"Help... Is anyone there..."
The voice was intermittent and tearful, sounding like a young woman.
Jiang Han paused, his brow furrowing slightly.
Instead of rushing over immediately, he tilted his ear to listen, distinguishing the source of the sound and the echoes within the cave.
The sound was coming from a fork in the path ahead to the left.
He gestured to Sneasel and Sandile to stay quiet, then lightened his steps and crept toward the direction of the sound.
After walking about a hundred meters, the path ahead suddenly opened up into a relatively spacious cavern.
A young girl wearing a pink hiking suit was sitting on a rock, clutching her ankle, her face filled with pain and helplessness.
A backpack lay beside her, but there was no sign of any pokémon around.
Seeing Jiang Han appear at the cave entrance, the girl looked as if she had seen a savior; her eyes instantly lit up, and she cried out tearfully:
"That's wonderful! Kind Trainer, can you come and save me? I think I've sprained my ankle and I can't move!"
Her voice sounded pitiful enough to evoke sympathy in any normal man.
However, Jiang Han just stood there, motionless. His cold gaze scrutinized her from head to toe, as if he were examining an object.
There were too many suspicious points.
First, her clothes.
Although it was a hiking suit, it was too clean. Having stayed in this damp and muddy cave for who knows how long, there wasn't even a speck of dirt on her.
Second, her position.
The place where she sat was exactly in the center of the cavern. It offered a wide field of vision but was also a perfect ambush point; approaching from any direction would expose one to eyes in the shadows.
Third, and most importantly.
Where were her pokémon?
Would a Trainer who dared to venture into Meteor Falls alone keep their pokémon inside their Poké Balls?
In this perilous place, pokémon were a Trainer's only reliance. Unless... her pokémon were hiding in the shadows, waiting for prey to take the bait.
Seeing that Jiang Han remained inactive and only watched her coldly, the anxiety on the girl's face intensified, and her tone became somewhat agitated.
"Hey! You're a grown man, are you really going to just stand by and watch me die?"
"Aren't you a League Trainer? The first rule of the Trainer Code is that Trainers should help one another. Don't you know that?"
She began to use moral kidnapping.
Jiang Han sneered inwardly, though his expression remained unruffled.
A League Trainer?
Sorry, not only was he a League Trainer, but he was also a Core Lineage Trainer.
Help one another? In Team Rockets' creed, there was only the law of the jungle.
This woman was most likely someone who specialized in hunting down lone Trainers!
In this world, not all Trainers were hot-blooded, righteous people.
Among them was a group of people who made a living specifically by hunting other Trainers.
After all, it was perfectly normal for Trainers to suffer casualties in the wild. Countless Trainers died at the hands of wild pokémon every year.
These were mandatory lessons for Team Rockets, but the League did not provide such training or warnings to the vast number of rookie Trainers.
This was one of the reasons for the high mortality rate among rookie Trainers.
Jiang Han had always been extremely cautious toward people he didn't know.
He didn't make a move, nor did he leave. He just stood there quietly like a patient hunter, waiting for the prey to reveal a flaw.
As time ticked by, the atmosphere inside the cave became somewhat eerie.
The girl's shouting gradually ceased. She seemed to realize that this man was not easy to deal with, so she just glared at Jiang Han venomously and stopped speaking.
Just then, a series of hurried footsteps came from behind Jiang Han.
"Wait! I heard a cry for help! Does someone need help?"
A youth wearing a fiery red Trainer uniform rushed in. He looked to be about the same age as Jiang Han, his face brimming with a world-naive hot-bloodedness and innocence.
The youth immediately saw the girl sitting on the ground in pain. His heart tightened, and then he saw Jiang Han standing aside with a cold expression. A nameless fire instantly surged to his head.
"Hey! What's wrong with you?" The youth pointed at Jiang Han and questioned him with righteous indignation. "A girl is injured, and you're just standing there watching? Do you have no compassion at all?"
"You're truly a disgrace to the title of Trainer!"
Jiang Han glanced at him, his eyes looking as if he were looking at an idiot.
Another one.
Is this the standard hot-blooded idiot produced by the League's assembly line?
He didn't bother to respond; he even found it somewhat amusing.
How has someone like this survived until now?
Seeing the newcomer, a flash of joy crossed the girl's eyes, which she immediately replaced with that pitiful expression.
She wailed to the youth, "Mr. Trainer, I've sprained my ankle and can't walk. I asked him for help, but he just stands there without moving. I... I'm so scared..."
The youth's sense of justice instantly exploded. He glared fiercely at Jiang Han and barked, "You cold-blooded fellow!"
Jiang Han didn't even bother to lift an eyelid at the other's verbal abuse.
He didn't even have the interest to refute it.
Arguing with a self-righteous fool would only lower his own standards.
Jiang Han simply stepped aside and made a "please" gesture toward the hot-blooded youth.
The meaning was more than clear: If you want to save her, be my guest.
The best way to deal with a fool is to go along with them and let them become an even bigger fool.
Then, he turned and left. His figure soon merged into the dark passages deep within the cave, as if he had never appeared.
"What a coward!"
Behind him, the youth spat in disdain as he watched his retreating back, further solidifying his determination to be the hero who saves the beauty.
Jiang Han of course had not really left.
He circled around a massive stalactite pillar, his footsteps as light as a Sneasel in the night.
He silently climbed onto a hollow in the rock wall several meters above the ground.
The view from here was excellent, and he could perfectly hide his presence; it was practically a natural observation post.
The cave was cold and damp. Water seeped from the ceiling, dripping into the puddles below with a crisp "drip, drip" echo that was infinitely amplified in the hollow cavern.
Looking down from Jiang Han's perspective, the youth was already half-kneeling beside the woman, asking after her well-being with a face full of concern. He had even taken out a Potion spray from his backpack.
"Bear with it, it might hurt a bit. It'll be better soon after I spray this." The youth's voice was filled with tenderness.
The woman lowered her head, glancing out of the corner of her eye toward where Jiang Han had disappeared, confirming that the cold figure was completely gone.
The pitiful curve of her lips instantly froze and turned into a sneer.
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