had enough for themselves. Why would they give them to him just because he pledged allegiance?
He wasn't the chief search officer, so he wasn't worth their investment to win over.
So, he decided to check out Wen Qi first and see if he could gain something from it.
It wasn't that Zhou Zhiwen was determined to seek benefits for himself, but in the current Alliance, to climb the ladder, you either needed connections or strength.
Right now, Zhou Zhiwen had neither. He wanted to improve his strength but lacked resources, so progress was slow, and he had no background—he came from a commoner family.
If Wen Qi really was behind this, then he was definitely no ordinary person. Maybe Zhou Zhiwen could find what he wanted through Wen Qi.
The reason Zhou Zhiwen chose this path was still his intuition. That stroke of luck in his youth had come from intuition, leading him to where he was today. Now, another intuition was telling him to seize this chance no matter what.
Meanwhile, Wen Qi was still lounging around like a slacker, lying back without a care, completely unaware that someone was scheming behind his back.
But even if he knew, letting Zhou Zhiwen investigate would likely yield nothing, because the Dratini had always lived in its own little world, impossible to detect.
Still, if Zhou Zhiwen came, it could bring trouble.
Fortunately, this month wasn't entirely without good news. Although Li Xiang hadn't visited Wen Qi before school started, the fire-type perfect energy cubes Wen Qi had provided were so effective that
the people in Li Xiang's family, seeing him using such high-quality cubes, all asked where he got them.
Li Xiang couldn't say, of course, since Wen Qi had told him not to reveal the source.
Even though he didn't tell anyone, Li Xiang still asked Wen Qi if he could increase the quantity. Considering that he had two dragons to raise later, which would require more resources and money, Wen Qi agreed to sell an extra two hundred cubes.
This way, he could earn about a million a month, which was basically enough for his needs. If it weren't for his lack of funds, Wen Qi really wouldn't want to sell these rare resources.
It seemed that relying solely on the farm to raise more Pokémon in the future would require him to find other sources of income.
He did a rough calculation: just the two dragons alone cost over a hundred thousand a month after other expenses, and the remaining dozen or so Pokémon cost another four to five hundred thousand.
The Pidgeot family also needed some food, though less, probably around a hundred thousand. When the Poliwrath family arrived later, that would be another significant expense. So, a million was barely enough to get by.
If he continued to train more Pokémon in the future, he would either need to develop new income streams or wait until the tree fruits and medicinal herbs in the little world matured, which would greatly reduce costs.
As for Zheng Qian's three Pokémon, Wen Qi had secretly taken time to sell them at the black market in another city.
These three Pokémon were all quite strong, each reaching level 40.
Wen Qi sold them separately: the Houndoom was the most expensive at 500,000, the Fearow could fly and sold for 300,000, and the Sandslash was the cheapest at 200,000. That totaled one million.
The reason they sold so cheaply was mainly because, despite their strength, they had been trained by someone else and were hard to tame, so they couldn't fetch a high price.
Overall, although Wen Qi had been pretty lazy this month, he still made significant gains, mainly in his Pokémon's strength.
Plus, the one million from energy cubes, the one million from selling Pokémon, and other income added up to over two million.
The only downside was that Zhou Zhiwen had his eye on him, which might cause some trouble later—though Wen Qi didn't know it yet.