Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

Bai Ye lowered his eyes and stared at the puppet.

Chapter 900 Borrowing a Mouth

His knuckles pressed against his chin, and his Adam's apple bobbed—he had been just as silent three days earlier in the Land of Fire, when he watched the daimyo die by his own blade.

Back then, he thought, "This cesspool should be stirred up." Now, he thinks, "We need to make sure everyone sees who is muddying the waters."

“You can no longer be an assassin.” Chiyo tapped her cane at the puppet’s feet. “What we need now are witnesses.”

The wind in the dungeon suddenly changed direction.

Nana smelled a faint, faint scent of blood and rust—Akahoshi's wrist wound was bleeding again.

As she turned her head, she saw Bai Ye raise his eyes, the dark glint in them like sparks ignited by the wind: "Qi Sui."

"exist."

"Take him to the secret chamber of the ancestral home." Bai Ye bent down to pick up the puppet, his fingertips brushing against its left eye—where a tiny spore was embedded. "Don't let anyone get close on the way."

Akahoshi suddenly laughed.

His laughter, mingled with the soft clanking of chains, echoed through the damp dungeon: "You think you can capture me and then..."

"It can make Sojiro's secret passage lose a leg." Nanaho drew her short sword, the tip of which flicked a strand of Akahoshi's hair.

She stared at his suddenly pale face, then slapped the back of the knife against the back of his neck. "Go."

As the dungeon door creaked shut behind her, Nana heard Byakuya's voice from behind, as soft as a leaf falling on water: "Grandma Chiyo, please contact the Raikage."

"You want to borrow troops?"

"Excuse me." Bai Ye tapped the puppet's head with his knuckles. "We need to let all the countries hear just how loud Sojiro's abacus beads are."

The sound of Red Star's chains faded into the distance.

The only sounds in the dungeon were the crackling of the tallow lamp and the buzzing of the electrical current that hadn't been completely shut off behind the puppet's ears, like some kind of seed about to sprout, pushing and swaying in the darkness.

As the sound of the dungeon door closing still echoed among the stone walls, Bai Ye's fingertips were already on the puppet box at his waist.

The wood grain of the box gleamed warmly under the butter lamp. It was carved by hand using cedar wood passed down from the first generation of puppeteers. Hidden in a secret compartment at the bottom of the box was a "real puppet" that had never been used before. The copper nails at the joints still carried the coldness of fresh polishing, and the wood lacquer on the face had not yet completely faded, but it was exactly the same as the curve of the corner of his eyes when he lowered his gaze.

"This puppet's chakra circuits were calibrated based on your battle data from three years ago in Amegakure." Chiyo's cane tip tapped at his feet, her gaze sweeping over the trembling silver threads at his fingertips. "Injecting a fragment of consciousness would consume a third of your chakra. Was it worth it?"

Bai Ye's thumb rubbed against the crystallized interface on the back of the puppet's neck.

There were tiny incantations engraved there, an encryption program he had sealed with his own blood pact. "What Sojiro wants is the achievement of 'killing Byakuya'." His voice was like a knife immersed in ice water. "Give him a fake corpse that can be captured; it's more useful than ten secret letters."

Nanaho's footsteps came from outside the dungeon.

Her dagger was already sheathed, and specks of blood from Akahoshi's struggle still clung to the tips of her hair. "The ancestral home's secret chamber has been reinforced with three layers of protection. Akahoshi's spore-clearing team will arrive in half an hour." She paused, her gaze falling on the puppet's face. "You want me to..."

"Consider it a pledge of loyalty." Bai Ye shoved the puppet into her arms.

The puppet was three times lighter than a normal person, yet it made Qi Sui's shoulder blades feel slightly heavy—she remembered three days ago on the city wall, when Bai Ye had handed her a bloodstained dagger in the same way, saying, "They should see who the real sword is."

Chapter 901 A Long Night, Many Unexpected Mishaps

"Disguise yourself as a defector." Bai Ye's fingertips brushed behind her ear, smoothing the hair that had been ruffled by the dungeon wind. "Sōjirō's spies have three hidden locations at the border outpost. Choose the easternmost one." His fingertips pressed on the pressure points on the back of her neck, and chakra slithered into them like a thin snake. "Half an hour later, you will 'accidentally' intercept this puppet."

Nanaho's pupils contracted slightly.

She could feel that wisp of chakra coursing through her body, altering her pulse rate—a disguise only the most skilled genjutsu masters could achieve, even misleading a medical ninja's chakra detector. "What if they want to examine my soul?"

“The puppet’s consciousness fragments contain my memories of being hunted by the Root organization when I was twelve years old.” Bai Ye took a half step back, the shadow obscuring half of his face. “It’s real enough, enough for Soujiro to believe… he has finally found my weakness.”

As Nana turned around, the tallow lamp in the dungeon suddenly burst into flame.

She tightened her grip on the puppet, the warmth of the lacquered wood seeping through her sleeves, as if she were holding a freshly cooled corpse.

The sentry post at the border outpost of the Land of Fire lit up its third red light at moonrise.

Nanaho's boot heels crunched over the gravel, and although the puppet's face was half-covered by her rag, it still made the Chunin guarding the city gate squint: "Stop!"

Carrying unidentified objects requires...

"What Lord Sojiro wants." Nanaho tore off the rag, revealing the puppet's face in the torchlight.

Chunin's Adam's apple bobbed, and the kunai at his waist clattered to the ground—it was Byakuya's face, the beauty mark under his left eye gleaming with the eerie light of wood lacquer.

"quick!

"Send a message to the main camp!" The Chunin's voice cracked as he reached out to touch the puppet, but Nanaho dodged to the side.

She stared at his trembling fingertips, remembering what Byakuya had said, "Fear makes people lose their senses," and lowered her voice: "Lord Sojiro must live."

The candlelight inside the main tent flickered as the door was forced open.

Sojiro's confidant, Agawa, knelt before the puppet, the blue light of the chakra detector sweeping across its entire body.

When the device beeped in confirmation, his fingernails almost dug into the tatami mat: "It really is... Byakuya?"

Nana leaned against the tent, watching his trembling back.

Her right hand rested lightly on the hilt of the sword, her knuckles turning bluish-white from the force—this was the first time she had been so close to Sojiro's core forces. She could hear Agawa's rapid breathing mixed with a morbid excitement: "If the master knew we'd captured Byakuya alive..."

“Extract memories,” Qi Sui interrupted him. Her voice was as cold as an icicle. “The longer you wait, the more things can go wrong.”

A-Chuan placed his hand on the puppet's forehead.

The blue light from the chakra detector suddenly surged, condensing into a phantom in the air—it was Rainy Night in Amegakure, where twelve-year-old Byakuya was covered in blood and surrounded in an alley by the Root organization's Anbu.

His puppet strings were wrapped around his neck, and his eyes held a fear that Nana had never seen before: "Don't come any closer... Don't tell them I am..."

"Enough!" A-Chuan abruptly pulled his hand back, beads of sweat from his forehead splattering onto the puppet's face.

His breathing suddenly became heavy, his fingers digging tightly into the puppet's shoulder: "So he can be afraid too... so he has a weakness..."

Nanaho's pupils shrank to pinpoints in the darkness.

She saw the lacquer on the puppet's left eye peeling off, revealing tiny spores embedded inside.

"boom!"

The puppet's chest cavity suddenly exploded.

Wood chips mixed with green spores sprayed out, condensing in the air to form a huge illusion—the face of Byakuya, his eyes even colder than in the dungeon: "Sōjirō is the mastermind."

Chapter 902 Who's Muddying the Waters?

The death of the daimyo of the Land of Fire and the wars in various countries were all orchestrated by him to vacate the position of power.

I killed Da Ming only to stir up this filth; now I expose him only to let everyone see who is muddying the waters.

A-Chuan fell backward to the ground, knocking over the candlestick.

Flames licked at the tent flaps, and the shouts of the defenders mingled with cries of "traitor" and "spy" in a deafening roar.

In the chaos, Nana retreated to the corner of the tent, watching the spore illusions flicker in the firelight—this was what Byakuya had said, "to let everyone hear it." At that moment, all the soldiers in the stronghold looked up, their pupils reflecting the man they had once thought was a demon, now accusing their "master."

The wind on the cliff whipped up sand that hit Bai Ye's face.

He crouched behind a protruding rock, his fingertips pressed against the spore receptors behind his ears.

The commotion from the direction of the base came through the chakra network, like a pot of boiling water.

But his attention wasn't there—his other hand was on the ground, sensing the faint chakra fluctuations coming from the direction of the Land of Fire's capital.

"It's so similar to the frequency Utara used back then..." he muttered to himself, his fingertip tracing a half-mark on the rock.

Utara was the strongest puppeteer of the previous generation. He died in an "accident" ten years ago, but Byakuya remembered how hot his hand was when he grabbed his wrist before he died: "A true puppeteer does not stand on the stage."

Sand got into his collar.

He looked up toward the capital, where the night sky was tinged with a dim yellow by lights, but it couldn't conceal the chakra signal underground, which, like a silkworm breaking out of its cocoon, slowly but firmly penetrated the rock strata.

“The puppeteer is dead, but the puppeteers are still here…” His voice was torn apart by the wind, “And this time they’ve learned to hide even better.”

He stood up, his figure disappearing into the shadow of the cliff.

The sound of pigeon whistling came from afar—it was a carrier pigeon sent by Chiyo, with a note tied to its claw that read, "The Five Kage will gather in Iron Lotus Valley in three days."

The rock walls of Iron Lotus Valley can block chakra detection, making it the most suitable neutral location for negotiations.

Bai Ye gently touched the wing of the carrier pigeon with his fingertips.

As the flock of pigeons took flight, he had already vanished into the sandstorm, leaving only an unfinished mark on the cliff edge, like some kind of seed about to sprout, stirring in the darkness.

The rock walls of Tielian Valley are like cast iron, cutting the midday sun into tiny gold flakes that fall onto the bluestone slabs of the venue.

The five Kage were seated in a semi-circle, with the Fourth Raikage, A, at the very front. His boots pounded heavily on the ground, his knuckles tapping the stone table with a dull thud. "These childish wooden puppets are hardly fit to guard the Kage Summit!" Before he finished speaking, his right fist, crackling with lightning, slammed into the wooden guardian statue on his left—a "crack" as wood chips landed on the hat of the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki. "If that bastard named Byakuya dares to come, I'll tear his arm off first before I ask any questions!"

In the shadow of the rock wall, Chiyo's fingertips gently tightened her cuffs.

She stared at the throbbing veins on the Raikage's neck, then glanced at the figure in a scarlet brocade robe beside the main seat—the newly appointed Finance Minister of the Land of Fire, Sojiro, was sipping tea with his eyes lowered, the rim of the teacup reflecting the corners of his slightly upturned lips. "Old man," Chiyo chuckled softly, "you think you can hide your ambition behind the steaming tea?"

In the underground river of the sewer, a shadow floats with the waves.

Bai Ye's back was pressed against the slippery rock wall, and the wood release chakra seeping from his palms was climbing up the rock crevice, translating every conversation above into vibrations that reached his nerve endings.

Chapter 903 An Unreasonable Request

He pulled out a fragment of a secret order from his pocket. The code, drawn in blood by Akahoshi before his death, still bore a dark brown tinge—Sōjirō intended to use the guise of a "wartime united cabinet" to string together the keys to the five national treasuries into his puppet state. "A fine 'centralizing power to end chaos'," he murmured, his thumb grinding the edge of the fragment. "Utara said the same thing ten years ago, and ended up being blown to bits by his own puppet."

Suddenly, the sound of tables and chairs being moved came from above.

Byakuya's eyelashes fluttered—it was Sojiro who got up.

He could "see" that figure through his Wood Release: a wide sleeve swept across the stone table, the jade pendant at his waist clinked crisply, and the curve of his lips was gentler than the ripples in a teacup: "My lords, I have a favor to ask..."

“Only by centralizing power can the chaos be ended.” Sojiro’s voice was like a knife dipped in honey. “Establish a joint cabinet, with each country electing trustworthy individuals to jointly manage financial allocations…” The Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, rubbed his wind-patterned headband with his thumb, Onoki’s cloudy eyes narrowed into slits, while the Raikage’s brows furrowed more and more tightly—he hated this kind of roundabout scheming the most.

Bai Ye tapped his knuckles three times on the rock face.

The earthenware urn hidden in the silt of the underground river cracked open, and green spores rose like mist, climbing up the rock crevices.

Each spore was wrapped in his chakra, like invisible roots penetrating the foundation of the meeting place.

When Sojiro said that "the selection criteria should be discussed jointly by the various countries' film studios," the first glimmer of light had already pierced through the cracks in the bluestone slabs.

"What is that?" The guards of Sunagakure were the first to notice.

All eyes followed his fingertips downwards—on the ground, tiny spots of light were spreading at a visible speed, and hundreds of thumb-sized spore golems emerged from the ground, their tentacles touching each other, creating a flowing curtain in mid-air.

On the screen, Sojiro's face suddenly became clear.

He was no longer the gentle figure he had been in the meeting hall. His wide sleeves billowed in the night wind as he stuffed an oilcloth package into Akahoshi's arms: "This is a map of the western border of the Land of Fire's military equipment. Take it to the people of the Land of Water..." Akahoshi's voice trembled: "My lord, kill the daimyo's puppet..."

"Shh—" Sojiro, behind the curtain, raised his index finger, his smile even wider than before. "Doesn't that puppeteer like to be a hero?"

Let him capsize the old ship for us, until the new one is built...

The air in the room suddenly froze.

Raikage's Adam's apple bobbed, his knuckles clenched until they turned white; Rasa's wind-patterned headband slid down half an inch, revealing his taut brow bone; Onoki slammed his cane heavily on the ground, making the teacup jump; Chiyo leaned back in her chair, looking at Sojiro behind the curtain, a hint of pity rising in her eyes—he should have known there would be a curtain call in this play.

Soujiro's teacup clattered to the ground.

He stared at the curtain hanging in mid-air, his lips parted but no sound came out, and sweat trickled down his temples, wetting the gold embroidery on his collar.

The Raikage's hand was already on the table, and the lightning dancing between his fingers scorched the stone surface. His gaze was like two lightning blades, piercing into Soujiro's back inch by inch.

The curtain is still moving.

In the next scene, Akahoshi is squatting in the puppet workshop, embedding tiny spores into the puppet's left eye—the very scene that Nanaho saw in the darkness.

"boom!"

Someone knocked over the candlestick.

Amidst the sound of flames licking the curtains, Sojiro staggered backward, his lower back slamming heavily against the stone wall.

He looked around at the gazes that had once been fawning, now all turned into poisoned arrows.

The Raikage's chair creaked and tipped over.

Chapter 904 Forgery

As he stood up, the shockwave he created knocked over the teacup on the table, and shards of porcelain grazed Sojiro's earlobe, leaving white marks on the wall.