It was April, during the Qingming holiday, and Squirtle was conducting a void offering at home.
"Squirtle. (Help me light this.)"
There were still some candles left from the batch made earlier, but no incense. Squirtle simply took a piece of mosquito coil over to Litten and asked her to light it.
As the incense and candles burned, Squirtle bowed several times to the empty space in front of him, then spat out a mouthful of water to extinguish what he had just lit, seemingly afraid of setting something on fire.
"Meow? (What are you up to this time?)"
Meownei extended a claw and sliced open the newly delivered package, took out a packet of flower seeds, then checked their vitality.
Quite a few things had already been planted here and there in the Backyard, but the front yard was still untouched, with nothing but weeds growing there.
With a Grass-type Pokémon's unique control over and sensitivity to plants, Meownei could determine how many of these seeds were alive and capable of sprouting,
and which were dead seeds passed off as good ones.
From her initial inspection, they were in fairly good condition. Squirtle's offering ritual, however, struck her as a little strange.
"Squirtle. (I'm remembering some Pokémon I used to know. So much time has passed that they might not be around anymore.
You know so much about humans. Don't you know this is one of their customs?)"
Living longer inevitably meant seeing more. It was rather like archaeology.
Someone might painstakingly research things from centuries ago using historical records, but if someone had actually lived through that era and survived to the present, they would understand the past better.
That only applied to some things, though. If they dug deeper, there were areas of specialized knowledge that neither