Chapter 143: A Family of Three

While Brock was still standing there, dazed by this family of three, his hand suddenly felt lighter...
"So eager to give it to a beautiful lady? Honestly... well, then, let me fulfill your wish!" Misty said cheerfully, always happy to help.
"I..." Brock desperately wanted to say that this didn't seem to meet the conditions.
However, seeing Misty's kind smile, he had no choice but to accept it silently. Shin-chan, standing nearby, glanced at Misty and muttered softly, "A 'pretty older sister' is not something that simple..."
Hearing this, Misty immediately glared at him. Meanwhile, the square-faced father with naturally curly hair hurriedly picked Shin-chan up, covered his mouth, and said, "Sorry, sorry! We just bought this, please take it!"
With that, he shoved a portion of takao-yaki into Brock's hands and hurriedly scurried away.
Misty lowered her gaze to look at her own toes, beginning to suspect that the problem lay with her. After all... one person could be brushed aside, but now two people, and even a child, had completely expelled her from the ranks of "pretty older sisters"?
Mu didn't think much of it. Come to think of it, Shin-chan and Brock's definitions of a "pretty older sister" actually overlapped quite a bit—they both insisted one had to be eighteen... or even over twenty years old!
At that moment, Ash and Goh walked over, each carrying a large pile of snacks. Seeing Mu and Misty, they looked surprised as well. "Huh? Mu? You came too?"
"Well, I..."
Before Mu could finish, Goh cut in eagerly, "You must have come for the Ghost-type Pokémon too, right? But the person who catches it will definitely be me!"
"No, I'm just accompanying Misty to look for Lapras. As for the legend of Maiden's Peak and all that, I suspect it's most likely just hype. Ghost-type Pokémon aren't very common in the Kanto region anyway, and as for Gengar, I've already..." Mu was right in the middle of his sentence when a sudden thought struck him.
Gengar?
It was true that Ghost-type Pokémon were rare in the Kanto region. The Gengar evolutionary line was the most representative and the only set recorded in the Kanto Pokédex...
And mentioning Gengar, along with Ash standing right in front of him, Mu suddenly remembered—didn't the original story have an episode just like this?
It seemed to be set in some port town with a festival dedicated to a maiden's ghost...
The reason he hadn't recalled it immediately was because this episode, much like the giant Dragonite outside the lighthouse or the giant Tentacruel attacking the city, had been subconsciously filtered out by Mu—they were nothing more than "dark history" from the early days of the anime!
Because the anime was in its infancy back then, it featured many mystical settings...
For instance, in the maiden festival segment, it appeared that a Gastly was disguised as the maiden's ghost. That in itself wasn't a big deal, as Gastly indeed had such a mischievous personality.
However...
At the very end, Gastly was shockingly shown conversing with the stone statue representing the ghost.
Judging by the implication, for the past thousand years, it had been this very Gastly playing pranks disguised as the maiden's ghost every year so that people wouldn't forget her, and what's more, the maiden's actual spirit was apparently communicating with Gastly!
This was so un-Pokémon-like!
First of all, while Gastly as a Ghost-type Pokémon certainly had a long lifespan, it shouldn't be *that* long.
Logically speaking, even among Ghost types, only ruin-puppet-type Pokémon like Cofagrigus, Aegislash, or Golurk could live that long—and that was under the premise that they fell into a deep slumber to sustain themselves!
A Gastly...
Should have dissipated ages ago!
As for the maiden's ghost and things of that sort, it also didn't feel like Pokémon at all.
Let alone the giant Dragonite and giant Tentacruel. Although the concept of Gigantamax existed later on, Gigantamax not only required specific locations to occur, but it was essentially the formation of massive energy projections, which was entirely different from Pokémon that were naturally that large.
As for ancient Alpha Pokémon, they were only larger by a few times; they couldn't possibly grow to the scale of a "monster."
That was why Mu rarely associated anything with the early anime series.
Until now, seeing Ash, Mu suddenly had a flash of realization—could this really be happening for real?
Seeing Mu suddenly freeze, Ash turned around to look behind him and asked, "What's wrong? Did you see something?"
"No, nothing... Ghosts and all that... might as well take a look." In the end, Mu's curiosity won out.
On one hand, he wanted to verify whether true ghosts existed in this world; on the other hand, even in the anime, the maiden ghost of Maiden's Peak wasn't some vicious, malicious spirit.
To be precise, she didn't even show up at all. At the very end, she simply told Gastly, "Thank you for trying so hard for a thousand years to make sure everyone remembers me..."
Even though Gastly put on a fierce front, it only ever reached the level of harmless "pranks" with no actual danger.
Misty turned her head to look at Mu with an expression that clearly said, "Don't tell me you believe this too?"
"You didn't actually see something, did you?" Misty felt a bit spooked by Mu's sudden shift in attitude.
"It's nothing... Let's go find this Chigusa Inn first!" Mu quickly changed the subject.
"Chigusa Inn?" Ash looked surprised at the mention. "What a coincidence, we're staying there too! I'll show you the way, we were heading back to our rooms anyway!" Ash offered enthusiastically.
Mu: ...
He felt like he was getting even closer to the thousand-year-old Gastly and the maiden's ghost!
Soon, led by Ash and the other two, Mu and Misty were brought to the entrance of an inn that looked quite antique...
Fortunately, it looked much cleaner and tidier than the "Gloomy Forest Inn" at Mount Moon, and it was much livelier as well. It was clearly a functioning business, just with a rather retro aesthetic.
Otherwise, Misty would genuinely have had some psychological trauma...
Yet the moment the door opened, they saw another "Mount Moon duplicate elderly woman," causing Misty's expression to shift instantly.
Fortunately, the person didn't seem to belong to the inn. She was just about to head out and turned back to say to the innkeeper, "Then I'll leave things in your care for this year as well!"
"Leave it to us, you can count on it!" a young inn clerk replied.
With several clerks inside the inn and guests drinking tea in the first-floor lobby, Misty relaxed quite a bit.
"Welcome, welcome back!" The clerks warmly greeted Mu, Misty, Ash, and the others. With Mu and Misty carrying travel backpacks, it was obvious they were just arriving to check in.
"Hello, can this be used?" Mu showed the coupon to the front desk.
"Yes, it can... But we only have one room left on the second floor now," the receptionist said apologetically.
"Then one room is fine," Mu decided immediately—worst case scenario, they could just pitch a tent inside the room. Inns like this surely only had empty tatami mat rooms anyway.
"Alright, both coupons will be applied, and the rate per night will be..." The receptionist quoted a rather reasonable price.
"You guys are doing great business, huh?" Mu asked casually to make conversation.
However, the receptionist answered honestly, "Not really. It's just that the old woman from the shrine stores some ritual and festival props with us every year around this time, taking up a few rooms on the second floor..."
The festival was starting tonight and would run for three consecutive days, so the necessary items for each day were being stored here in advance.
"Wait! Does that mean we're the only ones on the second floor?" Misty asked suddenly, her instincts on high alert.
"No, not quite. There are guests in two other rooms—one room is for the friends who came with you," the receptionist said, glancing at Ash and the others, "and the other room is for a family of three..."
Right at that moment, a familiar voice drifted over: "Shin-chan! I told you, you can't use your butt to open doors!"
A potato-headed little boy could be seen skillfully wriggling his rear end to push the door open...
Mu: ...
He was certain now—if Maiden's Peak was going to be haunted today, the second floor of this very inn was guaranteed to be right at the center of it!