Chapter 61: Is the Second Governor Cynthia?

After dinner, Xia Chi initiated a livestream for the first time since winning the Hubao Cup, much to the delight of his viewers.

"Hello, hello? Moshimoshi? Aloha? Can you hear me?"

Following his classic and rare opening, the livestream screen lit up.

Although Xia Chi hadn't broadcasted for nearly a week, the viewer count at the 7 o'clock hour was remarkably high. When he was offline, his chat room practically functioned as a general group chat for his fans. Seeing Xia Chi appear now felt like winning the lottery, and they immediately bombarded the screen with a barrage of bullet comments.

"Wait, who are you? Who dragged you into our group chat?"

"Old Shui has become a big streamer now. Winning the Babao Cup means he's going to cut ties with us veteran viewers who went through thick and thin with him!"

"Stop calling him Shui Ye, change his name to Cuckoo Pigeon!"

"You went off to play in an offline Pokémon tournament and had a grand old time, but do you have any idea what kind of suffering we've been enduring in the game? It's all because of those cursed teams you popularized!"

"I just got wrecked by a toxic Trick Room team. Old Shui, I've bought you a VIP pass for the traffic lights so you can cross the street without waiting for red lights anymore!"

"Streamer, streamer, there's too much malicious spam in your chat and I can't report them all in time, so I just reported the livestream directly. Did I do the right thing, streamer?"

"......"

The stream maintained its warmly comforting and chaotic atmosphere. Ah, this felt right.

Xia Chi chuckled after reading the aggressively sarcastic comments, then suddenly felt something was amiss.

Wait, could it be that I've been infected by those two M's?

Why am I starting to enjoy being scolded...

While opening the game icon for *Pokémon: Road to Champions*, Xia Chi explained the reason for his recent absence from streaming.

"The streamer has genuinely been quite busy these past couple of days, moving houses and catching a new Pokémon. As soon as I had some free time, I rushed over to punch the clock for work, didn't I?"

Seeing the screen fill with demands to see the new Pokémon, Xia Chi helplessly said, "It's not that I don't want to show you guys, the little guy is sleeping right now. Maybe next time."

He chose not to reveal that the new Pokémon he had caught was a Larvitar.

Although the Donghuang Alliance had excellent security and lacked large-scale dark organizations like Team Rocket or Team Flare, people should never flaunt their wealth.

A day later, a fully healed Larvitar would undoubtedly be a mobile asset worth tens of millions. It was hard to guarantee that some criminals wouldn't take desperate risks for such a huge fortune.

After all, while the world where Pokémon existed developed rapidly, its crime rate was inevitably much higher as well.

For Xia Chi, whose current strength was still quite weak, avoiding trouble was better than courting it.

"Since I've already climbed ranks for the big shot patrons previously, I'll play on my own account today."

Just as Xia Chi finished speaking, a magnificent gift special effect appeared on the screen.

"Thanks to the big shot [Giratina] for gifting a Governor title! Thank you, Boss!"

Xia Chi said in surprise, "Boss, your name is quite interesting. You must be a loyal fan of our [Hardcore Legendary Pokémon] series of videos, right?"

Currently, the moniker of the Renegade Pokémon Giratina existed only in the video Xia Chi had released at the beginning of the month and was not recognized by traditional historical academia.

Then, the livestream's voice assistant began to broadcast:

"[Giratina] posted a paid comment worth 1000 Poké Balls: Yes."

Xia Chi was stunned.

Wait, first dropping a Governor subscription worth twenty thousand Alliance dollars without a word, and then posting a 1000-dollar paid comment just to say a single word: "Yes"?

Where did this fairy godmother come from?

Xia Chi hurriedly said, "Boss, do you need help climbing ranks? You can designate one or two Pokémon of your choice."

"[Giratina] posted a paid comment worth 1000 Poké Balls: Good."

Xia Chi was dumbfounded.

He didn't feel any joy of easily harvesting money right now; instead, a worry arose in his mind—

Could this be some brat secretly using their parents' phone to dish out tips?

And then later they would apply for a minor refund, meaning not only would he make zero profit, but he'd also have to pay out of pocket to cover the platform's share?

Xia Chi hastily said, "Boss, stop gifting. Let's add each other on Piplup Messenger, we can talk there."

"[Giratina] posted a paid comment worth 1000 Poké Balls: Hmm."

Xia Chi: "......"

Three minutes, three characters, three thousand bucks.

Even poachers didn't make money this fast!

Xia Chi didn't dare say another word, terrified that any more words would increase the amount he'd eventually have to refund.

Amidst a screen full of question marks, he private-messaged his Piplup Messenger contact to his second Governor—

The first Governor was, of course, Liko-sama, who still occupied the top spot on his monthly ranking list.

[Giratina]'s profile picture was a photo of Mount Coronet at sunrise, exuding an unmistakably middle-aged vibe.

Xia Chi became even more convinced of his prior conjecture.

This was clearly the dad's Piplup Messenger account of some kid!

It's over, it's over. Now I'm going to be sanctioned by minor refund policies...

While his mind was racing with wild thoughts, [Giratina] sent a message: "Hello, Teacher Shui Ye. I tried messaging you privately on P-site earlier without a response, but then I happened to see you were live, so I contacted you so abruptly. Please don't take offense."

Messaging me privately?

What could it be about? A commercial sponsorship?

Spending money so lavishly, they must be a major financial backer.

Thinking along those lines, Xia Chi replied, "Not at all. Is there something you need? Can we talk after I finish broadcasting?"

[Giratina]: "Of course, go ahead with your livestream first."

Xia Chi said, "I'll scan the account later then. It's a Governor perk—I'll help you climb ranks all night."

[Giratina]: "......"

[Giratina]: "Alright."

Xia Chi scratched his head in some confusion. Helping someone climb ranks was mostly a good thing; why did they sound so reluctant?

However, he was in the middle of a livestream and it wasn't convenient to chat with the big shot Governor for too long, otherwise the viewers would start pressuring him.

Well, actually, it didn't really matter; the chat in this room pressured the streamer at every single moment.

Case in point, the chat instantly stirred up a new wave of teasing: "Old Shui is having a passionate private chat with his sugar daddy," "I hate rich people," and "Quickly call Liko over to catch them cheating."

Xia Chi opened the login interface of *Road to Champions*, gave a light cough, and said, "Don't talk nonsense. I was just chatting privately with the big shot to get their account info so I can help them rank up later."

As he spoke, he private-messaged the QR code of the login interface to [Giratina].

A moment later, Xia Chi's screen transitioned into the game interface, clearly indicating a successful account scan.

"Is big shot Giratina here? If you have any Pokémon you want me to use, you can drop them in the chat. We have plenty of eunuchs in this chat room to relay messages."

Viewers could attack the streamer, and naturally, the streamer could attack the viewers.

Or rather, they were a bunch of masochists who enjoyed being scolded more and more.

Just as Xia Chi was about to look at what the chat was relaying, he suddenly noticed they were unanimously spamming question marks across the entire screen.

What's wrong this time?

Xia Chi was completely baffled.

He managed to salvage a few key pieces of information from the sea of question marks:

"Streamer, take a look at the account owner's nickname, will you?"

Only then did Xia Chi shift his attention to the upper right corner of the screen, which he had initially ignored.

There, glowing in stamped gold lettering, was an ID—

"Sinnoh Champion • Cynthia"

Xia Chi: "！！!"

Although the game allowed duplicate IDs, the IDs of famous trainers holding official titles were unique and officially verified.

When the game first launched a year ago, this was a small gimmick used by the official developers to leverage star power and invite top-tier trainers to join.

And the title of Sinnoh Champion was, without a doubt, something no second person could possess.

Unless Cynthia retired.

Given that Sinnoh's current reigning champion was indeed Cynthia, the only possible conclusion was that the person whose account had just been scanned, [Giratina], Xia Chi's second Governor, was...

Sinnoh Champion Cynthia!