Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

The cold wind whipped snowflakes against his face, but he ran straight to the edge of the village—where a newly arrived "nameless monument" stood, brought by Tanaka Hisato's caravan.

From afar, he saw a crowd gathered in front of the monument, including peasant women with headscarves, hunters carrying rifles, and even an old monk in a monk's robe.

They held torches in their hands, and the firelight reflected on the monument, making the names appear and disappear.

"Mr. Feng!" Old Zhou, the hunter, waved to him. "Come and see, your mother's name is on this monument!"

Kazama Shin stopped in his tracks.

Looking at the crowd of people in front of the monument and listening to the chorus of "I remember" and "I've seen it," he suddenly remembered that when he was a copyist in the History Bureau, he always saw the Speaker throwing pages of paper filled with names into the fire pit.

At this moment, those ashes are drifting back from seven hundred years ago, settling on every "nameless monument" and in the hearts of everyone who remembers them.

The campfire in the snowy village cast a reddish glow on the snowdrifts, but Kazama Shin, oblivious to the burnt smell emanating from his sheepskin coat, remained completely unaware.

He gazed at the villagers huddled together in front of the "Nameless Monument"—an old woman using her frostbitten fingers to chip away at the thin layer of ice on the monument, carving the three characters "Lin Erlang" deeper; a little girl with pigtails, holding a charcoal pencil, stood on tiptoe to reach the top of the monument, insisting on writing "Grandpa Wang who sells sugar paintings," as her grandmother had told her; and hunter Old Zhou simply took off his hunting knife and scraped rough marks on the monument: "My father said that Liu the stonemason who fell to his death while building the bridge back then should have a name!"

"Don't rush, one at a time," Kazama Shin shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice torn to shreds by the cold wind.

He suddenly remembered the copying room of the History Bureau, where the gentlemen in silk robes would always shove ink-dipped pens into his hands, saying, "Quickly copy them, remembering too many of these lowly people's names will soil the history books." But now he bent down to pick up the charcoal pen that the little girl had dropped in the snow, his fingertips brushing against the teeth marks on the pen barrel—marks left by the child, still warm from her body.

"Brother A-Xin, my grandma said we should write down Grandpa Wang's sugar painting patterns too." The little girl tugged at his clothes, her nose red from the cold and covered in charcoal ash.

Kazama Shin choked up.

He turned around and pulled out a cloth bag from his pocket. When he unfolded it, he found half a roll of tattered bamboo paper—the surviving pages he had secretly hidden when Shi Ge burned "The Nameless Man."

“Today we’re not just writing names.” He unfolded a bamboo paper on which were crookedly written: “Grandma Li, good at making locust flower cakes” and “Butcher Zhang, who gives meat to beggars on the first day of the month.” “Let’s have a ‘name origin meeting’ so that the elders can say it and the children can remember it. Names are not just words; they are the things that living people have done and the tears they have shed.”

Before the words were finished, an old woman wearing an indigo headscarf stood up from the crowd.

She shakily pulled out a faded sachet, with half a dried locust flower still stuck to the stitching: "My mother is Granny Li. That year there was a famine, she ground the last half bag of rice into flour, steamed locust flower cakes, and distributed them to the children in the alley..." The little girl immediately lay down on the sheepskin spread out on the ground, her charcoal pencil flying across the paper. Kazama Shin leaned closer to look and saw that she had drawn a crooked flower next to "Granny Li".

Meanwhile, deep within the earth's veins beneath the ruins of Guiyuan Shrine, a faint emerald light seeped from Baiye's fingertips.

He sat cross-legged in the center of the vine net, the vines wrapped around his body trembling slightly with the chakra fluctuations from the direction of the snowfield—the oral memories, like live fish, swam along the earth's veins into the wood-style array in his palm.

“Spores need a carrier.” He murmured, his wrist flicking as Wood Release chakra flowed into each vine like a trickle. “The pollen of the Mantra Vine can travel thousands of miles on the wind, but the memory is too heavy, so we need to use…” He suddenly laughed, “use the mouth of a living person as a bellows.”

Three days later in the City of Fire, in a noble mansion where the cherry blossoms had not yet bloomed, the Third Madam was throwing a tantrum in the courtyard.

"What's so interesting about these wretched flowers?" She pinched her handkerchief and poked at the strangely blooming vine in the corner of the yard—the vine was covered with pale purple petals, each petal wrapped with tiny ink characters the size of a grain of rice.

Chapter 991 No such person found

“Li Chengyan, a native of Xueyuan, died in the third year of the Tianqi reign.” She read it aloud, and the handkerchief fell to the ground with a “thud.”

“Madam, this is pollen that blew in from the north the other day.” The old steward hunched over, staring at the words on the petals, feeling dizzy. “I asked the gardener, and he said this vine is called ‘Truth Vine,’ and its specialty is…” He abruptly stopped—the History Museum strictly forbade mentioning the “Nameless Stele,” but the words on the petals were more real than any history book.

The Third Madam suddenly squatted down, her fingertips lightly touching the petals: "Li Chengyan... My father used to be a salt merchant in the snowy plains. He once told me about an accountant who could move abacus beads faster than snowflakes..."

On Raikage Cliff in Kumogakure, Bee's chakra blade scraped against the cliff face, emitting a blinding blue light.

He stared at the copy of the "Nameless Monument" that he had made. The words "Ray Shadow B3, replacement failed, consciousness remains" on the page felt like red-hot iron, searing his eyes with pain.

"Shadow Substitutes" are the secrets behind the Five Kage's maintenance of authority. Behind each Kage is a scapegoat. But these words tore open the scar he least wanted to face—twenty years ago, when his younger brother was surrounded and killed by Iwagakure ninjas, he was wearing a Shadow Substitute mask and smiling at the negotiating table.

"Who am I?" The chakra blade slashed down heavily, sparks flying from the cliff face.

Bi's fingers dug deep into the cracks in the stone, and blood seeped from under his fingernails.

He recalled the blood-written letter his brother had left before his death, and the face beneath the mask beneath the Raikage cloak that bore a striking resemblance to his brother's.

The night wind swirled the pages of the paper, causing the four characters "Raikage B3" to flutter wildly. Suddenly, the vines on the cliff face trembled violently, and pale purple petals fell in a flurry, forming a line of words at his feet: "Your brother called out your real name before he died."

Bi's pupils suddenly contracted.

He knelt on the edge of the cliff, his knees worn raw by the rough stone surface, but he was completely unaware.

The sound of footsteps from a Cloud Village ninja could be heard in the distance. He grabbed the paper and stuffed it into his pocket—this time, he didn't order its removal.

In the cracks between the moss-covered bricks of the East Market of the Fire Capital, Bai Ye's figure, like a shadow, slowly crouched down along the edge of the well.

His eyebrows and eyes were reflected in the water, and in his palm, a calligraphy brush wrapped in vines was slightly warm—it was the one that Onodera Ren had entrusted to his maid to bring out.

He dipped his fingertips into the well water, and his Wood Release chakra spread like spider silk, instantly touching the ink mixed with rice grains in the pen: "Fujiwara Shizuka, Historian of the Imperial Court..."

"Who is writing my name?" Suddenly, the moss on the well wall stirred, and the green words emerged from the damp stone wall, as if they had been written with dew.

Bai Ye gazed at the water's surface, his reflection overlapping with the words on the well wall.

He said softly, "It's not you who are writing about me; it's me using your hands to write about us."

Deep inside the water dungeon, Fujiwara Shizuka was rubbing the newly formed "no" character with the silk ribbon in her hair.

The silk ribbon suddenly taut, as if pulled by an invisible thread towards the adjacent stone wall.

She held her breath, watching the water stains slowly gather on the stone surface—the four characters “Onodera Ren”, the strokes crooked yet clear, as if carved with a fingernail.

"Thank you... for remembering me," she whispered to the stone wall, her voice as soft as a sigh.

At the same moment, Bai Ye's fingertips suddenly paused in the earth's veins.

He looked up toward the center of the Fire Capital, and the emerald light in his pupils suddenly flickered—two chakra pulses, like pebbles thrown into a deep pool, were emanating from the direction of the third level of the underground vault.

He stood up, patted the moss off his robes, and a faint smile appeared on his lips: "You've arrived quickly."

The night wind swept up the withered leaves of Guiyuan Shrine, brushed past the iron bars of the water dungeon, and carried away Fujiwara Shizuka's last whisper.

From behind the stone wall of the next cell, came the soft clatter of chains dragging across the floor.

The dampness from the stone walls of the water prison crept up Fujiwara Shizuka's back. She clenched the silk ribbon in her hair, her knuckles turning white from the force.

The sound of chains coming from next door suddenly stopped, and small pebbles fell to the ground—it was the sound of someone kneeling.

Her throat tightened as she recalled the woman's half-leaf headband that had been lying on the ground when the jailer dragged her away the other day; the three-tomoe pattern embroidered on the edge was still stained with blood.

"Is that Onodera-san?" she called softly to the stone wall, her voice shattering against the stone. "I am Fujiwara Shizuka, from Shigeru's..."

“The court historian.” A hoarse reply came from next door, mixed with the soft clatter of chains. “I’ve seen your annotations in the archives, written in vermilion ink. They said, ‘The Genji Scroll presented as tribute from Yamato is missing half a scroll. This should be noted.’”

Fujiwara Shizuka's breath hitched.

She stumbled and fell to the stone wall, her palms touching the cold stone surface, as if she could feel the warmth of another person through this barrier.

The day before yesterday, when the jailer forced a drug into her mouth to make her mute, she thought she would be like those whose names were erased, with even her name rotting in her throat.

But at this moment, another imprisoned soul is reading out her identity, which has been crossed out in official history books, through the stone wall.

On the edge of a well in the eastern market of the Fire City, Bai Ye's drooping fingertips suddenly revealed veins like green vines.

Beneath his closed eyes, the emerald-green chakra glow flickered like candlelight—the two pulses in the earth's veins were no longer chaotic ripples, but had begun to have a clear frequency, like two hearts beating anew.

He tapped the well wall with his finger, and Wood Release chakra seeped into the ground through the cracks in the moss, weaving a semi-transparent vine net beneath the water prison.

"It's your turn to call out." He murmured as he straightened up, his clothes brushing away the moss by the well.

Just then, the broken bell of the Guiyuan Shrine rang out in the distance, startling a flock of crows. He looked in the direction the crows flew past, his smile as faint as mist—that was the direction of the Fire Kingdom's Finance Department, where a secret room contained seventeen "shadow double" files, each with the words "No such person found" written on the first page.

In the bookstore north of the Fire Capital, when Tanaka Hisashi lifted the bamboo curtain, the first thing he smelled was the scent of ink mixed with pine smoke.

He looked at the crowd stretching to the street corner outside the door, his Adam's apple bobbing—these people held up wooden plaques covered with names, taking turns reading out the names that had been scraped off the monument from dawn till dusk.

The other day, an old woman knelt in front of the "Nameless Monument" and cried, saying that her son's name was on the third line of the monument, but the official documents said "a refugee who died suddenly".

“Master,” the accounting clerk said, bringing over a dark, blackened brick, “this is a fire-marked brick we found in the ruins of the History Museum. It’s been fired. You see…”

Tanaka Hisashi took the brick and ran his fingertip along the dent on its surface—the remnant of the character "忠" (loyalty) that had been melted down.

He suddenly remembered the Mantra Vine Fiber he had bought on the black market the day before yesterday. This plant, which originated from Amegakure, could imbue sound waves with chakra marks.

Chapter 992 Tomorrow's Dusk

He slammed his fist on the counter, startling the shop assistant so much that he almost dropped the brick in his hand: "Find ten of the best bell founders!"

Mix these brick fragments with molten copper, and wrap the bell with vines of mantras. With each strike, let the name travel along the earth's veins to the five kingdoms!

"But this clock..."

“Let’s call it Mingming Bell.” Tanaka Hisashi picked up the wolf-hair brush from the table and wrote three large characters on the Xuan paper. The ink was not yet dry when it was swept away by the wind. “They erased the name, so we will call them back with the sound of the bell.”

On the third level of the water dungeon, Onodera Ren's fingernails dug deeply into the stone wall.

She couldn't hear the bells coming from the ground, but she felt as if an invisible hand was gripping her heart, pulling at her memories again and again.

Just now, when she wrote the two characters "青叶" (Qingye), the blood that seeped from her fingertips suddenly flowed along the stone's texture, spreading out at the end of the character "叶" (Ye), revealing the three watermark-like characters "藤原静" (Fujiwara Shizuka).

“It’s spores.” She suddenly remembered the small porcelain bottle that Granny Chiyo had given her before she was captured. “Those spores mixed in with the ink can make blood a carrier of memories…”

She raised her hand with trembling hands, her fingernails drawing a horizontal line below "Fujiwara Shizuka".

This time she didn't use much force, and beads of blood seeped out from under her fingernails, winding their way onto the stone surface to form the name "Satoru Morikawa".

A rapid gasp came from next door, followed by a warm touch against the stone wall—it was Fujiwara Shizuka's palm, pressing against her through the stone.

“Morikawa Satoru,” Fujiwara Shizuka’s voice trembled with tears, “the proofreader of the Record of the Drought in the Third Year of the Yongren Era, the Third Archives of the Imperial Archives, he…”

“He was accused of treason and executed. On the day of his execution, I altered his death record in the archives.” Onodera Ren’s fingernails continued to scratch, beads of blood forming the names “Matsumoto Rin” and “Yamazaki Tadashi”. “Their names should not live on only in our memories.”

Deep within the earth's veins, Bai Ye's Wood Release Vine Net suddenly glowed with purple light.

He stood by the well, gazing at the starry sky reflected on the water, when suddenly he reached out and caught a falling cherry blossom—this shouldn't be early spring.

Water droplets condense in the heart of the flower, reflecting a scene from thousands of miles away: a village covered in snow, where an old teacher, Kazama Shin, is throwing a piece of paper covered with names into a well.

A group of twenty-odd villagers had gathered around the well. A little girl in the front row held a kerosene lamp, the light of which made her frostbitten cheeks glow.

"Tomorrow at dusk," Bai Ye whispered to the cherry blossoms, his fingertips brushing against the icy shards clinging to the petals. "It's time for more people to hear this."

The broken bell of Guiyuan Shrine rang once again. This time, the sound carried countless names, spreading along the cracks in the earth's veins into the snowfields, rainforests, and rocky mountains on the border of the five countries.

The birch forest at the edge of the snowfield was covered with frost flowers, and Kazama Shin's cotton boots crushed half an inch of snow.

He stood by the old well at the east end of the village, the yellowed paper in his sleeve damp from his body heat—it was covered with 327 names, which he had secretly memorized when he was a copyist in the history book. Each name was marked with a tiny asterisk, a mark that had been erased from the official history books.

“Teacher,” Xiao Kui, a little girl with a red velvet ribbon tied around her neck, held up a kerosene lamp and leaned closer, her nose, red from the cold, almost touching the paper, “is this ‘Li Chengyan’ the teacher you always mentioned who taught you to look up books in the classics?”

Kazama Shin's Adam's apple bobbed.

He recalled a winter night twenty years ago, with snow just like this. Li Chengyan, wrapped in a faded blue robe, squatted by the charcoal brazier in the history pavilion, teaching him to recognize ancient characters: "Those who record history must use bones as ink and blood as a pen." Later, Li Chengyan was accused of "possessing forbidden books." On the eve of his execution, he was given half a jujube wood plaque engraved with his name.

At that moment, he touched the wooden plaque on his chest and tapped his knuckles on the edge of the well: "Let's begin."

The first call was like a snowflake falling into a well.

Old hunter Asong clenched his frozen fists, his voice trembling: "Zhang Tiezhu!" His son was labeled a "deserter" last year, but Kazama Shin had seen the military report; the boy had been buried by an avalanche while saving the entire team.

Fine water droplets suddenly seeped from the well wall, shimmering with a deep blue hue under the moonlight—the Wood Release spores of White Night had been awakened.

“Wang Shufen!” The old woman in the weaving workshop wiped away her tears. “My daughter embroidered a dragon robe for Shi Ge, and just because she said, ‘The stitches are crooked because the embroiderer’s hands are chapped from the cold,’ she was accused of ‘spreading rumors’…”

Water droplets flowed down the well wall, gathering at the bottom of the well to form tattoo-like veins.

As Kazama Shin gazed at the flowing light, he suddenly remembered the letter that Byakuya had sent through someone the day before, which said, "The ley lines are alive, and your voices will follow them to where they are meant to go."

He gripped the paper tightly and called out the third name: "Li Chengyan!"

The light at the bottom of the well suddenly burst forth.

In the Fire City, a thousand miles away, Speaker Shige sat on a sandalwood chair in a secret palace, his pale face reflected in a crystal mirror before him.

That mirror was made from the cold jade of the Snow Country, and it could reflect the remnants of all destroyed documents.

But at this moment, there were no tattered pages in the mirror, only a chaotic gray mist, as if it had been forcibly covered by something.

"My lord," came the knocking of a shadow guard at the door, "the broken bell of Guiyuan Shrine has rung again, this time..."

"Shut up!" The speaker grabbed the jade paperweight from the desk and smashed it against the mirror. With a loud crash, the paperweight hit the mirror but didn't shatter—a line of bloody words emerged from the gray mist: "You have no right to disobey."

Even more bizarrely, he suddenly heard someone whispering in his ear, as if countless threads were drilling into his ear: "Zhang Tiezhu... Wang Shufen... Li Chengyan..." With each name, a corresponding image appeared in the mirror: half a hand reaching out from the avalanche, frostbitten fingernails in the embroidery workshop, and a scholar in a blue robe smiling at him on the execution ground.

"Shut up!" The speaker grabbed a box cutter and slashed his ear. Blood flowed down his neck and into his collar, but his voice became even clearer.

He stumbled and knocked over the candlestick, the flame licking at the "shadow double" files on the desk. The top one, marked "No such person found," instantly curled up, revealing neat small characters inside: "Li Chengyan, Director of the Archives Department of the Imperial Archives..."

The thunderstorms in Kumogakure arrived earlier than usual.

The Fourth Raikage stood on the rooftop of the castle tower, gazing at the churning dark clouds to the north—not natural thunderclouds, but chakra clouds generated by the sound waves of the "Ryoumei Bell."

“Lord Kage,” the intelligence ninja knelt on one knee, holding a charred piece of bell in his palm, “this is a fragment intercepted from the border village. The molten copper used to cast the bell contained broken bricks from the History Pavilion of the Land of Fire, as well as the Mantra Vine of Amegakure.”

The clock engraved with... was a list of those who had been erased.

Bi's thumb rubbed the engravings on the clock face, the three characters "Wang Jiuhe" gleaming coldly in the lightning.