Ye Li steeled himself and took on this hot potato.
He shut himself in his office and spent an entire day designing an interrogation plan that combined information asymmetry, psychological pressure, and cognitive warfare.
He named it "Theater-Style Interrogation."
The core idea was simple: rather than pry someone's mouth open, destroy their psychological support outright.
The first test subject was Tabitha, the Team Magma squad leader with the strongest willpower.
Ye Li ordered Tabitha confined alone in a completely soundproof room.
There were no beatings or verbal abuse, and he was served good food and drink.
But apart from the robot that delivered his meals, no one spoke to him.
Absolute silence and solitude were the first step in breaking a person's will.
Three days later, just as this invisible torment was about to drive Tabitha mad, Ye Li appeared before him.
"Captain Tabitha, I trust you've been well."
With a friendly smile, Ye Li sat down across from Tabitha.
"I'm not here to interrogate you today."
"I just want to show you something."
As he spoke, he snapped his fingers.
A screen on the wall lit up and began playing a video.
In the video was one of the squad members Tabitha knew best.
The squad member was sitting in a room, facing a Team Rocket interrogator whose face was indistinct.
"I'll confess! I'll tell you everything!"
The squad member in the video wore a fawning, eager expression.
"Captain Tabitha planned this entire infiltration operation himself!"
"He forced us to come! He said that if we failed the mission, he'd throw us all into a volcano to feed the Camerupt!"
"We had no choice! Please, give me another chance! I'm willing to join Team Rocket and serve you!"
The video ended, and the screen went dark.
Tabitha's eyes instantly reddened. He shot to his feet and roared at Ye Li.
"Impossible! This is fabricated! My squad would never betray me!"
"Is that so?"
Unmoved, Ye Li snapped his fingers again.
The screen lit up again, showing a second squad member.
"...That's right, it was Tabitha. He's the real Team Magma fanatic. We've been sick of him for ages."
"...He pocketed most of the funds for this operation, and he even said he'd claim the credit from Lord Maxie when we got back."
A third squad member, a fourth...
One video after another, created by Lin Feng using deepfake technology, played without pause.
In the videos, the squad members who had once fought at his side and faced life and death with him scrambled to "confess," pinning all the blame and slinging all the mud at him, their captain.
They portrayed him as a petty man who ruled with an iron fist, feared death, embezzled funds, and was even preparing to defect to the enemy.
Tabitha's roars gradually turned into gasps.
His body began to tremble. The anger in his eyes turned to shock, then disbelief, before finally fading into utter lifelessness.
He was no fool. He knew these videos might be fabricated.
But reason was one thing, and emotion another.
When he "saw with his own eyes" his most trusted brothers scrambling to sell him out with the most vicious words, the despair of being betrayed by the entire world still sliced away at his mind like the sharpest of knives, cut after cut.
Under the crushing blow of "betrayal and abandonment," his psychological defenses collapsed completely.
"...Stop playing them."
Tabitha slumped in his chair, his voice hoarse, as though he had aged ten years in an instant.
"I'll tell you... I'll tell you everything I know."
He raised his head and looked at Ye Li with hollow eyes.
"I have just one condition."
"Let me deal with those traitors myself."
Ye Li looked at the man before him, whose mind had been utterly destroyed, and felt not a ripple within.
He had obtained everything he wanted.
Team Magma's infiltration of Kanto this time had not targeted only "Flash technology."
Their more important mission was to search a particular area of the Kanto Region for ancient ruins connected to the legendary Continent Pokémon-Groudon.
According to the incomplete records Team Magma possessed, those ruins might contain a key item capable of awakening, or even controlling, Groudon.
The value of this intelligence was immeasurable.
Ye Li immediately compiled the intelligence into a report and submitted it to Giovanni.
Giovanni studied the report and remained silent for a long time.
His strategic focus had always been on commercial expansion in the Kanto Region and infiltration of the Pokémon League.
But this intelligence about Groudon showed him another shortcut to the pinnacle of the world.
"Relay my orders."
Giovanni's voice rang out in the office.
"Team Rocket's strategic focus will be adjusted, effective immediately."
Before you continue