Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

As the homing crow fluttered up from the withered branch, he tore off a piece of his clothing and tied it to the crow's leg. A drop of blood dripped from his fingertip onto the cloth, staining it like half a plum blossom: "Go to the South Market and find Tanaka Hisashi. He recognizes this."

As the sound of cawing crows pierced the night fog, the booksellers in the southern part of the Fire City were still lit.

Tanaka Hisashi was squatting in front of the charcoal stove, repairing the tattered scroll of "The Chronicle of Disasters in the Land of Fire," the scorch marks on the edges of the pages resembling gnawed wheat stalks.

Suddenly something thudded against the windowsill. He looked up and saw a pottery bell wrapped in blood-stained cloth. His heart pounded in his ribs—this was the way he had arranged to contact "Mr. Shadow" three years ago when he launched a grassroots history-writing movement.

Tao Ling felt hot in his palm. He used a paper cutter to pry open the mud seal, and the spore crystals rolled to the ground, sprouting tiny green shoots on the blue bricks.

The moment he saw the inscription on the bell, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

He grabbed the copper paperweight from the desk and smashed it against the charcoal stove. Sparks flew onto the copy of "A Study of Contemporary Morality," and the ink, when exposed to the fire, turned dark red—evidence that Shi Ge had altered the manuscript with "hidden ink," which was now twisting into a grotesque face with the flames.

"Old Zhang!"

"Ah Fu!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice making the wooden beams of the bookstore vibrate, "and set the brick kiln in the back alley ablaze!"

"Bring me all the remnants of the fire-shaped bricks and the ash of the mantra vines!" He grabbed a broom and swept the charcoal ash into a bamboo basket, not caring that his sleeves were covered in black ash. "If you're going to burn something, burn the 'End' steles. Carve only one 'No' on each stele, carve it deep, into the cracks between the bricks!"

Craftsmen came from all directions carrying lanterns; some carried burnt fire-shaped bricks, while others held dried mantra vines.

Tanaka Hisashi picked up a carving knife and made the first stroke on the brick blank. The sound of the knife cutting into the mud was like a muffled thunderclap: "If Shige burns the characters, we will plant the characters in the soil."

"Beneath the ancient tree roots along the border of the five countries, at every intersection of the official roads, bury a brick for me!" He wiped the sweat from his face, the tip of his knife touching the character "不" (no) on the brick. "No one can burn this character."

Chapter 986 Uncarved

Meanwhile, the oil lamps in the Konoha Archives flickered on and off.

Ren Onodera hovered his fingertip over the "List of Substitutes" for three breaths before finally pressing it down.

She could hear the sound of leather boots rolling over the blue bricks at the end of the corridor—Steward's cleaners had arrived. Archer, who had shared rice balls with her just two days ago, was now being dragged to the water dungeon, whimpering incoherently.

She removed the silver hairpin from her temple, opened a hidden compartment on the last page of the directory, and a miniature copy wrapped in a thin, gossamer-thin silk slipped out.

The specially made brush handle was made of cedar wood. She used chakra to drill a thin tube into the wood core and inserted the manuscript, her knuckles trembling slightly—this was a secret she had guarded in the archives for seven years, recording the truth of the replacement of successive Kage, each name soaked in blood.

"Sister Lian?" The young historian's voice came from outside the door. He was carrying a stack of "Wind and Shadow Painting Manuals," and snow still clung to his eyebrows. "Today's 'Chronicles of Wind and Shadow Through the Ages,' the one you requested..."

Onodera Ren shoved the brush into his arms and pressed his fingertips heavily against the pulse point on the back of his hand—that was the way to transmit chakra signals.

Looking at the confusion in his eyes, she suddenly smiled: "You always ask why Feng Ying's portrait looks different, now you know why, right?" She listened to the approaching footsteps in the corridor and lowered her voice, "If you see the word 'no,' write it down."

Written by the well, written at the foot of the wall, written in the ashes of burned history books.

As the cleaner's gong rang out outside the archives, she turned and walked toward the deepest part of the library.

There was a sealing wax seal she had kept hidden for three years, bearing the Wood Release emblem of the First Hokage—enough to reveal any tampered history.

She touched the sealing wax stamp and heard the young historian's footsteps fading into the distance, like a seed rolling into frozen soil.

Meanwhile, in a snowy village in the northernmost part of the Land of Fire, Kazama Shin was squatting by a well, scraping ice.

He used to be a scribe at the Imperial Academy. Three months ago, he was sent to the border to work as a village school teacher because he wrote about three more families who starved to death in the "Record of Disaster Relief".

As he gazed at the ice flowers forming on the well wall, something suddenly fell onto the ice with a "thud"—it was half a fragment of a ceramic bell, with a crooked "no" character carved on it, and green buds still clinging to its edges.

He picked up the fragment, his breath condensing into mist before his eyes.

The sounds of children playing could be heard in the distance. They were drawing words on the snow with tree branches, and the crooked "no" stood like a small flag in the snow.

Kazama Shin touched the "Village School Literacy Book" in his pocket, where he had secretly copied a tattered page of the "List of Substitutes".

He looked up at the snow-capped mountains, the mountain wind whipping snowflakes against his face, but it couldn't dispel the heat in his eyes.

"Tomorrow," he whispered to the ice in the well, his face reflected in the cracks, "Tomorrow, call all the children together, gather them around the well..."

Suddenly, a thin crack appeared in the ice in the well, and clear water gushed out, spreading out in the shape of the Chinese character "不" (no) on the ice surface.

Kazama Shin's fingers trembled slightly on the broken ceramic bell. The sound of ice cracking in the well was just like the crisp sound when the Imperial Secretary smashed the "Record of Disaster Relief" three years ago.

He stared at the children's crooked "no" in the snow, his Adam's apple bobbing twice—the number of starving families erased by Shige, the replaced Shadow names, the truth burned at the stake, all of which were now condensed in this fragment of green sprout.

"Teacher Ashin!" Xiao Tao, wearing a red headscarf, ran over with her hands red from the cold, snow still clinging to the branches. "Tiezhu and I also drew the word 'no' on the back wall of the ancestral hall!" She looked up, frost clinging to her eyelashes. "If we do this, will the words that were burned not disappear?"

Kazama Shin knelt down and straightened her worn-out collar.

He could hear his own heart pounding against his ribs—the tattered page of the "List of Substitutes" he had found in his village school textbook three days ago on that snowy night was now burning against his heart. "Xiao Tao," he said, pulling out a charcoal pencil from his pocket and breathing on it to warm it, "tomorrow, the teacher is going to lead everyone on something big."

"We each carved the character 'no' on a stone slab and threw it into the well." He pointed to the "no" characters cracked in the ice, "When the ice melts in spring, these characters will travel along the groundwater to the Fire Capital, the Sand Village, and all the places where history books have been burned."

Xiao Tao's eyes shone like stars in the snow: "Then I want to carve the biggest 'no'!"

"Lend me Tiezhu's stone slab, he's clumsy!" As she turned and ran away, her red headscarf fluttered in the wind like a flame that refused to go out.

That night, Kazama Shin trudged through knee-deep snow, knocking on doors from house to house.

Hunter Zhou hesitated, clutching his wine gourd: "Carve the word 'no'?"

The cleaners at the Shige Pavilion burned the family genealogy of Old Li's family in the west last month... "Before he could finish speaking, he saw Kazama Shin's outstretched palm—a green sprout had already grown half an inch from the fragment of the ceramic bell," "Is this the Wood Release spore of the First Generation?" "Old Zhou's wine gourd" clattered to the ground, the wine spreading in a circle in the snow, "There's a bluestone slab behind my house, enough to carve twenty stone slabs!"

By dawn the next day, about a hundred people had already crowded around the well.

An old woman wrapped in a gray cotton-padded coat held a stone slab tremblingly. Stonemason A-Gui's chisel struck sparks on the bluestone slab. Children held charcoal pencils and drew on the stone slab. Some carved the character "no" into a crooked tree, while others drew it as an open palm.

Kazama Shin stood by the well, gazing at the small mountain of stone slabs. He suddenly remembered the words the supervising official had said the day he was driven away by Shi Ge: "If you dare write another word, I'll burn your filthy mouth too." He touched the back of his neck where the branding iron had burned him; the scar there was now intensely itchy—not painful, but itchy as if it were about to sprout.

"Raise all the stone slabs!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice shattering in the snow. "If Shige burns the words, we'll plant them into the earth's veins!"

Let all the burned truths crawl out from under the earth!

The ice surface made a muffled sound when the first stone fell into the well.

The second, the third... the crisp sound of the stone pieces hitting the water's surface echoed in a series, much like the sound of pages exploding in the fire when the books were burned by the historian.

As the last stone slab sank to the bottom, the well platform suddenly began to shake.

Kazama Shin staggered two steps, grabbed the well railing, and saw a ghostly green light flowing beneath the ice—it was Wood Release spores burrowing into the water veins along the grooves in the stone, like countless glowing roots spreading in all directions.

Meanwhile, a thousand miles away, in the ruins of the Guiyuan Shrine, Baiye knelt on one knee, his palm embedded in the scorched earth.

He could clearly feel the vibrations as the stone fragments sank into the earth's veins, like countless seeds awakening underground.

Chapter 987 Spreading Rumors

The bronze patterns on the original wristband were burning hot, and the residual energy of the spore crystals surged into his heart through his veins—this was the resonance he had been waiting for for three months. "It's time to wake up," he whispered to the wind, blood seeping from between his fingers dripping onto the ground. "Let them see what kind of life a burned word can truly live."

Three days later in the City of Fire, before the morning mist had completely dissipated, a cry of alarm suddenly came from the old well in the West Market.

The old woman carrying water stared at the well wall, and her bucket fell in with a "clatter": "The Bodhisattva has appeared!"

The well was full of writing! The residents gathered around and saw that the word "no" was densely packed in the water seeping out from the moss on the well wall and in the cracks between the pebbles. Some of the characters were crooked like a child's handwriting, while others were strong like a stonemason's carving. They were layered on top of each other, like a forest of steles submerged in water.

Shige's fire-style ninjas arrived very quickly.

The leader, Akamaru, formed a hand seal, and crimson karmic fire rose from his palm: "Spreading heresy and misleading the masses, burn!" The moment the flames licked the well wall, a strange thing happened—the burning "no" character not only did not turn black, but instead exuded a ghostly green light.

Even more bizarrely, thin vines emerged from the ashes, climbing up the soles of the ninja's boots and weaving a green net around the character "不," forcing the flames to retreat step by step.

A cold sweat broke out on Akamaru's forehead.

He swung his knife to cut the vines, only to see new shoots sprouting from the cut.

Suddenly, he felt a chill on his headband—looking down, he saw a pale green "no" character that had appeared on the dark gray headband, as if embroidered with vines.

He hurriedly ripped off his headband, only to see his companions retreating one after another, their clothes, the backs of their hands, and even their earlobes covered with the word "no".

"Retreat!" Akamaru's voice trembled.

As he turned around, he glimpsed the word "no" in the well, flickering in the morning mist. In a daze, he saw countless faces—burnt historians, erased disaster victims, and replaced shadows—all staring at him from within the word "no."

On Raikage Cliff in Kumogakure, veins bulged on the hand gripping the communication scroll.

He had just received an urgent report from the Land of Fire, and his knuckles slammed heavily against the rock pillar: "Fire Release techniques... used to burn words?" He suddenly remembered that three years ago, when the Land of Lightning's History House burned "The Truth About the Death of the Previous Raikage," similar green sprouts had floated out of the flames. "Pass down the order," he ripped off his cloak and threw it on the table, "All Fire Release techniques must not be used to burn anything containing the word 'not'."

Those who disobey orders will be treated as traitors!

That night, he personally climbed to the highest point of Thundershadow Cliff.

Thunder roared overhead as he gripped his chisel and carved a "no" character taller than a person into the rock face.

Sparks flew onto his face, but he laughed: "The First Lord was right, some words cannot be burned."

At the incineration site of the Fire City, the young fire-style ninja Archer is tied to a pillar.

He stared at the mountain of "heretic documents" before him, his throat tightening—just three days ago he had helped Shige move these books, but now he was labeled a "traitor."

The executioner handed him a torch: "Burn it, and we'll let bygones be bygones."

Archer's hands were shaking.

The moment the torch touched the pile of books, the flames suddenly flared up, making his pupils shine.

He saw countless "no" characters rising from the flames, like a swarm of bees scattered by the wind, rushing towards him.

He was startled and retreated, but bumped into a pillar.

At that moment, he felt a chill on the back of his neck—when he reached out and touched it, he found a "no" shape protruding under his skin, which burned him so much that he pulled his hand back.

"No..." he heard himself utter the word.

It wasn't forced, it wasn't out of fear, it was a scalding "no" that welled up from the deepest part of my throat, with a metallic taste.

The moonlight at Guiyuan Shrine was faint.

Bai Ye stood in the center of the ruins, the blood on his palms already congealed into dark red scabs.

He closed his eyes and could hear the vibrations coming from beneath the five lands—the "End" monument was resonating, the "No" character was growing in the earth's veins, and the heartbeats of millions of people were in sync with the same rhythm.

Suddenly, his fingertips trembled slightly.

Something, like a wisp of silk, entwined his consciousness—it was the fluctuation of chakra, very weak, yet carrying a familiar chill.

That's... Fujiwara Shizuka?

He suddenly opened his eyes and looked towards the Land of Fire.

Under the moonlight, his shadow stretched long on the ground, like a root about to break through the soil.

The broken pillars of Guiyuan Shrine cast spiderweb-like shadows under the moonlight, and Baiye's fingertips were still pressed against his forehead—the wisp of chakra fluctuation just now was very similar to the code that Fujiwara Shizuka carved on the stone wall with her fingernails when she was imprisoned in the underground water dungeon.

His Adam's apple bobbed, and his eyelashes cast dappled shadows beneath his eyes: "It's not an illusion."

The earth trembled beneath his feet. He crouched down and pressed his palms onto the scorched earth.

Wood Release chakra seeped into the ground like roots, and the branches of the Five Kingdoms' Memory Trees appeared in his consciousness—the roots of the Land of Fire were entwined with burnt bamboo slips, the roots of the Land of Lightning were wrapped with the newly carved "No" character on the rock wall, and the roots of the Sand Village were covered with gold dust from the puppeteer's clothes... Deepest in the depths, a cluster of eerie blue light flickered; that was Fujiwara Shizuka's chakra, pickled and astringent by the musty smell of the water prison, yet wrapped with a sharp "No".

"He's alive again." He chuckled softly, his fingertips brushing against the still-healing scabs on his palm.

Three days ago, in order to carve the inscription for the final inscription, he cut his palm to draw upon the bloodline of the first generation. Now, fine beads of blood seeped from the wound and dripped onto the scorched earth. Reflected in the blood beads was Fujiwara Shizuka's face—her fingertips, white from being soaked in water, were pressing against the stone wall of the water prison, carving the final mark.

He pulled out half a fragment of a ceramic bell from his pocket. The glaze was mottled from the fire, but Fujiwara Shizuka's handwriting was still visible: "What Shige wants to burn is not the words, but the person who said 'no'." The fragment was pressed against his palm, and its temperature was hotter than his blood.

He knelt down, dug a small hole in the foundation of the ruins with his fingernails, and buried Tao Ling in it. His knuckles trembled slightly as he said, "If you can't say 'yes,' I'll hold the 'no' for you."

Before he could finish speaking, the earth's tremors suddenly intensified.

He looked up abruptly, and a muffled sound came from the direction of the Fire City in the east—not an explosion, but the sound of millions of pieces of clay cracking simultaneously.

Sparks were flying from the chimney of the secret kiln in Nanshi. Tanaka Hisashi's coarse cloth undershirt was soaked through by the kiln heat and clung to his back like a wet rag.

He stared at the last piece of the "end" stele in the kiln, his pupils suddenly shrinking: the character "not" on the stele was peeling away, the ink strokes floating in the air, like ink blown away by the wind, yet they solidified and did not disperse, remaining suspended for three breaths before "poof" melting into the kiln fire.

"Old Li!" He pulled over the kiln worker next to him, "Collect all the kiln ash!"

"Has Manager Tian gone mad?" Old Li wiped the ash from his face. "This ash is all burnt clay mixed into the new mud—"

Chapter 988 I won't burn it, I won't admit it, I won't lie.

"Mix it!" Tanaka Hisashi grabbed a handful of black kiln ash, and among the powder that leaked through his fingers were tiny fragments of the character "不" (not). "Look! This character is alive. It can't be burned to death or buried. Mix it into the clay to make tiles. When it rains, the rainwater will wash over the tiles, and the character will flow with the water into the ditches, into the wells, and into everyone's water tanks!"

Old Li's hand suddenly trembled.

He stared at the ash between Tanaka Hisashi's fingers, recalling the faint ink-colored "no" floating at the bottom of the bowl when he fed his daughter water yesterday, thinking it was just his eyes playing tricks on him.

"I'll go get help right now!" As he turned around, he knocked over a bucket of mud, and sure enough, several crooked "no" characters floated out from the splashed mud.

The clapper outside the kiln struck at the third watch, and Onodera Ren's ears twitched.

The sound of leather boots echoed from the bluestone path of the History Pavilion; it was the people from the Supervision Department—they always liked to slam their scabbards against the pillars, making a "thud" that sounded like a blow to the heart.

She stared down at the writing brush on the table. The handle was made of spotted bamboo from the back of Shige Mountain, and the secret scroll of "The List of Shadow Impersonators" was hidden in the bamboo joint.