Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

He grabbed his sword and slashed at the screen, cutting the gold-embroidered peony into pieces: "Seal off the city!"

Arrest all those who talk too much and throw them in jail!

And... He suddenly stopped, staring at the unopened secret letter on the desk—the eagle emblem of the Fire Kingdom's secret service gleamed coldly in the candlelight.

Meanwhile, in the teahouses of the western market of the capital.

Qi Sui lifted the lid of her teacup and listened to the whispers of two women at the next table: "Isn't that strange?"

My son, Afu, has been vomiting and having diarrhea ever since he ate the "war rations" issued by the government. Today, he suddenly stopped feeling pain and said he felt a warm flow in his stomach... She tapped her fingertips three times under the table—this was the secret service's signal. The carrier pigeons hidden on the beam of the teahouse fluttered up, and in the bamboo tube between their claws were rubbings of the people's wish pillar and a recording of Sojiro's recitation.

The top of an ancient pagoda on the outskirts of the city.

Byakuya gazed at the surging purple clouds above the capital—a natural resonance caused by an imbalance of chakra, like an inextinguishable fire.

He touched the fragment of the spore wristband in his pocket; Qi Sui's note was still there, the ink slightly blurred by his body heat.

Chapter 909 The Water Mirror Doesn't Lie

"You use the system to kill people, so I'll make the system betray you." He chuckled softly to the wind, his voice carried away by the breeze.

Footsteps suddenly came from below the tower, as light as a cat's.

As Bai Ye turned around, he saw a woman veiled in blue standing in the shadows, holding a secret token engraved with the emblem of the Land of Water. Water droplets dripped from the emblem, splashing tiny ripples on the bluestone slab: "Mr. Bai, the Water Shadow says..."

Before she could finish speaking, the woman's figure had already disappeared into the night.

Bai Ye gazed in the direction she had disappeared, his fingertips tracing the ripples on the secret order. Suddenly, he heard a low howl from the far south—not from a ninja beast, but more like...

“Shuiyue?” he murmured, frowning.

Where is that young man from Kirigakure who always loved to soak in the hot springs with his Executioner's Blade in my memory?

Deep in the rainforest of southern China, mist drifts over the hot spring pool.

Shuiyue squatted by the pond, her decapitation sword diagonally stuck at her feet, the tip of which held a blood-stained leaf headband.

He tilted his head back and took a swig of wine, a roguish smile playing on his lips: "Interesting. With the Land of Fire making such a fuss, why hasn't anyone come to invite me, 'Water Without Stain'?"

Suddenly, ripples appeared on the surface of the hot spring water, and a pale hand emerged from the water, grabbing his ankle.

The night mist of the southern rainforest, carrying the scent of decaying leaves, drifted over the hot spring pool, and Shuiyue's ankle was gripped painfully by the hand underwater.

As he looked down, the blue light on the water flickered, illuminating the bluish-purple veins crawling all over the back of his hand—resembling a dying person whose chakra had been drained.

"Let go." He bent down and grabbed the other's wrist, the hilt of the guillotine slamming heavily against the edge of the pool, splashing water droplets that wet the stray hairs on his forehead.

The person underwater suddenly pulled him, and he used the force to flip over and press down, only to see a pale face emerge from the water—a strange Kirigakure ninja, with unfocused pupils like those of a dead fish.

"His chakra has been drained." Suigetsu released his grip, and the genin's body sank back to the bottom of the pool, with bubbles rising to the surface.

He wiped the water from his face and glanced at the headband around the corpse's waist—the blue ripples of Kirigakure were faintly embroidered with the gold thread of the Fire Country Merchant Alliance.

"Interesting." He tore off the gourd and took a swig, the liquid dripping down his chin and into his collar. "So Soujiro's influence has reached Kirigakure?"

He pinched blood from his fingertips and dripped it into the blue-glowing hot spring.

The water surface suddenly surged, like a deep pool tossed with a boulder. "Water Mirror Reversal - Backflow!" he uttered, chakra seeping into the water along with the blood droplets, and an image gradually solidified on the surface—a merchant with gold-rimmed glasses stood before the Hidden Mist Village's high-level conference table, holding a parchment in his hand: "The Land of Fire is willing to acquire the Land of Water's fishing rights at three times the market price, and the profits can be used as wartime reserves."

Mei Terumi, sitting in the main seat, frowned slightly and was about to speak when her trusted advisor on her right quietly nodded to the businessman.

The advisor had a dark red birthmark behind his ear—Shuiyue remembered seeing this person three days ago in the Fog Shadow Black Market, when he was bribing an information dealer with gold notes.

"Soujiro's thread has already wrapped around the Mizukage's neck." Mizuki sneered, tapping the water's surface with his knuckles, causing the image to shatter like a broken mirror.

A faint rustling sound came from the bamboo grove beside the hot spring, like raindrops pattering on bamboo leaves.

Shuiyue picked up the decapitation sword and turned around, only to see a figure wearing a wet raincoat standing in the mist. Water dripped from the hem of the raincoat, forming small puddles on the bluestone slab.

"Mr. Bai, you've come at the perfect time." He tilted his head and smiled, the blade reflecting the fragments of the spore-patterned wristband hanging from the other's waist. "With the Land of Fire in such a state, you still have the leisure to concern yourself with the Land of Water?"

Chapter 910 What nonsense!

Bai Ye took off his raincoat and draped it over a bamboo branch, revealing a dark-patterned, fitted outfit underneath.

He pulled half a ledger from his robes; the edges of the pages were charred black, clearly salvaged from the inferno of the Fire Kingdom's secret service. "The Fire Kingdom's Chamber of Commerce acquired the Water Kingdom's fishing rights at three times the original price. Ostensibly aid, it's actually a way to lock up the country's finances with debt." He pointed to a specific page in the ledger. "It records here that the Water Kingdom's fishing output last year was equivalent to 10,000 taels of silver. A three-fold premium would be 30,000 taels, but the Chamber of Commerce demands repayment in twenty-year installments with an annual interest rate of 30%—"

"You'll have to repay 100,000 taels in twenty years, including principal and interest." Shuiyue continued, smashing her wine gourd against the edge of the pond with a "thud." "Once they can't repay it, Zongjiro can send officials to oversee the economy under the guise of 'economic supervision.' At that point, the Shuiying's orders won't be as effective as the Merchant Alliance's ledgers."

Bai Ye nodded: "If Terumi Mei falls, the new Mizukage will be a puppet." He looked towards the direction of Wuyin, the moonlight piercing through the clouds and shattering into cold light in his pupils, "We have to cut this string."

It was already late at night when the two reached the outer outpost of the Fog Shadow outpost.

Bai Ye raised his hand and pressed it against the damp rock wall. Spores from his sleeve fell into the cracks in the rocks, instantly blooming into a pale blue mist. "The sound of the tide," he whispered. In the distance, the roar of waves crashing against the rocks could be heard. The sentry's ears twitched, and he frowned as he looked towards the sea.

Shuiyue took out a token engraved with the old pattern of the Hidden Mist – it was a token he had kept when he was a member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, its edges worn smooth and shiny.

He swaggered to the sentry post, tapping his scabbard against the wooden fence: "Patrol shift change, move aside."

The guard, using the torchlight to see the command token clearly, changed his expression slightly: "The Seven...Seven Lords?"

"Stop talking nonsense." Shuiyue tugged at her cloak, covering half her face. "If the higher-ups are checking the treasury and it takes too long, can you afford the consequences?"

The guard hurriedly pushed open the fence.

Bai Ye followed behind him, and spores bloomed into tiny flowers on the soles of his shoes, erasing their footprints completely.

The stone door to the underground vault was rusty, and faint chakra fluctuations seeped from the cracks in the door.

Shuiyue used the back of her knife to pry open the door, and a musty smell mixed with the stench of blood rushed out.

There was no gold or silver in the vault, only dozens of Hidden Mist officials slumped on the ground, with hair-thin chakra threads inserted into the back of their necks, all the ends of which were connected to the crystal ball in the center.

The phantom of Sojiro floated in the crystal ball. He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and his voice hissed like a snake's tongue: "Push forward the 'Coastal Reform Plan' and take over the fishermen's land deeds to the Merchant Alliance. The more they protest, the more Mei Terumi will have to use force to suppress them... Once the public resentment piles up like a mountain, she won't be able to sit still as the Mizukage."

Shuiyue's knuckles clenched until they turned white, and the decapitation sword hummed as it was drawn half an inch from its sheath.

Bai Ye pressed down on his wrist, his gaze falling on the threads on the back of the officials' necks: "These threads use the secret puppetry technique of the Land of Fire, but the source of the chakra..." He squatted down, his fingertips lightly touching one of the threads, "is the underground water veins."

“Sōjirō hid his conspiracy underground.” He suddenly laughed, taking out a fragment of the spore wristband from his pocket. It was a relic of the First Hokage of Wood Release, and the patterns on its surface shone with an emerald light in the dark night. “He destroyed the crystal ball directly, and he can still make ten more.”

But if...

He stood up and walked towards the drain in the corner of the vault.

Moonlight streamed in through the ventilation window, illuminating the spores on his fingertips as they fell into the waterway, spreading along the underground water veins deeper into the Misty City.

“Let the land speak for itself,” he whispered, his voice as soft as a sigh.

The phantom of Sojiro in the crystal ball suddenly stopped, and the eyes behind the glasses widened sharply.

Chapter 911 Want to see the truth?

The phantom of Sojiro inside the crystal ball suddenly stopped, and the pupil behind the lens abruptly contracted to a pinpoint.

He could clearly sense that the chakra threads that should have been nurtured by the underground water veins were trembling strangely—as if countless fine teeth were gnawing at the roots of the threads.

As a cunning old fox who had manipulated the finances of the seven kingdoms, he immediately realized that this was not an ordinary chakra fluctuation, but more like... some kind of living thing climbing along the water veins.

"Impossible!" Dark purple chakra surged from his illusory fingertips as he tried to sever the connection with the threads, but the tremor instead surged into his sea of ​​consciousness through the mental link, causing him to stagger half a step in pain, his gold-rimmed glasses sliding down to the tip of his nose. "Has someone tampered with the underground water veins of Kirigakure?"

At this moment, in the shadows of the underground vault, Bai Ye's fingertips were pressed against the drain.

He could feel the spore bracer fragments burning in his palm, and the power of the First Hokage's Wood Release surged out along his chakra circuits, growing wildly along the water flow in the waterway.

Those pale blue spores bloom upon contact with water, drawing out translucent vines from the dark, sunless underground water veins. Each vine is wrapped in a layer of faint light—those are fragments of memories he forged with chakra: Soujiro sits at a table covered with red velvet, chuckling at the envoy from the Land of Lightning, “Once Mei Terumi steps down, the ports, fishing grounds, and mines of the Land of Water… will all belong to you, in exchange for thirty cartloads of explosive tags and a thousand lightning swords.”

"The net is closed," he said in a low voice, his Adam's apple bobbing.

Shuiyue noticed that the fine lines at the corners of his eyes tightened slightly under the torchlight—a small gesture Baiye made before taking action, like a hunter's final calibration before pulling the trigger.

The next day at 3:45 AM, the sandalwood incense in the Misty Hidden Council Hall had just burned down to its second stick.

Mei Terumi sat upright in the main seat covered with sharkskin, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the hilt of the guillotine at her waist.

She could sense that something was off today—the finance officer, Kamei, who usually loved to speak up, was now staring at the back of his hand, trembling, with the veins on the back of his neck throbbing as if something was crawling under his skin.

"Regarding the coastal reform proposal—" she had just begun to speak when Kamei suddenly stood up abruptly, his teacup shattering on the bluestone floor with a clatter.

His eyes were bloodshot as he stared intently at the water shadow in the main seat, his voice sounding as if it had been sanded: "Mei Terumi!"

You've been tricked by Sojiro!

He said that once you step down, he'll sell the Land of Water to the Land of Lightning in exchange for arms!

The whole place was dead silent.

The elder on the left slammed his fist on the table and stood up: "Kamei, have you gone mad?"

The advisor on the right, however, turned pale—he recognized the faint thread on the back of Kamei's neck as exactly the same as the one on the back of his own neck three days ago.

Mei Terumi's pupils suddenly contracted.

She abruptly stood up, chakra condensing into a water blade in her palm, which pierced the floorboards at Kame's feet: "Seal off the council chamber!" Her voice pierced everyone's eardrums like an ice pick. "All officials remain in place, and the guards will guard the doors and windows."

Shuiyue emerged from behind the pillar, a decapitation sword resting on his shoulder, its blade reflecting the terrified faces of the crowd: "Want to see the truth?" He flicked his wine gourd, splashing wine onto the ground. "Water Mirror Reversal - Reveal the Truth!"

The wine spread across the ground, forming a mirror that reflected the scene from last night's vault: Sojiro's phantom was plotting against the crystal ball, and the silk threads on the back of the necks of officials like Kamei shimmered with an eerie purple hue in the image.

"These threads are connected to underground water veins," Bai Ye's voice came from the dome.

Chapter 912 I'm not the mastermind!

Everyone looked up and saw countless pale blue vines hanging down along the cracks in the rocks. The fluorescent light on the vines connected and projected a dense array of numbers—the details of the loan from the Fire Country Merchant Alliance to Kirigakure, the annual interest calculation, the twenty-year debt snowball, and even the draft of the secret letter between Soujiro and the envoy from the Land of Lightning.

Mei Terumi dug her nails deep into her palm.

She gazed at the projection on the dome, then at the faint threads on the back of Kamei's neck, and suddenly laughed: "So the most dangerous enemy isn't the masked ninja, but the merchant with the ledger." She turned to Kamei, pressing a water blade against his throat, "Tell me, who controls these threads?"

Kame suddenly trembled violently, and the silk thread at the back of his neck snapped with a "snap".

He collapsed to the ground, his face streaked with tears and snot: "I don't know... I only remember someone saying that signing the papers would cure my child... Lord Mizukage, I really didn't know..."

Bai Ye stood on the roof outside the council hall, watching the moonlight leak through the gaps in the clouds, casting silver frost on the tiles.

He took out half of the spore wristband and stuffed it into Shuiyue's hand, who had just climbed onto the roof: "If there is any further disturbance, let it sink to the bottom of the sea." The fragment of the wristband still carried the warmth of his palm. "Wood Release spores will grow wildly when they encounter seawater, and can shred all underground threads."

Shuiyue gripped her wristband and suddenly raised an eyebrow: "Mr. Bai, are you leaving?"

"The sky over the Land of Fire is about to collapse." Byakuya gazed north, where the sky was a dark red, like cotton soaked in blood. "Sōjirō can't hold on any longer... He's about to initiate the final 'sacrifice procedure.'" He turned and leaped into the shadows, his voice carried away by the night wind, "Keep an eye on Terumi Mei for me; she'll be the key."

As his figure disappeared into the morning mist, deep beneath the capital of the Land of Fire, a stone monument inscribed with the names of daimyo from various countries was rising completely.

A man wearing a kimono embroidered with gold thread was kneeling in front of the monument—it was Sojiro.

His right hand pressed into the indentation in the center of the stone tablet, and blood meandered along the inscription, staining the three characters "Water Kingdom" a glaring red.

“I’m sorry, Father.” He whispered to the stone tablet, his voice filled with a morbid madness, “But if the Land of Fire is to stand at the top of the ninja world, someone has to be sacrificed…including myself.”

In the hidden compartment behind the stone tablet, a "shadow puppet" wrapped in black silk slowly opened its eyes, its pupils reflecting Sojiro's twisted smile.

The damp, musty smell from the ground, mixed with the smell of rust, filled his nostrils. Sojiro knelt before the stone tablet engraved with the names of daimyo from various countries, and beads of blood from his fingertips meandered along the indentation of the three characters "Land of Water".

The yellowed copy of "The Will of Fire: Hidden Chapter" in his arms rustled in the night wind, and the last incantation rolled out from his trembling lips: "When the nine shadows tremble, the shadow of the nation will appear."

The puppet, entwined in black silk, suddenly emitted a creaking sound as its bones rubbed together.

Sojiro looked up abruptly, cold sweat dripping down his chin and splattering onto the stone tablet—the "Shadow Puppet" that should have been still was slowly straightening up, its seven-point shaped face flickering in the dim light, but its eyes were lifeless, dark holes that seemed to suck away all light.

"Hahahaha!" He suddenly burst into maniacal laughter, blood seeping from the crack in his right hand pressed against the stone tablet. "I told you... I told you I wasn't the mastermind!" He staggered toward the puppet's feet, his fingernails digging into the bluestone slab. "Father always said I was useless, that the treasurer was nothing but a puppet of the daimyo... But now?"

I have awakened the true puppeteer!

The stone bricks of the underground passage were worn with tiny cracks from being stepped on. Bai Ye walked along the damp stone wall, the kunai in his palm reflecting a ghostly blue fluorescence.

Chapter 913 The Only Thing That Can Sever the Connection Between the Shadow of the National System and the National Lifeline

Suddenly, a metallic scraping sound came from ahead—the sound of a puppet's joints turning.

He held his breath, watching Akahoshi's figure emerge from around the corner. The cloud patterns on his ANBU uniform were soaked with blood, and his eyes were as empty as two stagnant pools of water.

"Red Star." Bai Ye called out softly, but did not rush to draw his kunai.

He noticed that the trajectory of the kunai the opponent swung was half a beat slower than the standard "three-hit combo" of the Sunagakure Anbu, and that the wrist would tremble slightly before exerting force—that was the controlled body fighting against the remaining consciousness.

The Red Star's puppet troops surrounded them in a fan shape, and the sound of the mechanical puppets turning their gears was particularly jarring in the narrow passage.

Bai Ye took a half step back, and a half-spore of Wood Release sprang from his sleeve. With a light flick of his fingertip, the spore drifted like fine snow toward the crystal card on the back of Akahoshi's neck.