Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

“My grandmother said that she used to deliver medicine to the Tsuchikage when she was young.” The girl with pigtails held up the Iwagakure headband she was holding. “She said that Lord Onoki was missing half of his left pinky finger—but the one now has a whole hand!”

“My dad repaired the Raikage’s armor!” another boy said, waving a ceramic shard. “He said the real Raikage’s armor has ‘Cloud Village Never Dies’ engraved on the inside, and there aren’t any new ones!”

The children drew closer and closer, and Ah Jiu's temples throbbed.

He recalled that last night, when he was erasing words by the well, the reflection in the well water was not his own face, but his mother's—twenty years ago, his mother worked as a cook in a house in the Land of Fire, and always said that "the First Hokage's Wood Release can bloom rainbow flowers," but Shige's textbooks said that "Wood Release is a sorcery."

He suddenly shoved the child aside, and the poison sac fell to the ground with a "thud," splattering pink powder all over his shoes.

"I...I have something to do!" He staggered away, the pottery shards grazing his calves and tearing a gash at his trouser leg.

That night, Ajiu huddled in the leaky, dilapidated house.

He stared at the reflection in the water vat, when suddenly ripples appeared on the surface—not rain, but seven blue characters emerging from the bottom of the vat: "Your mother remembers differently."

His hands trembled violently as he grabbed the secret order on the table, ready to tear it up.

Just as the corner of the paper touched the candlelight, the faint sound of camel bells drifted in from outside the window, mingled with the aroma of tea.

He suddenly remembered that his mother, before she died, held his hand and said not the "loyalty" taught by the historian, but "trust your own eyes."

The secret order curled into a black butterfly in the fire. He knelt on the ground and cried out as he looked at the words in the water vat.

The morning bell of the City of Fire shattered the dawn.

Speaker Shi stood in the center of the altar, a corner of his black robe embroidered with the character "Shi" fluttering in the wind.

A thousand ninjas below the stage formed hand seals like a tidal wave, their fire-style chakra condensing into crimson-gold patterns beneath their feet—this was his final gamble, using the chakra of five living people from five countries to seal the memory tree, causing the memories of all awakened individuals to sink back into the deep lake.

"Orthodox oath, begin!" He raised the scepter inlaid with blood jade, and flames ten feet long shot up from the braziers at the four corners of the altar.

But just as the flames shot into the air, a pale purple petal floated in.

The second petal, the third petal... millions of petals surged in from all directions, like clouds scattered by the wind.

Chapter 962 Northern Oral History Museum

A petal landed on the speaker's shoulder, and his pupils contracted sharply—a memory floated on the petal: the character "真" (true) that the Third Mizukage, Yagura, carved on the glass coffin before his tongue was cut off.

“We remember.”

The first soft recitation came from the street corner.

The second sound comes from the teahouse.

"We remember!"

The people of the entire Fire City flooded the streets. The old held up yellowed family letters, the women held up ancestral headbands, and the children clutched pottery shards, bronze mirrors, and clay dolls with missing ears.

They reached out and caught the petals, memories flooding back to the altered years—it turned out that the Raikage's armor really did have "Cloud Hidden Immortal" inside, that Onoki really was missing half of his little finger on his left hand, and that the First Hokage's Wood Release could really bloom rainbow flowers.

The wind on the mountaintop whipped up the cloak of the white night.

He knelt on one knee, his palm deeply embedded in the soil, and the First Hokage's chakra burrowed into the ground as if it were alive.

The roots of the Five Kingdoms Memory Tree surged within his consciousness, like countless green rivers.

A muffled thud came from afar; it was the "shadow substitute" experimental subject, controlled by Shi Ge using puppetry, disintegrating. Spores mixed with dust rose into the sky, fell into the collars of ordinary people, seeped into the steam of teacups, and permeated every erased mark.

On the altar, the speaker's scepter clattered to the ground.

He stared at the cracked stone slab beneath his feet, a thick vine of truth wrapping around his ankle, words slowly emerging from its surface: "What you said doesn't count as a root."

"You...you will destroy the order!" he roared as he tried to pull at the vines, but they tightened around him, and memory petals kept getting into his mouth—he remembered that when he was ten years old, he found a volume of "The First Hokage's Notes" in the Shige Library, which said, "True order is when every voice can be heard."

At the foot of the mountain, green leaves gaze up at the boundless green rain.

He touched the uneven stitches on his undershirt; those were the first half of the "Shadow Impersonator List," which had already drifted to the five countries with the spores.

The wind ruffled the stray hairs on his forehead, and he whispered to the wind, and to himself, "Will I be the next one to tell the truth?"

On the mountaintop outside the City of Fire, green spores still drifted down, clinging to the folds of White Night's cloak like scattered fragments of jade.

The ground where he knelt on one knee was warmed by his palm. The First Hokage's chakra seeped into the ground through his fingers, weaving a glowing network of roots in his consciousness—the branches of the Five Kingdoms Memory Tree resonated with the hidden memories of millions of ordinary people, like countless strings being plucked by the wind, creating a buzzing vibration in his mind.

Suddenly, the vibrato of one of the strings became disordered.

Bai Ye's eyelashes trembled slightly, and her fingertips tightened slightly in the soil.

He could clearly sense that a fragment of memory from the far north snowfield was climbing against the direction of the roots, but it suddenly broke off halfway, as if the tail end had been shredded by invisible scissors.

He closed his eyes, and his chakra flowed upstream along the broken line like a fish. A mottled scene appeared before him: a wooden building engulfed in flames, half a roll of parchment scattered under the charred beams, the edges of the pages still stained with wet ink, and an old man's voice roaring in the thick smoke: "History that cannot be remembered is sharper than a knife!"

"The Northern Oral History Museum." Bai Ye's Adam's apple bobbed.

He had seen this name in the fragments of the First Hokage's notes—a civilian memory bank that had been burned down by Shigeo thirty years ago under the pretext of "spreading heresies," and all the recorders were executed as "traitors."

Those fragmented memories at this moment are the final roar of the last recorder in the oral history museum before he breathed his last.

Chapter 963 The Mission Did Not Submit

"The roots aren't dead, it's just that nobody listens," he muttered to himself, the wind carrying spores into his collar, a chill creeping up his spine.

On the edge of the far northern snowfield, Kazama Shin's hut was half-lowered by the weight of the accumulated snow.

He huddled in front of the drafty wooden table, his quill brush leaving a large ink stain on the parchment.

“Today, words have resurfaced in the well water—'Your father was not a traitor.'” His trembling hand gripped the pen, his knuckles turning white.

Twenty years ago, he was the youngest clerk in the Shige Pavilion. He had seen the forged "Decree of Kazama Heita's Treason" with his own eyes. He only asked one question, "Where is the evidence?" before he was exiled to this border region where snow falls all year round.

The fire in the stove flickered. He stuffed the diary he had written into the ashes at the bottom of the stove and was about to close the lid when a crisp "click" sound came from outside the window.

He looked up abruptly, and there it was—a pale purple vine sprouting from the roots of the old pine tree behind the back window. The petals on the vine were slowly unfurling, and on each petal floated a line of small words: "You're right, we burned the wrong thing."

Kazama Shin's breathing suddenly became rapid.

He staggered to the window, his fingertips barely touching the petals when memories flooded back—the copper whistle his father had thrown at him on the day he was taken to the execution ground was still warm in his arms; the ink on the "treason order" in the deepest secret room of the History Archives was suspiciously fresh; the old curator of the Northern Oral History Museum patted him on the shoulder and said, "Xiao Xin, history is not written on paper, it grows in people's hearts."

“Father…” He knelt on the ground, his forehead pressed against the frosty window frame, tears falling onto the snow, “They finally heard us.”

The next morning, he tore down the Shige Chronology that had been hanging on the wall for twenty years. The silk scroll with the words "In the winter of the third year of the Tianqi reign, the Northern Envoys surrendered" written in gold paint was torn to pieces.

He picked up a charcoal pencil and wrote heavily on the back of the chronology: "Draft of the true chronology - Winter of the third year of the Tianqi reign: The delegation did not surrender; they were lured and killed at a border post station."

Three days later, in the dead of night, Bai Ye, wrapped in a heavy snow robe, sneaked into the snowfield.

He stood under the old pine tree outside Kazama's hut, looking up at the flickering lamplight on the window paper.

With a gentle press of his fingertips against the rough roof pillar, pale green chakra, like a thin snake, burrowed into the wood grain and seeped into the ground along the cracks in the foundation.

The unique vitality of the First Generation Wood Release spread beneath the frozen soil, infusing every drop of groundwater with the remaining memories of the Northern Oral History Museum.

"Go," he whispered to the cold wind.

The first person to notice the abnormality was an elderly woman from Dongtou Village.

She scooped up some well water to brew tea when ripples suddenly appeared on the surface. A line of small, dark characters floated up from the bottom of the well: "In the winter of the third year of the Tianqi reign, the envoy delegation did not surrender; they were lured and killed." Her hand trembled, and the copper basin clattered to the ground, waking her grandson who was sleeping by the stove.

"Grandma, there are words in the well!" the child exclaimed from the edge of the well. Before he could finish speaking, a scream came from the well in the next village.

Within half a day, the same message appeared simultaneously in the wells of more than ten villages within a radius of a hundred miles.

Villagers gathered around the well with lanterns in hand. An old man ran his frostbitten fingers along the writing on the well wall, a woman held her child on her shoulders to look, and even the most unruly boy quieted down and recited the truth that had been buried for thirty years.

The hunters from the Shige arrived at noon on the third day.

Three teams of black-clad ninjas approached Dongtou Village, their kunai gleaming coldly as they trudged through the snow.

The leading Jonin waved his hand, and two Chunin stepped forward to smash the well, but were stopped by more than twenty villagers wielding hoes.

Chapter 964 People's Elected Shadow

"If you dare touch this well, you'll have to step over us first!" The old village chief stood trembling in front of the well, with a woman holding an infant in her arms, an old man leaning on a cane behind him, and even a toddler clutching a small wooden stick, shouting in a childish voice, "Don't smash it!"

The leading Jonin frowned.

He saw the mantra vines climbing along the well railing, the words on the petals moving like living things; he heard the villagers' chanting mixed with subtle resonances—it was the awakened memory vibrating in the collective consciousness.

For a moment, he suddenly remembered a story his grandmother told him to lull him to sleep when he was twelve: "In the snows of the North, there once lived a group of people who risked their lives to protect the truth."

"Withdraw." He gritted his teeth, and as he turned around, the sole of his boot crushed a petal of the Word of Truth.

As the petals shattered, he heard his grandmother's voice from his memory become clearer: "Remember, the truth has roots, and it cannot be cut off."

In the shrine of Amegakure, Orihime was kneeling before the shrine.

A faint light shone beneath her blind eyelids as her fingertips unconsciously traced the rim of the water bowl.

Suddenly, ripples appeared in the water in the bowl, and the concentric circles of ripples shattered the reflected candlelight.

She suddenly raised her head, a faint smile appearing on her pale face.

"The roots... have sprouted again," she whispered, her voice carried away by the wind from the shrine and into the approaching twilight.

On the mountaintop outside the City of Fire, White Night's knuckles sank deeply into the damp soil.

As the First Generation Wood Release chakra surged into a green mist in his palm, seeping into the lands of the five countries along the root network, he suddenly sensed a subtle tremor coming from the direction of Amegakure—it was Orihime's chakra fluctuation, carrying the coolness of the sacred pool water, resonating with the root network of the Memory Tree in some ancient priestess incantation.

"It's starting." He chuckled softly, his shoulders and back relaxing slightly beneath his snow robe.

Three days ago, when he pushed the fragments of the Northern Oral History Museum's memories along the underground water veins to the snowy village, he deliberately separated a strand of chakra to entangle with the undercurrent of the Rain Fortress.

At this moment, that wisp of chakra was trembling violently, like a wind chime being blown by the wind, striking the strings of his consciousness.

Inside the shrine of Amegakure, Orihime's white wooden clogs crunched over the moss-covered ground.

A faint blue light flickered beneath her blind eyelids, and her right hand always protected the earthenware urn in front of her chest—the urn contained fragments of memories transmitted by Bai Ye through her roots: the old curator of the North's last roar, the tear stains on Kazama Shin's face as he tore the timeline, and the truth that floated up in the well water of Dongtou Village.

"Please, my lords," she called softly to the rear shrine.

The moment the curtain was lifted, three hunched figures staggered in, leaning on their canes.

They all had dark brown scars on their throats—marks left by Shige's "Silence Technique," which had resulted in the loss of his vocal cords ten years ago for privately spreading the First Hokage's "people's elected Kage" remarks.

As Orihime poured the water from the earthenware jar into the sacred pond, the Mantra Vine, which had been dormant at the bottom of the pond, suddenly stretched out its branches and leaves as her fingertips brushed across the surface.

The three old ninjas knelt tremblingly by the pool. As soon as their calloused fingers touched the water, the eldest of them suddenly swallowed hard.

“The first generation once said—” The hoarse voice, like a gong rusted for ten years, shook the shrine’s beams and pillars, causing dust to fall. “The shadow should be chosen by the people, not determined by history.”

The second person spoke up immediately, his voice trembling with tears: "When he erected the monument in the Valley of the End, he said that the power of the Kage should be held in the hands of farmers, blacksmiths, and baby carriers, not in the hands of those who wield pens!" The third person's fingers dug deeply into the edge of the pool, blood seeping from under his nails: "Shige burned the monument, burned the manuscript, but we remember! Our disciples remember! Our disciples' disciples—" He suddenly coughed violently, blood splattering onto the water's surface, where a line of small, gold-painted characters emerged from the ripples—the very handwriting of the First Hokage.

Chapter 965 The Truth Revealed

Outside the shrine, spore-bearing pigeons fluttered their wings.

Seven carrier pigeons, their leg rings adorned with silk stained with the sacred pool water, flew swiftly toward the Land of Earth.

In Iwagakure, the Village of Hidden Stones in the Land of Earth, Onoki is using Earth Release to repair the Shadow Rock that was split by a lightning storm.

There were still bits of gravel stuck in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes when he suddenly felt a gust of wind sweep over his head.

As he reached out to catch the carrier pigeon, the watermarks on the silk revealed a line of words, the ink gradually turning gold with his body heat: "The first generation once said that the shadow should be chosen by the people, not determined by history."

Old Tu Ying's pupils suddenly contracted.

He remembered that at Hashirama Senju's funeral fifty years ago, the priest sent by Shigeo had publicly burned a bamboo scroll, saying it was "a madman's nonsense."

At this moment, he saw that the handwriting on the silk matched perfectly with the fragments of Hashirama's manuscript that he had secretly copied years ago.

"Get the carving knife!" he roared, his voice shaking the tiles of the Hidden Rock Tower. "Carve this sentence at the very top of Shadow Rock!"

When the two Iwagakure Jonin arrived carrying carving knives, Onoki had already crushed the surface of the Kage Rock with his bare hands.

His calloused thumb traced the newly exposed rock face, chakra seeping into it, coated with gold dust: "Make a hundred copies, and distribute them to the village chiefs. Tell them—" He paused, his Adam's apple bobbing, "tell them that the position of Kage should be decided by them."

Meanwhile, in an abandoned cave on the outskirts of Konoha, Aoba was wiping the feces stains from her hair with decaying leaves.

He hid in the cesspool for three days and three nights, until the footsteps of the Shige Hunter Ninja were completely gone.

At that moment, he trembled as he removed the hairpin, and the crystal hidden inside the hollow hairpin tube fell onto the stone platform with a "ding".

He had snatched this from the dying recorder when he risked his life to infiltrate the Scott Dungeon—the old man said that the chip contained "a secret more precious than the head of the daimyo of the Land of Fire."

He used his dagger to draw a simple chakra replay array on the ground, then bit his fingertip and let three drops of blood drip out.

The chip suddenly lit up with a red light, and the image projected on the cave wall made his blood freeze: the image showed the Hokage from twenty years ago, before he grew his signature white beard, kneeling in front of Shige's ebony altar.

The masked priest held a bone knife, the tip pressed against his brow: "Remember, you must become him, but he cannot exist."