Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

Three hours later, the edges of the seven ancient wells were covered with newly laid gray tiles.

The tiles have a strange copper color, which is made by Tanaka Hisashi by mixing brick ash, sap from the vine of the mantra, and ground copper powder and firing them.

As the moon climbed to its zenith, the surface of the first well suddenly shimmered with golden light—not a human figure, but an old craftsman wearing a straw hat, squatting by the well, repairing the well curb.

"That's my grandfather!" A sudden exclamation erupted from the crowd.

The boy, dressed in coarse cloth and shorts, squeezed to the front of the well, tears falling onto the well's edge. "The family genealogy says he went to the Sea Kingdom twenty years ago, but the chisel in his hand... was found by my father in the stove last year!"

The crowd around the well began to stir; some called out their mothers' names, while others cried and reached out to touch the child's reflection that had surfaced in the well.

Tanaka retreated to the corner, his Adam's apple bobbing—he saw Speaker Shige's face floating on the surface of the seventh well.

In the video, the speaker was tearing up a scroll of documents. The ink on the documents was torn into pieces, which fell into the well and intertwined with the vines.

The humidity in the water prison suddenly became sticky.

Onodera Ren knelt on the slippery bluestone slab, the blood ink from his fingertips seeping into the cracks between the bricks to form the characters "Aoba".

This was the third time she had written this name in blood; the first two times only caused ripples in the well, but this time—

With a "splash," the drain in the cell suddenly overflowed, and the murky well water reached over her ankles.

The reflection on the water wasn't her face, but a figure wrapped in a black cloak, standing with his back to her under the cherry blossom tree.

That was someone she had seen three years ago while on night duty at the Konoha Archives—the leader of the Aoba organization, a contact whose true face had never been revealed.

“I see…” She gripped the well railing tremblingly, blood seeping from under her fingernails. “Blood ink can resonate with names, and the mirror-like tiles can reveal unrecorded truths.” Fujiwara Shizuka moved closer from the corner, her wet hair clinging to her pale face: “Ren, you mean…”

"Chiba Souichi!" Onodera Ren suddenly bit his tongue, and the sweet-smelling blood sprayed onto the opposite wall.

Water stains twisted into whirlpools along the brick seams, revealing the scene of the fourth basement level—a ninja dressed in the official robes of the Shige was filling a pit with soil with an iron shovel. A hand emerged from the pit, a silver bell still jingling on its wrist, the token of love that Chiba Soichi always wore.

"They buried him alive!" Fujiwara Shizuka's nails dug into her palms. "Last winter, Shigeru said he had defected to the Land of Water..."

The image on the water suddenly shook violently, as if it had been forcibly torn apart by some force.

Ren Onodera stumbled and fell into the water, coughing as he heard the sound of chains dragging on the ground above him—the jailers were coming to relieve him.

She quickly wiped the blood off her face and chewed up the last half of the blood ink.

Beneath the crumbling pillars of Guiyuan Shrine, Bai Ye suddenly straightened up.

He could feel that the vibrations in the earth's veins had changed—it was no longer the growth of vines, but a more intense resonance, like countless mirrors being polished simultaneously underground.

The northern wind swept in, carrying snowflakes. He gazed at the swirling green mist in the direction of the City of Fire, and heard a very faint, bell-like hum in his ears.

“Shadow Society…” he murmured the name, and the inscribed spores on his fingertips suddenly glowed red.

That was a sensation emanating from the snowy village where Kazama Shin lived—the earth's veins there were awakening, and small groups of people had gathered by the well. Some were holding torches, some were carrying shrouds, and each person held a yellowed piece of paper in their palm, on which a name that had been erased was written.

Snowflakes landed on his eyelashes, and a hint of warmth finally appeared on Bai Ye's lips.

He turned and walked toward the secret passage behind the shrine, his boots crushing a patch of frozen moss.

The tremors of the earth's veins continued, and this time, he heard a clearer sound—the sound of countless buried names breaking through the earth, roots piercing through the rock layers, louder than any war drum.

The old well in the snowy village was covered in snow and looked like a white steamed bun. Kazama Shin's fingers were frozen stiff, but he still clutched the old family genealogy in his arms tightly.

He stood in front of the well, his breath carrying a thick nasal tone amidst the white mist: "Everyone, in order."

First, we recite the names of those who migrated from other villages, then we recite the names of those who passed away in the local area—

"I'll go first!" The old woman, wrapped in a sheepskin coat, squeezed to the front, her withered fingers pointing to the third page of the family tree. "Li Chengyan, my husband's brother!"

Six years ago, he said he was going south to make a living, but then the newspaper published a report saying he had stolen from a granary, and his name was even torn off the household registration!

Before the words were even finished, the thin ice on the well surface suddenly cracked into a spiderweb pattern.

Kazama Shin's pupils contracted sharply—he had just laid mirror tiles on this well the day before, but according to Tanaka Hisashi, at least three people had to say their names at the same time for the image to appear.

A ghostly blue light shone from beneath the ice, as if something alive was moving about. The villagers instinctively stepped back, and someone knocked over a brazier, sending sparks sizzling onto the snow.

Chapter 996 Shadow Double

"It's a torch!" The little girl with pigtails suddenly pointed at the well and screamed.

In the halo of light beneath the ice, a tall, thin figure held a torch, the flames licking at his tattered shirt, revealing a copper bell tied to his waist—an item the old woman always hung on the kang (heated brick bed) for "peace and safety."

The scene suddenly zoomed in, and the torch illuminated the person behind him: a gray-blue kimono, with half of his right ear missing, who was the captain of the border patrol team of the Land of Fire last year.

"That...that's Captain Matsumoto?" Kazama Shin's voice trembled.

He remembered that Matsumoto had been promoted just three months ago, but in the scene in the well, Matsumoto was choking Li Chengyan and pressing him into a snowdrift. Li Chengyan's torch fell to the ground and finally illuminated Matsumoto's face—there was a very shallow crack on his left cheek, like porcelain with a chipped glaze.

"A body double!" A gasp erupted from the crowd.

Kazama Shin was pushed and staggered, his lower back hitting the mirror tile of the well curb, and the tile surface suddenly became hot.

He turned his head and saw a dark figure standing in the snow mist. Moonlight fell on the wooden hairpin in the person's hair. It was Bai Ye.

"Use Wood Release." Byakuya's voice was like ice crystals, his fingertips touching the edge of the well.

Kazama Shin then noticed the greenish-blue chakra floating in his palm, and the tree roots drilling down the well wall into the ice. "Etch the image deep into the ice." Byakuya's fingertips brushed against Kazama Shin's frozen red hand. "The light is dead, but the shadow leaves evidence."

Suddenly, the ice made a cracking sound like tearing silk. Li Chengyan's last image was wrapped in tree roots and sank down, forming an emerald-colored pattern beneath the ice.

The villagers knelt on the ground, and the old woman touched the ice with her frostbitten hands, her tears falling onto the emblem and freezing into tiny ice beads.

"Lord Raikage!" A thunderclap from Kumogakure split the sky, and the shouts of the Shadow Guards echoed throughout the training ground.

Bi stood in front of the newly built stone well, his black cloak fluttering wildly in the thunderstorm.

He stared at the well surface—the Shadow Mirror Tile had been brought from the border of the Land of Fire three days ago, supposedly capable of reflecting erased names.

At this moment, the well surface was flashing with purple lightning, reflecting a boy of about fourteen or fifteen years old, who was squatting on the edge of the cliff picking up lightning-patterned stones.

“Xiao Jiu…” Bi’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

That was his younger brother, Wang Jiuhe, the brother who fell off a cliff ten years ago.

The boy in the picture suddenly looked up, but his eyes were not black; they were an eerie purple—the same color as the eyes of the enemy ninja who had tried to assassinate him three days earlier.

A hand reached out from behind the boy and pressed on the back of his neck. The boy's expression went blank instantly, as if his soul had been ripped out.

“Shadow Substitution... Replace consciousness…” Bee’s chakra suddenly went berserk, purple lightning rose around his body, and the shadow guards hurriedly retreated.

He stumbled and bumped into the well curb, a burning pain shooting through his left cheek. He raised his hand to touch it—his fingertips were stained with blood.

In the reflection of the well, cracks were appearing on his left cheek, like a semi-transparent mask peeling away to reveal a completely unfamiliar face.

"Step back." Bi's voice was hoarse, like a rusty knife.

The shadow guards scrambled away, and he collapsed to the ground. Thunder roared overhead, but it couldn't drown out the buzzing in his ears. "The last time I saw him... was he also a double?" He stared at the image of his brother in the well, his nails digging deep into his palms. "Mother said he was clutching half a piece of thunderstone when he fell off the cliff... but in the well, his hand was empty."

The moss in the eastern market of the Fire City was so slippery it hurt your feet, and the sole of White Night's boots crushed a piece of broken porcelain.

He squatted by the well and pulled out an oil paper package from the crack between the bricks—Onodera Ren had sent a message this morning in blood ink, saying that the brush was hidden under the third loose well brick.

Unfolding the oiled paper, one finds dark brown bloodstains still on the wolf-hair brush handle. It's a letter she wrote by biting her tongue: "Fourth floor of the basement, Chiba Soichi."

The water in the well suddenly surged, and Bai Ye dipped his brush in blood ink and wrote on the well wall: "Who is living for me?" As soon as the ink fell, dozens of overlapping shadows floated on the water.

Officials in court attire were forced to the ground and forced to drink drugs; ninjas wearing straw hats were given masks; and even images of Speaker Shige in his youth were depicted—he was kneeling before a shrine, while another "him" emerged from the shadows, holding a poisoned wine cup.

“You’ve been hiding for a hundred years.” Bai Ye looked at his distorted reflection on the water’s surface, where even the left side of his reflection had a very shallow crack. “Now, it’s time for the real you to look in the mirror.”

The night wind suddenly changed direction, bringing a damp, rusty smell.

Byakuya's Wood Release senses suddenly trembled—it was from the direction of the Shigeku Underground Library.

He looked up at the black tower in the south of the city, and the green light in his pupils suddenly shone brightly.

In the fourth level of the underground vault, a very faint chakra fluctuation was pulsating, like a candle flame about to go out being rekindled by the aura of blood and ink.

"It's not over yet," he murmured, wrapping the brush back in the oiled paper and tucking it into his bosom.

The image on the well surface was still churning, reflecting his departing figure, while in the distance, beneath the brick wall of the Shige basement, blood droplets were seeping out along the brick seams, blurring into the soil to form a vague "宗" character.

As Baiye's Wood Release senses rippled in Shige's direction, he was pressing the oil paper package into his bosom.

The damp night wind, carrying the smell of rust, crept into my collar, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end—it wasn't an ordinary chakra fluctuation, but more like some kind of remnant consciousness sealed for decades, being dragged back to the human world from the depths of the earth by the aura of blood and ink.

"Chiba Soichi." He murmured the name, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the engravings on the well bricks.

Three days ago, when Onodera Ren used blood ink to send a message, he found out that this former official of the History Bureau had suddenly "died of illness" twenty years ago, but all the death records in the files had been covered up, and the words "buried alive" could be vaguely seen under the ink.

The fluctuations emanating from the underground cellar at this moment resembled the last vestige of a person being buried alive before suffocating, which was following the pull of the blood ink and crawling along the earth's veins towards his palm.

He squatted down and placed his right hand on the bluestone slab beside the well.

Wood Release chakra seeped into the cracks in the bricks like vines, extending along the course of the underground river—this was the bloodline ability of the First Hokage, capable of sensing traces of life within a ten-mile radius.

When the roots touched the brick wall of the fourth basement level, his pupils suddenly contracted: there was a cluster of eerie blue light, like a dying will-o'-the-wisp, which, stimulated by the aura of blood and ink, began to flicker.

"He's awake." His Adam's apple bobbed, and his knuckles turned white from the effort.

The Wood Release chakra seeping from his fingertips flowed backward along the Root system, enveloping all the images surging within the "Shadow Society" in the well—the replaced officials, the disguised ninjas, and the poisoned Speaker of the History Committee, all of whom now became sharp carving knives.

“The doubles aren’t afraid of death, they’re afraid of being recognized.” He whispered to the ley lines, his voice as soft as a sigh. “Now, let them shed real blood.”

Chapter 997 Blood Ties

As the candlelight crackled and popped in the East City Bookstore, Tanaka Hisashi was staring at the "Shadow Mirror Tile" on his desk.

These are ceramic tiles he had craftsmen fire using the tears of the relatives of those whose identities were erased. He intended them to reflect the altered history, but now blood-red images appear on the tiles: Raikage's younger brother is being held down by the back of his neck to replace his consciousness, Kazekage Rasa's wet nurse is being given a potion to forget her worries, and even the "deceased official" he saw on the street when he was ten years old is now being helped into a dark alley by another "him".

“So we were replaced long ago.” He gripped the clay tile tightly, his fingertips bleeding from the burrs.

The sound of the night watchman striking his clapper came from outside the bookstore; it was the third watch.

He suddenly pushed open the window, and the night wind made the pages of "Records of Folk History Compilation" on the table rustle. The last page stopped on the three large characters "Blood Sacrifice"—that was his plan, which he had been preparing for three years, to use the blood of the erased to awaken the memories of the living, leaving the substitutes nowhere to hide.

"Afu!" he shouted into the back room, his voice trembling without him even realizing it. "Bring the ashes of the True Word Vine from the cellar. And go call for Craftsman Li, and have him bring ten cartloads of raw clay."

A crisp sound of earthenware pots clattering came from the back room. Apprentice Afu poked his head out: "Boss, what's going on in the middle of the night—"

"Now!" Tanaka Hisashi slammed the terracotta tile onto the table, and the blood-red shadow on the tile suddenly solidified into the character "祭" (sacrifice). "Use the blood of the relatives of the erased to mix with the ashes of the mantra vine, and burn three hundred blood name talismans. Before dawn tomorrow, cover the post stations of the five countries with them."

Afu was startled by the light in his eyes and scrambled to the backyard.

On the bluestone road outside the bookstore, the sound of hurried hooves could be heard—it was the second son of the silk shop next door, who had been taken away by the Shadow Guards of the Land of Thunder three days ago, accused of possessing forbidden books.

He was staggering along, leaning against the wall. The blood-stained name tag on his left arm was soaked with night dew, and the blood that seeped out dripped from between his fingers, leaving a dark red line on the ground.

"It hurts...it hurts like bugs are crawling inside my bones." He flung open the bookstore door, the skin on his left arm cracking visibly. "Shopkeeper, I put up this talisman this morning when I passed by the post station, and it started cracking after just a couple of steps..."

Tanaka Hisashi's breathing suddenly stopped.

He stared at the chakra veins protruding from the young man's armpit—they weren't the pale blue patterns cultivated by ninjas, but rather bluish-gray, twisted like tree roots, "non-native."

“Go tell all the Shadow Guards.” He pressed down on the young man’s shoulder, the blood from his palm smearing on the man’s clothes. “Let them see for themselves whose blood is flowing in their veins.”

In the musty smell of the water dungeon in the Shige basement, Ren Onodera's fingernails dug deeply into the stone wall.

She had just finished the last stroke of the "Green Leaf Secret Order" totem she had drawn with the blood on the tip of her tongue when the vines on her wrist suddenly grew wildly—those green vines that coexisted with the blood ink seemed to have their own will at this moment, crawling along the cracks in the bricks toward the cell next door.

"Miss Jing?" she called softly against the stone wall, the tip of the vine touching something warm and soft.

A gasp came from next door; it was Fujiwara Shizuka's voice: "Miss Ren? Your vine..."

The moment the two hands touched on the stone wall, the blood-red ink and the vines trembled simultaneously.

Fragments flashed before Onodera Ren's eyes: a yellowed scroll with vermilion annotations that read "The lifespan of a body double shall not exceed twelve years," and Speaker of the State Council sneered as he held an abacus: "Changing a body double is ten times cheaper than raising a real person."

“They’re not human, they’re just consumables.” Fujiwara Shizuka’s voice came from the other side of the stone wall, choked with sobs. “I’ve read the records. The first generation of body doubles were made by death row inmates. Later… later they used orphans with no relatives or friends, and even their names were erased.”

The vines suddenly tightened, and Onodera Ren realized that he had been crying without even noticing.

Her Blood Ink ability is merging with Fujiwara Shizuka's memories, and the sealed truths are surging forth like a tide—the secret to the Five Kingdoms Shadow Stand System's century-long existence is nothing more than exchanging the lives of countless "nameless" people for the stability of those in power.

“Miss Lian, listen,” Fujiwara Shizuka suddenly lowered her voice, “There’s a secret passage on the third level of the basement, and the exit is under the old locust tree in the dilapidated temple in the south of the city. I’ve made a map with blood ink, and I’m sending it to you now…”

As the night wind swept the ashes of the blood-stained talisman across the snowy village, Kazama Shin was adding firewood to the stove.

He was originally a scribe in the Imperial Archives, but was expelled three years ago for copying "Secrets of Shadow Impersonation". Now he works as a village school teacher on the border.

Fine snow began to fall outside the window. He heard the sound of horses' hooves coming from the village entrance. It was a messenger from the post station, carrying a scroll of blood-stained talisman in his arms.

“Mr. Feng, this came from the City of Fire.” The messenger rubbed his frozen red hands, and the wind lifted a corner of the talisman to reveal the three large characters “Blood Sacrifice”. “I heard that if you stick this talisman on, it can reveal the true form of the substitute.”

Kazama Shin took the talisman and touched the undried bloodstains on it with his fingertips—fresh bloodstains with a metallic smell.

Looking out at the snow-capped mountains, he suddenly remembered the child he had seen in the Shige twenty years ago: blindfolded and led into a dark room, with a faded red rope tied around his wrist, on which the character "Zong" was engraved.