Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

“Shadow double…” Aoba’s nails dug deeply into her palm.

He finally understood why the current Hokage obeyed Shigeru's requests so readily—he wasn't the real Hokage at all, but a "substitute" with implanted memories.

Wolf howls echoed outside the cave, but he felt a chill, colder than a wolf's bite, creep up his spine.

He picked up a stone slab and carved on the cave wall: "The current Hokage is a substitute for the Kage, and Shige controls the Kage's power—" Halfway through carving, the stone slab shattered, so he simply used his blood to continue writing, and finally pressed the seed of the Mantra Vine onto the blood-written words: "When the seed sprouts, the truth will be revealed."

At the border of Sunagakure Village, Chiyo is using a magnifying glass to inspect a basket of "Memory Tea" in front of the exchange booth.

The tiny buds of the Mantra Vine mixed in with the tea leaves were as fine as cow hair, yet they shimmered faintly under her chakra perception.

“This batch will be sent to the Land of Lightning.” She nodded to the Sunagakure ANBU member disguised as a groom, and as she turned around, she caught a glimpse of a “merchant” in a gray cloth shirt rummaging through a tea basket for tinder.

"Watch out!" The ANBU ninja had barely shouted when the merchant unleashed his fire jutsu.

The moment the orange-red flames touched the tea basket, the ground suddenly cracked open, and pale purple vines wrapped in wet mud shot out, like countless whips extinguishing the flames.

The petals on the vines flipped over simultaneously, revealing the words on the inside: "Fire cannot burn away the roots."

Chapter 966 Roots Firmly Established

The vendor's mask was blown off by the blast wave, revealing Scott's distinctive snake-shaped tattoo.

His pupils dilated in shock. He turned to run away, but was dragged back by vines that entangled his ankles.

Chiyo approached, leaning on her cane, and poked the tattoo on his forehead with her fingertip: "Tell your chairman that back then, the oral history museum was burned down, the stone tablet was burned down, and now—" She bent down and picked up a burnt tea leaf, "the roots are in the well, in the tea, and under the soles of every foot that has stepped on this land."

That night, Chiyo unfolded a map of the five countries in the secret room of Sunagakure.

Three hundred and twenty-seven fluorescent markers flickered on the map, representing spontaneously appearing memory points in various places: the well platform in the snowfield, the old locust tree at the entrance of the village in the Land of Earth, the hot spring stone wall in the Land of Lightning... Her fingers traced the recently lit Konoha cave marker, and she suddenly chuckled: "The little kids know how to pick a place, choosing a cave in the old Uchiha territory—the remnant roots of the divine tree planted by Madara back then, which can best protect the truth."

As the wind swept across the mountain ridge, carrying fine snow across the snowfield, Bai Ye stood on a high slope.

His snow-white robe was covered with frost, yet he could still clearly see the smoke rising from the distant village—a crowd had gathered around the well in Dongtou Village, some running with cloths bearing rubbings of “People’s Election”, others nailing wooden plaques inscribed with the truth to the old pine tree at the village entrance.

He gazed at the land nourished by the roots of memory, his Adam's apple bobbing, but in the end he simply pressed his palm against his chest.

There are marks there where the First Hokage's chakra was condensed, and they are gently warming up as the earth below trembles.

"The roots have only just taken hold," he said to the wind, his voice carried further north by the snowflakes.

Snowflakes landed on Bai Ye's eyelashes, condensing into tiny ice crystals.

He gazed at the well platform in Dongtou Village—six children were standing on tiptoe to reach the well curb, using their frostbitten fingers to trace the characters seeping from the cracks in the stone, while the old people, wrapped in coarse cloth, gathered around the stove, tucking newly copied pages into their clothes.

Smoke from the chimneys carried the sound of recitation: "The tax register of the Fire Kingdom has been missing for three years, that year there was a great drought..." The voice faded, torn to shreds by the wind.

His Adam's apple moved.

The day before yesterday, on the border of the Land of Lightning, he witnessed an even more tragic silence—a peasant woman held up her son's broken sword and cried out that the "bandit suppression" was a lie, but no one dared to respond to her; yesterday, in the mines of the Land of Earth, the miners carved the truth onto the coal, only to have it dumped into the furnace basket by basket by the overseer.

"So what if the roots are firmly planted?" He reached for the deerskin bag in his arms, inside which lay half a charred diary, the edges of the pages still curled from the burning by Shige—it was a fragment of a page that Kazama Shin had hidden in the rafters before his exile, the ink stains still carrying the scent of ink and the rust of blood.

The moment my fingertips brushed against the cover of the diary, the original mark on my palm suddenly became hot.

Byakuya closed his eyes, and chakra flowed along his meridians to his fingertips, condensing into a tender green bud on the snow.

The moment Muya touched the diary, the charred pages suddenly unfurled, the writing rose and then vanished, transforming into tiny particles of light that seeped into Muya's veins.

“Memory frequency…” he murmured. This was a method that Kazama Shin had realized on his way to exile—words can be burned, sounds can be swallowed, but frequencies can be hidden in the rings of a tree.

He walked down the slope to the old pine tree that took three people to encircle.

The snow piled up at the pine roots was sunken, revealing dark brown soil.

Bai Ye knelt on one knee, and Mu Ya pushed through the frozen soil, plunging into the deepest part of the pine roots.

The pine needles suddenly trembled, each needle emitting a faint golden light, as if sending some unseen tremor into the ground.

“Specific wind speed…” He looked up at the wind, snow particles slanting past, “Northwest, level three.” The pine needles suddenly vibrated faster, and in the distance, the old locust tree in the east village and the birch tree in the west village lit up with a faint light, forming a pale golden net.

"That's ten li enough." He stood up, the hem of his snow robe stained with mud.

The sound of the wind rustling through the pine needles was just like the clear voice of Kazama Shin when he was reading in the village school—the teacher who always wrote "what history books say may not be true" on the blackboard, was now living in a different way.

"Mr. Bai!"

A shout came from down the slope.

Bai Ye turned her head and saw a little girl with a red scarf running up to her carrying a stack of papers. The pom-pom on her head fluttered in the wind. "There are more words on the well platform! It says... it says the shadow of the Land of Thunder is listening to the people!" She looked up, the ice crystals on her eyelashes sparkling. "Did you bring these?"

Bai Ye crouched down and brushed the snow off her nose with his fingertips: "You brought it yourselves." As he stood up, a page in the little girl's arms was flipped open by the wind, and the words "List of Shadow Standees" made his pupils shrink slightly—this must be the handwriting of Onodera Ren.

As the musty smell of the Konoha Archives filled his nostrils, Onodera Ren was using tweezers to pick up a piece of silk as thin as a cicada's wing.

The handwriting on the silk was as fine as mosquito legs. It was the "List of Shadow Substitutes" that she had copied for three nights with a night owl quill pen: "Hokage Senju Genma, Kazekage Shamon..." The last line was a note written in blood by Aoba: "Shige controls five countries with shadow substitutes. The truth is in the roots of memory."

She looked up at the water clock on the wall—it was three quarters past midnight, time for the night watchmen to change shifts.

She quickly stuffed the silk into the lining of a copy of the "Tax Register of the Third Year of Yonghui in the Land of Fire," and traced a crescent-shaped mark on the lower right corner of the cover with her fingertip—this was the "safety mark" she had agreed upon with Qingye: if the mark remained intact after three days, it meant that the list had not been intercepted by Shige; if the mark turned into starlight, it meant that Qingye had received it on the other end.

"Lieutenant Lian?"

The sound of guards' footsteps echoed outside the door.

Onodera Ren's hand trembled, and the tax book almost fell to the ground.

She quickly stuffed the tax register into the sandalwood box that was being transported to the Scott's main treasury, deliberately leaving a small crack when she closed the lid—the Scott's inspector always liked to rummage through the boxes in the middle of the night, and leaving a crack would lure him to touch that scratch.

The next day at dawn, the sound of the transport team's horses' hooves shattered the morning mist.

Onodera Ren stood in the archive tower, watching eighteen carriages covered with tarpaulins drive out of Konoha's south gate.

The wind lifted a corner of the tarpaulin, and she caught a glimpse of the crescent-shaped scratch on the top box, her throat tightening.

“This time,” she said to the wind, her voice as soft as a sigh, “let it not get burned again.”

The Cloud Village's "Shadow Detection Hearing" was held at the foot of Thunderstorm Cliff.

Bee's lightning chakra crackled all around him, but it couldn't drown out the commotion from the audience.

An old ninja, leaning on a cane, squeezed to the front of the stage. The scar on his neck resembled a grotesque centipede. "My son died three years ago during a 'border bandit suppression' operation, but the battle report said there was no one in that forest!" He held up a yellowed battle report. "Lord Kage, I want to know who killed my son!"

Bi's fists were clenched so tightly they turned white.

This was the first time he had allowed civilians to go up Thunderstorm Cliff—every Raikage had said that "the people only need to obey," but the day before, he found a petal of the Mantra Vine under the Thunderfall with the words "Suppressing bandits? That's suppressing memory miners."

He waved his hand, and the secret service immediately brought over a stack of dusty files.

Chapter 967 Echo Platform

The cover of the top book, "Tax Register of the Third Year of Yonghui," had a crescent-shaped scratch. As soon as it was opened, a pale purple petal floated out from the interlayer, and the words were illuminated by lightning: "The mineral vein is in the Forest of Memory, the miners record the truth, and the Secretary wants to silence them."

The audience suddenly fell silent.

The old ninja's scar twitched as he trembled and reached for the flower petals, his fingertips touching Bee's palm—the Raikage hadn't activated Lightning Release.

"From this day forward," Bee's voice shook the cliff face, causing rocks to fall, "the walls of Kumogakure will listen to the people!" He tore off his lightning-patterned cloak and stuck flower petals to the center of the high wall of the Kage's quarters. "Anyone who wants to speak, speak here; anyone who dares to cover their mouth, I, the Raikage, will be the first to strike them down!"

As the applause erupted, the old pine trees on the snow-covered plain trembled in the north wind.

Kazama Shin, wrapped in a faded gray shirt, squatted under the tree, his ear pressed against the rough bark—there was a faint buzzing sound, much like the insect chirping he heard in ancient books when he was copying them at the Shige Pavilion.

He straightened up, looked at the newly hung wooden sign on the well platform in the east village, and then at the growing number of villagers gathered under the old locust tree in the west.

“Songjinghui…” He touched the burl of the old locust tree, where a small bump had appeared out of nowhere, and it felt like a seed was hidden inside.

The wind swept through the treetops, and the trembling of pine needles, the murmuring of the well platform, and the humming of the old locust tree suddenly merged into one sound in his ears.

He turned and ran towards the village school, rummaged through a broken desk and pulled out half a blackboard, then carried over a gleaming wooden stick—

“We need to build a platform for these sounds,” he said to the setting sun, drawing a semicircle with his stick under the old locust tree. “Let’s call it… Echo Platform.” The branches of the old locust tree trembled slightly in the wind, and Kazama Shin’s knuckles pressed against the rough bark, his fingertips still tingling from the patting motion.

Three children crowded around his feet, their little hands red from the cold mimicking his movements: first two light taps, then a heavy pat, and finally three taps in a row—this was his "root language" modified based on the vibration frequency of pine needles, using the intricate root system underground as a conduit.

The shortest little girl could never remember the rhythm, and would burst out laughing as he patted her, the pom-pom on her head making his trouser legs itch.

"Sister, try again!" He squatted down and took the little girl's hand. "Listen, the tree is breathing." Sure enough, a faint humming sound came from the old locust tree's rings, like a heartbeat being awakened.

The little girl's eyes lit up, and her fingertips followed the rhythm, moving up and down. This time, she actually managed to capture the first half of the "Root Language" in its entirety.

Kazama Shin's throat tightened—three years ago, when he was copying in the Shige, he always wrote "The voice of the people should have legs" under the inkstone. He was whipped thirty times after the overseer found out. Now, these hands that had been beaten are teaching the children to give the voice legs made of tree roots.

"Sir!" The old hunter from the west end stumbled over, his wine gourd jingling at his waist. "The well... the words are floating in the well!" Kazama Shin suddenly stood up, snowflakes sliding down his shoulders.

He followed the old hunter toward the well at the east end of the village. Before he got close, he heard a gasp—a dozen villagers were standing on tiptoe, craning their necks, by the well curb paved with bluestone slabs.

A yellowed piece of paper floated in the well water, the ink blurred by the water, but it could still be barely made out: "Received from Beiling Village. List of Fire City. Protect it well."

"It's a reply from the neighboring village!" The little girl tugged at his clothes, her voice trembling with joy, almost crying.

Kazama Shin pulled out half a blackboard from his pocket, on which he had crookedly written Morse code that he had sent to the tree roots the night before: "City of Fire, a list." The writing in the well water at that moment was the response from Kitamori Village.

He gazed at the swaying reflection in the well—the white hair at his temples, the light in the villagers' eyes, and the shadow cast by the old locust tree on the water's surface, like a growing net.

"More villages should hear this." He breathed out white steam at the well, and the warmth of his palms condensed into white mist on the well curb.

The children immediately gathered around, and the little girl held up a charcoal pencil: "Sir, I want to write 'root language' to teach Niu Niu next door!" The old hunter patted the wine gourd at his waist: "Tomorrow I'll go to Nanshan to exchange for salt, and I'll pass this method on to the hunters on the other side of the mountain!" Kazama Shin looked at their shining eyes and suddenly remembered that rainy night before he was exiled—when the people from the Shige searched and took away his diary hidden in the roof beam, the old dog at the village entrance barked at him three times, which was the last "truth" he heard.

Today, the truth has countless legs.

The sandalwood incense in the secret palace made one's throat itch, and the inspector's knuckles turned white as he held a half-page fragment of the "List of Impersonators".

The edges of the tattered pages still bore scorch marks—they were sifted out of the ashes by the hunter ninja this morning.

He suddenly swept the teacup off the table with a flick of his sleeve, and a shard of celadon pierced the back of his hand, a drop of blood dripping onto the four characters "Naruto A7" like a hideous flower.

"Useless!" He kicked over the sandalwood box at his feet, half a piece of oilcloth still stuck to the bottom. "Eighteen cartloads of tax registers, seventeen of them burned, and yet one of them slipped into the clouds?"

The leader of the hunter ninjas, kneeling at the lower end, shrank his neck: "My lord, that tax book has been enchanted... When it was burned, the smoke and dust shot straight up, and we couldn't catch up." The inspector's pupils suddenly contracted—the History Pavilion's "Book Burning Array" was meant to reduce the words to ashes, but the smoke and dust from that tax book went against the wind, as if it were being held up by an invisible hand.

He suddenly remembered the musty smell he had caught in the archives three days ago, and the crescent-shaped scratch—Onodera Ren, the adjutant who always stood ramrod straight, had actually planted the "seed" in the register long ago.

"Go to the outskirts of Konoha." He pulled off the black iron token from his waist. "Burn every leaf and every drop of rain that has been stained with smoke and dust!" As the Hunter Ninja leader accepted the order and withdrew, he caught a glimpse of a black crow that had landed in the snow outside the hall and was tilting its head to look at him.

"Even birds are coming to gather information?" He grabbed a kunai from the table and threw it. The black crow fluttered away, and among the snowflakes swept down by its tail feathers, half a crystal chip glittered—he didn't see it.

Qingye leaned against the damp rock wall, his chest feeling like it was stuffed with a lump of burning coal.

When the sonic boom array exploded, he was thrown against the stone wall by the shockwave, and his neck still stings.

But he paid no heed to any of that, his eyes fixed on the cave ceiling—the homing raven was flapping its wings and flying upwards, the chip hidden in a small bamboo tube under its tail feathers, swaying gently with its flapping movements.

The hunter ninja outside the cave was still shouting, "Don't let that bird fly away!" But he knew that the Shige people couldn't catch this messenger crow—its wings contained wind-style chakra, allowing it to fly straight to Sunagakure along the high-altitude wind tunnels.

“This time…” He touched the breastplate on his chest, inside which was half of the “memory stone” he had stolen from the History Pavilion. “Surely someone heard it, right?” Before he could finish speaking, the sound of arrows piercing the air suddenly came from outside the cave. The raven’s left wing swerved sharply, and feathers fluttered down.

Chapter 968 What is the punishment for singing forbidden songs?

Qingye's heart leaped into her throat, but then she saw the bird wobbling and adjusting its direction, actually rising another ten feet or so.

"Well done." He smiled, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. "Tell Bai Ye for me."

As the homing crows fly through the clouds, the bamboo tubes beneath their tail feathers vibrate gently.

It didn't know what it was carrying, only that it had to fly south—there was a golden desert there, and a person whose chakra fluctuations were like the spring breeze, able to understand all the buried voices.

It flapped its wings, flew higher and higher, farther and farther, and finally disappeared in the direction of Sunagakure.

The sunset over Sunagakure Village resembled crumpled gold leaf, billowing up the stone walls of Naruto Cliff in the wind.

Bai Ye knelt on one knee on a protruding rock, the wind lifting a corner of his black cloak to reveal a vine-patterned bracer wrapped around his wrist—a relic left by the First Hokage, now slightly warm as the messenger crow landed.

As the cacophony crow fluttered down onto his shoulder, the bamboo tube beneath its tail feathers brushed against his earlobe.

He reached out and caught it, and as soon as his fingertips touched the engravings on the bamboo tube, a metallic sweetness suddenly rose in his throat.

This is the instinctive rejection of the first generation of bloodline against "history being altered." He is all too familiar with this burning sensation—the last time was at the Daimyo's mansion in the Land of Fire, where he personally tore off the face of that "shadow substitute" corpse, revealing underneath a Kirigakure Jonin who should have died in battle three years ago.

His pupils suddenly contracted when the silk in the bamboo tube was unfolded.

The yellowed silk was covered with a dense list of "stunt doubles". Each place where someone was replaced was marked with "deceased" or "retired" in red ink, while the name column was either a blurry ink blot or simply empty.

Tucked inside the last page was half a memory stone. If you brought it close, you could hear soft whispers: "My name is Kawakami Kenta, a swordsmith from the border of the Land of Lightning. They say I died suddenly... but I'm clearly still alive, forging chakra blades for Lord Kazekage..."

"I see." Bai Ye suddenly smiled, his knuckles pressed against his forehead, and drops of blood seeping from between his fingers dripped onto the words "shadow double".

Scott burned the tax books and erased the archives, but he always missed the most fundamental thing—a person is only truly dead when even his name is erased from everyone's mouth.

Just like the half of the memory stone in his arms, if no one utters the name "Kenta Kawakami," the sparks from its forging and the sounds of its sharpening will eventually disappear into the winds of history.

He removed his wristband and used his fingernail to open the hidden compartment on the inside.