Yes, the Hokage!

Obito wasn't interested in these things. When he heard Fenglan say that everyone should go home, he had already set off for the hospital. Tsunade, however, stayed behind and followed Fenglan leisurely towards his house after Shisui left.

"Um, teacher, you should go back and rest too."

Feng Lan felt immense pressure being next to Tsunade, not only because Tsunade was also a veteran who had worked her way up through the ranks and was actually very knowledgeable about the affairs of the higher-ups, but also because Tsunade was powerful and her teacher.

Feng Lan felt the same way she did when Shikaku faced her at the izakaya – a scholar encountering a soldier, unable to reason with him.

No matter how eloquent you are, go ahead and say what you have to say to my monstrous strength.

Now that he no longer had the means to blackmail the other party, he was genuinely afraid of getting beaten up for saying the wrong thing.

"Where am I supposed to rest?" Tsunade looked at her with ill intent. "It's not like I have anywhere else to go in Konoha."

“Um, you can stay at the hospital…” Feng Lan quickly gave in to Tsunade’s righteous gaze. “Alright, I’ll arrange a property for you.”

"Here it is." Tsunade finally smiled and patted Feng Lan's shoulder heavily. "And wine! I heard you're quite wealthy, so bring out the most expensive wine in the village! Shizune usually doesn't allow me to drink much, but today I'm going to drink my fill!"

Feng Lan rubbed her shoulder, which had gone numb from being patted, and sighed, "Alright, alright."

Despite her cheerful exterior, Tsunade is still deeply wounded by the death of her lover and the betrayal of her former comrades. She is in great pain and can only numb herself with alcohol.

He's still Tsunade's student, after all, and he even tricked her into giving him her most powerful Yin Seal. It's just a few bottles of wine and a house, she can take care of it...

"...I regret it."

Feng Lan didn't think it was a big deal at first, but when he arrived at the property the next morning, he found that the once clean and tidy house was in complete disarray. Empty bottles were scattered all over the floor, and the air was filled with the smell of alcohol and vomit. Tsunade was lying on the sofa in the living room, snoring loudly, with a half-empty bottle of wine in her hand. The fragrant wine was dripping onto the floor with each breath she took.

To be honest, she had both looks and a great figure; she was originally a stunningly beautiful woman, otherwise Jiraiya wouldn't have been so infatuated with her for life. But when she was drunk, her behavior was truly...

If it weren't for the fact that she was stronger than her, Fenglan would have loved to give her a dumpling.

"never mind."

He sighed. He had originally planned to take Tsunade to see Minato and see if he could find a way to help her settle down in the village and become one of Minato's supporters. But now that she was drunk, there was no point in taking her there. He decided to let her continue sleeping.

Feng Lan shook his head, then took off his coat and covered Tsunade with it, as a way of showing his respect as a student. He absolutely dared not ask Tsunade to carry him to the bedroom and settle her in bed; if the girl got drunk and suddenly used her superhuman strength, his small body would be doomed.

Because he was delayed at Tsunade's place, Feng Lan arrived at the Hokage's office a little later than usual. As soon as he entered, he saw a ninja dressed in Sunagakure uniform standing in front of Minato's desk, arguing with him.

"Fourth Hokage, you cannot refuse to rent the Shukaku Jinchuriki from Sunagakure. This was agreed upon from the beginning!" The Sunagakure envoy appeared extremely angry.

“I have never promised you anything.” Minato frowned. “Who did you make an agreement with?”

The Sunagakure envoy clearly realized that Konoha was at a critical juncture in the transfer of power, and that the Third Hokage, with whom they had previously reached an agreement, now seemed preoccupied with his own troubles. Therefore, he immediately changed his tune and began to lobby:

"Fourth Hokage, can you give us a reason why your village refused to rent Shukaku? Otherwise, we have no way to go back to the village and explain to the Kazekage."

"Because we have the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki." Minato frowned.

"My goodness... Forgive my bluntness, but this is not meant to belittle your village. However... who doesn't know that the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki is the most uncontrollable?" The Sunagakure envoy spoke eloquently. "With Shukaku, you can sweep across the entire world and use his power in any small-scale battle, unlike the Nine-Tails, who can only perish together with the enemy in life-or-death situations!"

Looking at his expression and his excited demeanor, anyone who didn't know better would really think that Shukaku was the strongest tailed beast.

"No, no, no." Minato brought out Fenglan's theory, "Jinchūriki are only to ensure that major powers do not fight to the death. I probably won't use them at all."

The Sunagakure envoy immediately said, "But they... the people of Kumogakure and Iwagakure don't know that you most likely won't use it!"

Minato shook his head: "They probably know, even you know."

The Sunagakure messenger hurriedly replied, "Yes, probably, but they can't be sure you really don't need it."

Minato held fast to what Fenglan had taught him: "No, they probably really know I won't use it. A qualified Kage wouldn't use Jinchuriki in a small-scale conflict; that would be tantamount to a full-scale declaration of war."

The Sand Village envoy panicked: "Yes, even if they might know you don't use it, they can't be sure that just because you might not use it, you definitely won't!"

Minato: "...Huh?"

Just as the Sunagakure messenger thought he had successfully confused Minato with his long and complicated sentences, the door was suddenly pushed open, and Feng Lan walked in with a smile: "I'm very sorry, sir messenger, but I'm currently in charge of the Hokage's office finances (actually, it's just the small portion that was taken from us), so please come and talk to me about the matter of renting Shukaku."

Without a word, he pulled the Sunagakure messenger into his office, and about ten minutes later he returned to Minato: "It's resolved."

"Um," Minato asked curiously, "what did you say to him?"

"Are you sure you want to listen?" Feng Lan cast a subtle glance at him. "No regrets?"

“Of course I’ll listen.” Minato nodded. “I need to learn your eloquence and way of thinking so I won’t be fooled by others in the future.”

Now that you've learned how I'll fool you, that's how I'll do it.

Feng Lan mentally scoffed, then immediately began, "Okay, in short, we had an informal discussion, a comprehensive and frank exchange of opinions, which led to a series of plans that ultimately guided several feasible research objectives. Following this, we concluded that some other solutions might, under certain circumstances, cautiously supplement the established policy to achieve common ground while reserving differences, and to find a way for both sides to compromise and cooperate. If both sides can implement these plans and make appropriate concessions, and if circumstances permit, it might ultimately create the conditions to achieve a mutually satisfactory solution, regardless of whether the process is correct or not."

Minato: "...Huh?"

Instead of learning anything, he became even more confused.

"Oh," Feng Lan replied with a smile, "To put it simply, I told him to get lost."

Chapter 45 I have a plan

"That's not a good idea."

Minato looked pained: "He's an envoy from Sunagakure, representing the village to watch my inauguration speech as Hokage. How can I just send him away so rudely? What if he causes trouble during my speech?"

“You’re overthinking it. Even if you agree to rent Shukaku today, pay a lot of money, and treat him to the best food and wine, he’ll still cause trouble during your speech.” Fenglan shrugged. “Ever since this rule came into being, envoys from other countries who come to watch speeches are actually there to cause trouble… Of course, the reverse is also true. If you send me to watch a speech by a village’s leader, I’ll definitely cause trouble too.”

It can only be said that Tobirama Senju was indeed a political genius. The various systems of the Five Great Nations, such as the Ninja Academy, the equipment of ninja teams, and the speech given by the new Kage three months after taking office, were all proposed by Tobirama. The other four great nations copied... cough cough, they went to learn from him.

Therefore, when Konoha's envoys were giving speeches at the inauguration ceremonies of the new Kage of other countries, they caused quite a bit of trouble. How can you expect others not to cause trouble?

"In short, instead of worrying about others, you should strengthen yourself." Feng Lan said, and then took out the speech she had prepared last night. "Memorize this first, and once you're familiar with it, I'll teach you how to handle various issues."

"I understand." Minato also became serious, lowering his head to carefully read the speech. The room fell silent for a moment.

Feng Lan then took the documents that Minato needed to process and easily finished them for him. He could handle these things three times faster than Minato. If it weren't for the need to train Minato's abilities as a Kage, he could have completely taken care of it.

About two hours later, Minato put down his speech and said, "I've memorized it."

"Come on, try saying it without a script." Feng Lan readily became the audience, and even called Itachi and Kabuto, who were organizing files in his office, over to listen together.

After one take, Feng Lan shrugged: "Hmm, it was fairly fluent, but there were some shortcomings."

He then turned to his two lackeys: "Yuanfang... oh no, Itachi, Kabuto, what do you guys think?"

Although Kabuto was precocious, the person in front of him was the Fourth Hokage. Having not seen much of the world, he stammered and couldn't say a word.

On the contrary, Itachi often accompanied Fenglan and had seen many big scenes. He was not timid at all. After thinking for a while, he said, "Hmm... I think that in addition to being a little too emotional, the Fourth Hokage also unconsciously speeds up his speech. As he goes on, he speaks faster and faster, which gives the audience a feeling that he is guilty and wants to end the conversation quickly."

“Not bad, that’s a good summary.” Feng Lan smiled. “Come on, Minato, let’s correct it little by little.”

"Alright." Minato wasn't angry at all that his flaws had been pointed out. Instead, he smiled at Itachi and said, "Thank you so much."

"It's what I should do," Itachi replied with a slight bow, appearing quite composed.

[Wow, so cool!] Kabuto, who was standing to the side, couldn't help but feel a sense of envy, which strengthened his determination to learn from Itachi and surpass him.

This revision took most of the day, until dusk, when Minato's speech, in Fenglan's opinion, finally showed the style of a Hokage.

"Alright, this level of presentation is sufficient. You just need to keep improving and try not to make mistakes on stage," Feng Lan said calmly. "Next, I'll teach you how to deal with those ninja interviewers."

"Uh-huh."

Not only Minato, but Itachi was also completely focused. What was most amusing was that the two of them almost simultaneously took out a notebook, preparing to carefully record every word Feng Lan said and ponder it repeatedly.

“First, you must remember one thing.” Feng Lan waved her finger. “The beauty of a speech lies not in telling the truth, but in ensuring that no one can prove you are lying. Often, saying some correct but meaningless things is enough to appease those troublemakers… I mean, the villagers. But whether you can express what you want to say in the process without revealing more information is a real test of your skills.”

"Fortunately, I'll write the speech for you, so you don't need to worry too much about that for now. But how to handle the Q&A session after the speech... While I can help you, there are many tricky questions that require you to be quick-witted, so your own personal qualities are also very important."

Feng Lan said seriously, "Those questions that are deliberately provocative can generally be answered using the following formulas."

"The first tactic is often used when the other party asks a question you don't want to answer. Just say, 'These things have reasonable explanations, but for security reasons, they cannot be disclosed for the time being.' Simply put, it's a village secret. If the other party is still persistent, you can seize on their desire to investigate Konoha's information and attack them by asking, 'Are you asking a question or are you a spy?'"

“I see…” Minato quickly wrote it down.

"The second tactic is often used when outside villages point out that Konoha is inferior to them in this or that way. At this time, you should say, 'Because a large amount of funds were used to improve the lives of the villagers, the budget was reduced and the supervision was weakened, which led to this oversight.'"

"It can't be true, can it?" Minato looked up.

“But this excuse works very well.” Feng Lan shrugged.

“Fine…” Minato muttered, “Anyway, I’ll remember this and make sure Konoha surpasses them in these areas in the future.”

"You don't necessarily have to remember it. They're just saying it; they're not necessarily stronger than Konoha. Anyway... whatever, remember it if you want." Feng Lan shrugged. "It's part of growing up."

"The third tactic is mainly used to quell the impact of Orochimaru's actions, in case anyone asks about Orochimaru's dark experiments..."

"Do they really know these things?" Itachi couldn't help but raise his hand and ask.

"Believe me, those guys know more about Konoha than our Fourth Hokage does," Feng Lan chuckled. "Since we know it, they must know it too."

Minato wanted to refute, but recalling that the elders had discussed information about Kumogakure internally without even inviting him, he couldn't help but sigh.

Feng Lan continued, "Regarding this question, you should answer: [The experiment was worth doing and has already been stopped; it yielded a large amount of valuable data and also provided employment]."

"Alright then." Minato silently wrote it down.

"The fourth tactic is mainly used when the other party raises some fancy, unheard-of, or even non-existent void questions."

Feng Lan clapped her hands: "At this point, you should answer, 'We only learn about some important information after the outcome is finalized; this will not be repeated.'"

"What important information?" Minato frowned, a little confused. "Give me an example?"

"For example, the Gold and Silver Horn brothers of Cloud Village actually wanted to take advantage of the peace talks to start a rebellion," Feng Lan said with a smile.

"Who doesn't know about this?"

"Isn't it a bit ironic that neither Konoha nor Kumogakure knew about the rebellion before it started?"

"Hmm... I'm starting to understand what you mean."

"There is one last approach, mainly used to resolve and explain the negative impact caused by the old Biden Danzo and his root organization."

Feng Lan paused, noticing that no one was complaining, it seemed everyone assumed Danzo's negative impact outweighed the positive: "You should answer, 'It was caused by a personal decision-making error and has been dealt with according to internal disciplinary regulations.'"

"Could you put it simply?"

"The temporary worker has been dismissed."

……

After Minato forcibly memorized these five techniques, it was already completely dark. Feng Lan stretched and said, "Alright, go home and try to understand them properly. We'll continue learning tomorrow. Don't let the child go hungry."

However, Itachi and Kabuto didn't seem hungry at all. They were both staring intently at Feng Lan with a look of profound awe and disbelief. Even Itachi, who had the mindset of a Hokage, didn't understand many things halfway through the conversation, but he still tried his best to record and comprehend them.

In response, Fenglan said... "You guys have such a mixed bag of knowledge. Wouldn't it be better to use that time to learn some ninjutsu?"

"Wait!" Minato said hurriedly, "Fenglan, I have one last, very important matter that I need your advice on."