Naruto: The villain template of me is regarded as the savior.

Chapter 221 Is that, Konoha Ninja?
“My home is right there!”

Xiaoshi pointed at the village in front and looked excitedly at the people behind him.

However, after entering this mountainous area, the scene before him made Hu Ping's face change slightly.

Eighty percent of the farmhouses scattered among the hillsides are dilapidated, with weeds growing on the eaves and no one cleaning them. All that is seen is a desolate scene.

"small stone."

Ye stood behind Xiaoshi, letting the others disperse and hide. He looked at the abandoned fields and frowned, "What's wrong with those farmhouses? How come there are so many of them with no one taking care of them?"

"Well, maybe everyone in the family left or died." Xiao Shi scratched his head. "It has been raining heavily for years, and they have to pay a lot of grain. They either fled to the capital or to the north. After the farmhouse was abandoned, few people would like to see it."

Hu Ping's eyes flickered, and he said to himself, "I didn't expect that after not coming back for so long, it would turn out like this..."

He was also a child born in this village, but there were at least a few hundred people living here at that time.

Today, after experiencing war, plague, famine and looting, some have died, some have escaped, and there are probably less than a hundred people left.

Compared with the north where everything is in ruins, this place is really dilapidated.

"I should have come earlier." Hu Ping said with some self-blame, "I haven't been back all these years... If I had noticed it earlier, I wouldn't have starved to death so many people."

The houses on the shore were empty, and his heart was empty too.

A dilapidated farmhouse means the death of an entire family.

"Grandpa! I'm back!"

"Wang Wang! Wang!"

Before they knew it, they had arrived at Xiaoshi's home.

In front of the dilapidated house was an old man with a hunched back. After hearing the sound, he subconsciously looked up, and saw Xiaoshi running towards him. A smile appeared on his wrinkled face.

Xiao Shi whispered something in the old man's ear for a while, and the old man looked at Ye and others with surprise.

"Old man." Hu Ping also walked over with a playful smile, "It seems that you are in good health."

"You are... Skinny Monkey? How dare you come back?"

The old man smiled and squeezed his arm, saying with emotion, "Not bad, not bad, you've become much stronger. You're the only one who was able to come back alive after going out, you must have suffered a lot."

As if thinking of some bad experience, the smile on Hu Ping's face faded a lot, but he soon explained with a smile: "In fact, there are still a few people alive, but they didn't go with me this time. You should be able to see them coming back after a while."

"Okay, okay, I'm glad you're back." The old man smiled and nodded, looking up at Ye who was approaching.

The originally burly Ye had returned to his normal size. He walked up to the old man, clasped his fists and said in a serious tone, "Sorry for bothering you."

"It's okay, it's okay. Little Stone told me everything."

The old man smiled and waved his hand, then patted Hu Ping on the head and said, "I also want to thank you for taking care of Shou Hou. This kid has no parents and he relied on the help from the village to survive. I have watched him grow up, so I am half his grandfather."

"Grandpa, I'm not Skinny Monkey anymore." Hu Ping rubbed his head and muttered, "I have a name now. My name is Hu Ping."

"Hu Ping, what a good name, better than Shou Hou." The old man laughed, looked at Ye Xiao and said, "It's almost dawn, and the weather is good during this period. I have to hurry to the fields, so let Xiao Shitou greet you first."

"Naturally, we can't delay farm work. Please don't mind us. We are just taking a break and will leave in the evening." Ye Yu said politely, "I have nothing to do. If you don't mind, I will go and help."

"help?"

The old man's cloudy eyes swept over Ye, and seeing the neat black robe, he shook his head and said, "You should be a samurai or a ninja. There is no need to force yourself to do such a menial thing."

"How can farming be considered a menial task?"

Ye subconsciously retorted, then slowed down his tone and explained: "Please don't get me wrong, we are not ninjas or samurai. We were once civilians, and now we are just trying to make a living."

The old man put away his smile and asked in surprise: "Not samurai and ninja? Then you..."

Although he didn't have much knowledge, he knew about and had seen samurai and ninjas. In his eyes, samurai, ninjas and civilians were completely in a different class.

Samurai were the personal guards of the nobles, and ninjas were a group of people who did not engage in production.

The old man really didn't like these two kinds of people. He just didn't want to offend them. After all, he knew at a glance that they were not easy to deal with. But he didn't expect that they were not samurai and ninjas...

Hu Ping couldn't help but say, "Old man, Ye...Uncle Ye was once a refugee. I saw refugees exchanging their children for food and almost starved to death. How could you think farming is a cheap job?"

"...For refugees to be able to achieve this, it seems something extraordinary has happened in the north."

The old man was silent for a long time, then he sighed deeply and his smile became more sincere: "Even so, there is no reason to let guests work."

A few words made Ye reluctantly give up the idea of ​​helping. The old man called Xiao Shi aside and whispered: "I hid a sweet potato under the table. When you cook porridge for them later, don't just put sweet potato leaves in it, put the sweet potato in it."

Xiao Shi licked his lips subconsciously and nodded repeatedly, "I understand, Grandpa."

The old man turned to look at Ye and Hu Ping and said with a smile, "Then you guys chat, I'll leave first."

Ye watched the old man turn and leave, his eyes gradually becoming deep.

With his good hearing, he naturally heard what the old man secretly said to Xiao Shi, and he couldn't help feeling touched and uncomfortable.

At this moment, the corner of Ye's clothes was tugged. He looked down subconsciously and saw Xiao Shi holding a black square carefully.

"What is this?" Ye was stunned.

"Oh." Hu Ping recognized the black mass and said nostalgically, "It's black bread. I haven't seen it for a long time."

After that, under Xiaoshi's eager gaze, he picked up the piece of black bread, stuffed it into his mouth, chewed it with a crunching sound, gave Xiaoshi in front of him a thumbs up, and said vaguely: "Familiar taste."

"Pooh!"

He spat out two stones, touched his stomach and said, "Bread made from wheat flour mixed with bran, mixed with sawdust and small gravel, is the garbage that the nobles gave to their servants as a reward, or used for disaster relief."

"At that time, I couldn't even eat it if I wanted to. It was only when I left the village that an old lady gave me a piece."

"It tasted really good at first, but now I think about it, it's not that I like to eat it, I just had no choice because I was hungry, very hungry, and it can be preserved for a long time, so other people won't look down on it and it won't be snatched away."

Hu Ping knew very well that a piece of black bread like this could last for two days just by swallowing it and gulping down a few mouthfuls of water. He had experience in this regard. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but sigh: "At that time, I never thought that I would have enough food and clothing, not only gain power, but also manage hundreds of people. My fate is really bizarre."

"I hope Lord Kumokawa can win this war and bring the south into the scope of Dawn. In this way, they can also eat real bread."

Hu Ping talked to himself, but Ye didn't say anything.

He just put his hand on Xiaoshi's head, took out a candy from his arms and handed it to him: "Thank you for the bread, this is the candy my wife left for me, here it is, Xiaoshi."

Xiaoshi was originally a little frustrated about giving up the black bread, but after hearing this, he immediately looked up at the candy wrapped in paper. It was obvious at a glance that the candy had been hidden in his arms for who knows how long.

He never ate candy.

"Thank you, uncle." Xiao Shi smiled and felt the hand above his head touching his head. The palm was very broad and there was a long-lost warmth.

He kind of likes this uncle he just met.

He just seemed a little cold and he hardly ever smiled.

"Hmm." Xiao Shi opened the candy wrapper and put the candy in his mouth. Feeling the sweetness, he squinted his eyes and said vaguely, "Uncle, can you give me the candy I left for you?"

"You've already eaten it." Ye couldn't help but smile, gently rubbing his head, and whispered, "It doesn't matter, even if she is still alive, she won't object."

Looking at the sun gradually rising in the distance, Ye inexplicably felt a sense of déjà vu.

That day seemed to be a winter day. As the sun rose from the distance, the footsteps of those guys came from afar, bringing endless flames and death.

Finally, the wooden door of the last room was roughly kicked open, and three people rushed in, but they only saw a stove that had been extinguished for a long time, with only a few sparks left.

They crushed the photo frame that had fallen to the ground and took away the few remaining foods. But just as they were about to leave, they saw the shaking cabinet and the corner of the skirt sticking out of the cabinet...

In the evening, the thin man came back from hunting. He brought back two rabbits with thick fur and also bought some candy that his wife loved.

But when he walked over the last hill, the fire in the distance illuminated his eyes, and flames ignited in his deep eye sockets.

He dropped the prey in his hand and ran home madly, until he saw the kunai piercing the cabinet and the blood flowing out of the cabinet.

Perhaps they did it unintentionally, just hurling out their kunai when they sensed someone was there, or perhaps they did it intentionally, just silencing the person to ensure that no one would know.

The man didn't know, he just stood there, like a frozen stone, completely dead.

Until a man who called himself Tsukimi Rikumokawa came over, threw the heads of two dead Konoha ninjas and a Konoha ninja in front of him, and told him that these three people were the ones who killed his wife.

Then, he pounced on it with red eyes. He had never thought that his frail body, which could only hunt and kill rabbits, actually had that kind of power.

He raised his fist and brought it down, smashing the Konoha ninja's face beyond recognition. In the end, even those villagers who had managed to survive together were unable to hold back this skinny man who looked completely powerless.

The brains were all over the floor. It was a disgusting scene, but it seemed like the most beautiful scenery the man had ever seen in his life.

"Look." Yunchuan pointed at his bloody hand and said with a smile, "Can you tell whose blood it is? Your blood is the same color."

"Whether it's the blood of nobles, samurai, ninjas, or yours, they're all the same bright red. So, why didn't you chase them when you saw them just now? Was it fear or weakness?"

"You want my blood?" he said with a smile.

Later, the man followed them back to the city called "Dawn". No one was drinking and having fun, and no one was wearing gold and silver. They just snuggled together and hugged each other for warmth.

But he followed Yunchuan and heard countless greetings along the way.

In the past, he had seen those nobles go out, and countless people would greet them, but they behaved very humbly, with unconditional flattery, nodding and bowing like dogs wagging their tails on the street.

But the greetings he saw at this moment seemed so natural and sincere, a kind of respect from the heart.

He could feel it, so he liked it there and stayed there.

This is him. This is the origin of "Night". He thought he had forgotten all of this. After all, he even gave up his name.

But he didn't expect that when he knew he was sent to ambush Konoha, he still brought this candy with him, and just now he subconsciously took this candy out of his arms...

"Uncle?"

Xiao Shi's voice reached his ears, and Ye came back to his senses. Facing his puzzled gaze, he shook his head slightly and smiled: "Nothing, go help your grandfather, no need to trouble you to look after us."

He understood that he was not as calm and rational as he appeared. He wanted to win, as long as it was Konoha, no matter who the opponent was, even if it was Jiraiya, even if it was the disciple of the Third Hokage.

He didn't want this already dilapidated place to become the ruins he saw at the beginning.

Hearing Ye's words, Xiao Shi scratched his head and said hesitantly, "Then, shall I go help Grandpa first?"

"Go."

"Oh."

After Xiaoshi left with the black dog, Ye turned to look at Hu Ping and said indifferently: "Tell the others to be prepared. We will continue to move forward after dark and do not disturb the villagers."

"Yes." Hu Ping nodded with a serious expression, without any playfulness from before.

The only flaw of being a "ghost" is that it is afraid of light and hates light.

Although you won't die from being exposed to light, your recovery ability will be greatly weakened.

Therefore, this is the only way for the troops led by Jiraiya, and they plan to wait here until dark before moving on.

While preparations were being made here, Xiaoshi had already climbed up the nearest hillside. He sat down on a rock, panting, and planned to take a rest. He took out the paper used to wrap the candy and licked it.

But at this moment, the big black dog that was chewing grass beside him suddenly looked up and started barking wildly as if he had seen something.

"Xiao Hei, what's wrong?"

Xiao Shi was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously followed his line of sight. With squinted eyes, he saw more than a dozen figures wearing green vests constantly approaching from three directions at the foot of the mountain in the distance.

Xiao Shi recognized the identities of those people instantly, and the candy wrapper in his hand fell to the ground in a daze.

That is, Konoha Ninja?
(End of this chapter)