"Father, is that brother and sister over there going to be on the ship too?"
A child wearing a small formal dress looked at Rope and Whitley who were within a separate passageway, separated from them by this glass wall, and asked suspiciously.
The eyes of the man in formal wear with a serious face, who was tugged by the child's sleeve, shifted along the child's hand, then smiled and said, "I don't think it's all the way. Where we are is already a VIP passage."
The child looked at the passage he was in, which didn't have many people around.
It seemed right. After all, VIPs were already rare enough that there weren't even a hundred or so of them combined.
To become S.S. Anne's VIP, money alone was not enough. Status, strength, and power were all factors to consider.
The child nodded, then asked, "What is that brother and sister doing?"
This question instantly froze the man. Wanting to say something, but it wasn't his style to pretend to understand in front of the child.
So the exchange between father and son came to a standstill.
And at the very front of the VIP passageway, two gorgeously dressed women stood there in a graceful manner, attracting the gazes of an unknown number of people.
One of these two women wore a long black dress, looking elegant and luxurious, her face was smooth, but her body exuded a mature flavor brewed by years.
While the other was wearing light blue jeans and a white blouse. It looked very undignified, but the feeling of youthful vigor did greet her.
Combined with that elegant and dignified face, it made the simple clothing but look both temperamental and elegant.
"Mom, is that the lifetime VIP passage over there?"
The jeans girl curiously looked at Rope and Whitley over there and quizzically asked her mother in front of her.
The noblewoman similarly looked at the young youth and teenage girl over there and nodded, "It's the lifetime VIP right. Do you recognize who that is?"
The young woman looked carefully for a while and said, "It should be that newly promoted Pokémon Professor, Professor Rope. It's said to be Professor Oak's protégé."
The noblewoman nodded with satisfaction, obviously pleased with her daughter's ability to recognize people.
"That's right, Professor Rope, a hot new professor. If you can strike up a conversation with him, this trip to S.S. Anne of ours won't be in vain."
"But...where does Professor Rope get a lifetime membership? I don't seem to have heard of him having any connection to the shipping company."
The young woman still couldn't quite figure it out, for the shipping company, every lifetime VIP was meant to have a close cooperation with the company.
But Professor Rope's rise to prominence had only been in the past two months, but it was true that she hadn't heard of any connection between them.
"It doesn't matter to us." The noblewoman who was the mother shook her head, "All we need to know is that there is no harm for us to socialize with Professor Rope."
"We are meant to be climbers. As long as we can provide shelter..."
The young girl listened to her mother's words and looked at Rope without speaking...
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"Rope, so many people are looking at us." Whitley said somewhat less naturally.
"The curiosity, envy, even jealousy and disbelief that comes with privilege can be a source of some pleasure. Just get used to it, and you will definitely get used to it in the future."
Rope's words were spoken with great certainty. After all, as long as there were no surprises, Whitley would only experience things like privilege more and more in her later life.
Facing more of it now wasn't a bad thing. Girls? You need to be rich, otherwise it would be too much of a loss to be easily cheated away.
Of course to fall in love and so on don't always be so pure, between couples should do things also have to do, otherwise other people to your him/her in this aspect of the temptation words, no experience or hard to resist.
Whitley craned his head to look at the people who were looking at them curiously, took a deep breath then tried his best to look as normal as possible.
"There's no need to purposely relax, they can't see us." Rope said with a smile.
"The glass walls here are visible from our side looking out. But you can't really see us here very well from their side."
Of course, you could still tell if you were familiar enough with them.
But he, Rope, wasn't particularly distinctive either. People like various wannabe Wataru, Diantha, and the like were all distinctive in both dress and various looks.
He was dressed in his normal outdoor clothes, and it was outrageous that anyone would recognize him that way.
But what Rope didn't know was...someone actually recognized him.
Let's just say it's true that being a professional is just not the same...
"The boat is here, get ready to board." Rope said as he looked at S.S. Anne, who was approaching from afar.
Whitley didn't say anything, just watched in awe as the little black dot came closer and closer, growing larger and larger then becoming a shocking behemoth before her eyes.
"This ship...it's huge!"
Whitley looked at the nearly 300-meter-long giant ship and didn't know how to react for a moment.
"Big for sure. This ship is the shipping company's signature."
Rope was also quite impressed. The Titanic on Earth was only 269 meters, really comparing it to and about 30 meters worse than S.S. Anne.
"Rope, long time no see! Isn't it time to call you Professor Rope!"
A dainty woman wearing a long red dress, stepping on red high heels with waist-length hair and a bracelet on her hand came out from the entrance of the passageway and said towards Rope from afar.
Rope helplessly looked at this seemingly delicate, but the voice and expression in front of him could only have a bright beautiful woman and said, "You this guy, really is the same as Steven a virtue, the opening is to flirt with me. Come on come on change your name to professor, by the way give me the gift."
The red-skirted beauty looked at the helpless youth in front of her and said with a delicate smile, "Then... how about I give myself to you?"
Rope couldn't help but shiver as he listened to this pretense of shyness, "Get it, Sister Ming, you can rest now. I was wrong."
Ming delicately rolled her eyes and said, "Che, you want to give it to me. You still dislike old me!" With that, Ming lightly punched Rope.
Then Ming looked to Whitley on the side and smiled kindly, "This is sister Whitley, right? I've heard about you before from Dr. Sequoia and Rope's."
Saying that Ming extended his hand towards Whitley.
Whitley haughtily shook Ming's hand.
"Hello Sister Ming, first time meeting, please take care of me."
"Haha, just for this Sister Ming, I have to prepare a meeting gift for you."
Ming laughed brightly.
The two shook hands and then separated. But then Ming smiled and wrapped her arm around Whitley's shoulders before saying, "It looks like Rope hasn't mentioned me to you often, this guy..."
Although she was talking to Whitley, Ming was looking at Rope with a face full of teasing.
Rope gave her a blunt look, he usually was who he didn't mention to Whitley alright...only everyone with come up to go back and introduce themselves.
People make important first impressions, and a first impression from someone else's mouth is always a false one.
Everyone has a different perception of another person. Instead of talking to one person about another, take her to meet that person directly when you can.
One that could quickly come to a conclusion in their mind whether it was good or bad.
"Alright, enough of that, let's get on the ship." Ming smiled then said.
Saying that, he pulled Whitley towards the entrance.
The entrance could already see some people already waiting somewhere.
It was obvious that although Ming didn't say it on his lips, the reception he actually gave Rope and the others was obviously top notch.
Rope followed Ming's footsteps, then asked, "Sister Ming, isn't the company busy? Why are you still here in person?"
Ming said without looking back, "Isn't it because you, a shareholder of the company, has arrived? Then how could I not come out to greet you personally?"
Whitley asked in confusion, "Shareholder? Is Rope your shareholder?"
Whitley was a bit confused, isn't Rope a normal researcher? And the field of research is still the field of the legendary Pokémon, so why on earth would Rope become a shareholder of a shipping company? This was no ordinary company, it was not too much to say that it was a trust in the shipping world. Every share that goes out of a company like this can be coveted by countless people.
Whitley also had a guess about Ming's identity, this was probably the legendary red rose of the shipping company. Rope, who could make the princess of the shipping company come to greet her, was definitely not a small shareholder.
But where did this share come from?
"At that time, there was a problem with the company, and someone had offended the prince of Canghai. The prince of Canghai came to the door, business can not be done, at that time just Professor Oak in the company as a guest, also brought Rope."
"Then Rope will solve the problem, so my father made the decision to a portion of the shares to Rope. Rope's shares should be the same as mine. "
Ming said rather blandly.
But Whitley didn't hear it so calmly... The prince of Canghai, Manafei, looks very small and cute, but in reality, his power is too big...
With the God of the Sea, Lugia, and the Creator of the Ocean, Kyogre, one of them doesn't care about anything, and the other one sleeps, although he is the prince of Canghai in name, in reality, he is not the king of Canghai, even if he is the king of Canghai, it's not the same. It is not too much to say that he is the king of the oceanic sea.
Until now, these three gods are worshipped as gods by people who are engaged in various professions related to the sea.
As the largest shipping company, once you offend the Prince of Canghai, it's not a matter of whether the business is good or not.
"Actually it's not all my credit, I just called Mew over and then we negotiated.
Rope shrugged then said.
"You don't even think you get that much credit yourself, but you still took the shares next."
Ming turned his head towards Rope and rolled his eyes.
Rope didn't say anything, just returned the glare.
What did he want if he didn't want the money?
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"Mom, that one is..."
The young woman looked at the figure in the red dress over there. The expression on her face was a bit frozen.
Ming was still a very distinctive person, so when she appeared, the mother and daughter immediately recognized that iconic red dress.
The noblewoman took a deep breath before saying, "It's better for you not to go near Professor Rope, just be natural if you have the chance and don't bring any crooked thoughts with you."
The young woman nodded her head silently, after the height of a target had surpassed the limits of what they could reach, they knew that this target was not something they could covet.
Every kind of person had their own laws of survival. Snakes have the way of the snake, rats have the way of the rat, nothing more.
On the other side, silence once again fell between the father and son who were also concerned about Rope and Whitley.
"So father, they're on board, and they seem to be more powerful than us. More powerful than the VIPs?"
The son asked, looking up at his father, puzzled.
The father was silent, and after a long time, he touched his own son's head and said, "Dad doesn't know, you'll have to figure it out for yourself when you grow up. And get on the boat from there too."
An easy smile finally appeared on his face.
"Okay, Dad. I know, I will!"
A rare smile finally appeared on the child's face as well.
The atmosphere between father and son was clearly more cordial.
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Rope didn't know that he and Whitley seemed to have caused a change in the minds of many people. Of course, even if he knew, it wouldn't matter much, after all, those people had little to do with him.
"Oooh, that's quite a show!"
Rope looked at the large group of people who greeted him and couldn't help but sigh.
Whitley, on the other hand, looked at the interior of the gilded ship with a face full of shock like a child who had never seen the world.
"I know you fellows live pretty minimalist lives. But Rope you're being too harsh on the kids." Looking at Whitley's reaction, Ming also said helplessly.
Rope shrugged, "No problem, we're all just different, if I didn't have to lead her on a boat ride for fun this time, I wouldn't have taken S.S. Anne myself. Just get a random boat and go to Cinnabar Island too."
"Taking the S.S.Anne would also involve two more days at sea."
Ming's face obviously looked a minute worse at that comment.
Everyone really wasn't quite the same, although they had the strength to hire a lot of trainers to protect them, none of them in business seemed to be too talented as trainers or researchers.
And one by one, the trainers and researchers who had something to pursue acted like ascetics.
They don't care about their daily lives. But for their own Pokémon or research projects, everything was done to pursue better as much as possible.
She's smashed down quite a few high-ranking trainers with her money, those of the High Researcher and Gym Leader levels can be smashed.
But the Top Professors; the Gym Leader and Elite Four level trainers. None of them could be smashed down simply with money...
Ming looked at Rope and couldn't help but get a nasty and helpless look in his eyes.
But that look only flickered.
"Well well well! My big researcher, come on, let's go, let's take you guys for a stroll."
Ming smiled at Rope and the others.
"Come on then Whitley, don't look, there's more in there!"
"Ohh, I'll be right there."
Watching the duo's reaction, Ming smiled and turned around.
Just a moment after she turned around, Rope looked at his back and couldn't help but sigh down.
Why bother?
That kind of disgust, why bother?