Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

The last primordial spore, imbued with the scent of moss, rolled into his palm. It was the secret technique the First Generation used to mark territory in the forest, capable of etching names into the memories of living beings. "This time, it's not about marking territory." He pressed the spore onto the register, watching the bluish-green mist climb along the silk's texture. "It's about planting the stolen names back into everyone's throats."

When the night fog of the City of Fire drifted into the Nightingale Pavilion, Kitahara Shizuku was sitting on the second-floor railing, holding a shamisen.

Today she wore a pale white short jacket with faded osmanthus flowers embroidered on the cuffs—silk thread her mother had bought with her last half-gold coin before she died.

The moment the strings were plucked, the noise in the entire building suddenly fell silent: "When the wheat sprouts, do not touch the sickle; when the children pick melons, do not scold them..." This was not a popular erotic song of the time, but "Field Orders" written by the First Hokage for the common people, which had been banned by the History Museum for twenty years.

The gray-clad man downstairs at the tea table crushed a teacup.

He was a newly dispatched spy from the Shige, with a bronze badge bearing the "Burning of Texts Order" hanging from his waist. "How dare you!" He leaped onto the second floor, his black iron claws already gripping Beiyuan Shuang's wrist. "What is the punishment for singing forbidden songs?"

Kitahara Shimo didn't dodge.

With her other hand, she pulled a yellowed family genealogy scroll from her clothes. When she unfolded it, the ink on the last page was still damp—it was ink she had ground with her tears overnight, copied from her mother's dying words. "This is my grandfather's handwriting." She pressed the genealogy scroll under her black iron claw. "His name was Senju Hiroki, the cousin of the First Hokage."

Shi Ge said he didn't exist, but before my mother breathed her last, she called out "Brother Hongshu."

The spy's claws pierced her wrist, and drops of blood fell onto the family tree, but did not smudge the writing.

Suddenly someone downstairs shouted, "I remember!"

Twenty years ago, when the bridge was being built in the West Market, the old man who led the construction was named Hongshu! "Another voice chimed in: "My grandmother also mentioned this name before she passed away, saying that he had taught us how to prevent pests!" "The crowd, like a bonfire that had been lit, chattered away." I remember "the sound of their voices hitting the carved wooden beams, making the window paper rustle."

The spy's black iron claws twitched, then suddenly released their grip.

He took two steps back, knocking over the flower stand behind him. Peonies fell all over the ground, but they couldn't hide the names "Hiroki," "Kenta Kawakami," and "Kiyoko Abe" that appeared from every corner. It was as if, without anyone noticing, tea drinkers had hidden scraps of paper with their names written on them in their clothes, hair, and even the soles of their shoes.

Meanwhile, outside the Konoha Archives, Onodera Ren was tiptoeing as he carved words into the bark of an old locust tree.

A specially approved "file-repairing knife" hung at her waist, its blade coated with a potion that could dissolve in moonlight. "Tanaka Hideo," she carved her third name, the sound of the blade scraping against bark like a silkworm eating leaves. "Formerly a Jonin of Kirigakure in the Land of Water, later renamed 'Matsumoto Ichiro'..."

“Girl, this tree is badly infested with insects.” A hoarse voice suddenly sounded from behind.

Onodera Ren was so startled he almost dropped his sword. Turning around, he saw it was the old servant, Afuku, sweeping the courtyard. Afuku was hunched over, and the bamboo broom in his hand was covered in morning dew.

Just as she was about to explain, she saw Afu approach the tree, his cloudy eyes suddenly brightening: "Xiufu... isn't this my comrade from when I joined the army?"

He said he wanted to go home and grow oranges after the war, but later...

The old servant's hand traced the carvings on the tree bark, the dirt under his fingernails rubbing against the words.

Just as Onodera Ren was about to stop him, he saw him pull out half a piece of charcoal from his pocket and scribble "Tanaka Hideo" crookedly on the lintel of his house.

The next morning, the air in the Fire City was filled with the scent of ink—the lanterns in the East Market bore the name "Kato Mie," the tombstones in the West Market bore the name "Yamazaki Masao," and even the old man selling candy had stuck bamboo sticks covered with names on his straw bundles.

The inspector of the Shige stood on the city wall and looked down, feeling as if the whole city was speaking, and every name was a knife, stabbing into his carefully woven lies.

The rain in Amegakure always comes silently.

Orihime knelt before the altar, the white veil covering her blindfolds soaked by the rain.

She stretched out her hand, and a string of faint, luminous beads floated in her palm—names drifting from all corners of the land, like stars in a stream. "It's coming," she whispered, rain trickling down her neck and into her collar. "The wave of name-calling is coming." The rain in Rain Village wove a fine net across the surface of the sacred river.

Chapter 969 The Brain Is Still Working!

Orihime knelt on the bluestone slab on the riverbank. The white veil covering her eyes was soaked by the rain, revealing the pale pink corners of her eyes below—marks left by years of contact with the waters of memory.

She reached out her hand, and as soon as her fingertips touched the water, a cold sensation shot through her veins and into her heart, like countless tiny fish gnawing at her nerves.

This is the response of the flowing waters of memory, carrying fragments of names drifting from all over the world.

"Let's begin." Her voice trembled from the sound of the rain.

The villagers who had been waiting on the shore immediately sprang into action: the old woman used a dry twig to write "Grandma's eldest grandson, named Ashu" on the damp paper boat; the boy stuffed "The sister who saved my life three years ago, whose surname is Mizuki" into the boat woven from grass leaves; even the youngest child stood on tiptoe and used a piece of charcoal to scribble "Grandpa who sells candy, I remember he had dimples when he smiled" on the bottom of the paper boat.

Orihime can "see" these names.

As the first paper boat was pushed into the river, tiny beads of light rose from her palm, ripples from the memory of the name "A-Shu"; as the second boat drifted by, the beads of light suddenly coalesced into a crescent shape—the name of her sister, Minazuki, carried chakra fluctuations, much like the unique ninjutsu mark of Kirigakure.

Her fingers unconsciously clenched the hem of her skirt, her knuckles turning white from the force: the name that had been erased had never disappeared, but had simply sunk to the bottom of the river of memory, waiting for someone to reach out and retrieve it.

The current of the sacred river suddenly quickened, and the paper boats seemed to be pushed forward by an invisible hand, disappearing into the rain in the blink of an eye.

Orihime's forehead was covered in cold sweat. She could feel those names spreading through the earth like roots of the divine tree planted by the First Hokage, penetrating every crevice. "Go tell them," she whispered to the river, "that someone remembers."

Deep within the mines of Iwagakure in the Land of Earth, miner Atetsu's chisel suddenly struck something hard. "Damn it!" he spat, bending down to pick up the flying rubble, but instead spotted a dark red glint in a crack in the rock—a relief encased in molten lava, its outline clearly human, with the nine small characters "Memory Miner Leader - Watanabe Masao" etched on its chest. "Captain!"

Come and see! His roar hit the rock wall, startling his miner's lamp into swaying.

The foreman, who was inspecting the ventilation shafts, ran over. As the flashlight beam swept across the relief, his hand trembled violently. "Watanabe... Watanabe Masao?" His throat tightened, and the stormy night twenty years ago suddenly flashed before his eyes: they were surrounded in the mine by Shige's secret agents, the leader holding up a torn-up list of miners shouting, "We have names and surnames," and then... the foreman's fingernails dug deeply into his palm. "Back then, Shige said he was a thug, and even burned his body."

But...this stone doesn't lie!

The news spread like explosive gunpowder through the mine shafts to the surface.

The Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, stood at the mine entrance, his cloudy eyes fixed on the carefully lifted rock strata. His calloused hands gently stroked the name "Watanabe Masao." "Carve a monument," he said to the Iwagakure Jonin behind him, his voice unusually gentle. "Carve 'Name, that the wind will not blow it away.'"

The desert of the Land of Winds gleams with a blinding white at midday.

As the herdsman Hassan led his camel around the sand dunes, he suddenly froze—the wind had carved deep and shallow furrows into the once flat sand, which perfectly formed the four characters "前风影罗玄" (Qian Feng Ying Luo Xuan).

He knelt down, his fingertips brushing against the sand, discovering that the sand at the bottom was damp and carried a faint scent of water—traces of groundwater seeping from the oasis. "Lord Luo Xuan..." His throat tightened, and his grandmother's dying words suddenly became clear: "When Luo Xuan Fengying was here, even the cacti in the desert would sing."

When Granny Chiyo of Sunagakure received the news, she was repairing Sasori's old puppet with puppet strings.

Her hand paused, then she snapped the silk thread in her hand. "Prepare the horses," she said to Ebizo, who was standing at the door. "To the oasis." When she saw the name on the sand dune, her eyes reddened, a rare sight for her. "Take the best granite," she ordered the stonemason accompanying her. "Carve it big, much bigger—let the wind carry the name to every grain of sand."

The frozen lake in Xueyuan Village shimmered with a deep blue hue under the moonlight.

Kazama Shin's hands, gripping the carving knife, were red with cold. He breathed on the ice and carved "Li Chengyan"—the name of the first narrator in the burned-down oral history museum.

The villagers surrounded him, some with awls, others with red-hot iron sticks, and soon the ice was covered with crooked writing. "Back then, Shi Ge burned our notebooks," the old village chief wiped the snow from his face, "but our mouths are still alive, our brains are still alive!"

On a distant mountain peak, pale green Wood Release chakra rose from Byakuya's palm.

He could feel the warm current surging beneath the frozen lake, the life force unique to the first generation of bloodlines. "Melt," he whispered, and the ice began to melt at a visible speed. Thin ice slabs engraved with names fell into the lake, only to refreeze in the cold night—this time, the names were no longer on the surface, but deeply embedded in the ice.

Shige's fire-style ninja reached the lake before dawn.

The middle-aged ninja in the lead drew a kunai and formed a hand seal in his palm: "Fire Release: Great Fire Dragon Technique!" A crimson fire dragon roared and rushed towards the frozen lake, but it made a sizzling sound the moment it touched the ice. "What's going on?" He was surprised to find that the heat of the fire dragon was being rapidly absorbed, and hot springs were gushing out from under the ice, lifting the ice block engraved with his name to the surface.

"Look!" someone shouted from the crowd.

The steam from the hot spring condensed in the air, and the names frozen in ice rose as steam, forming a misty character in the sky. "Li Chengyan!"

Wang Jiuhe!

"Zhao Wuzui!" Someone shouted first, and then 327 people roared along with him, the sound so loud that ice shards fell from the branches.

The fire-style ninja's technique trembled. He stared at the name that was faintly visible in the sky and suddenly felt that the kunai in his hand was too heavy to hold.

The festival platform in the City of Fire gleamed coldly in the twilight.

Speaker Scott stood atop the platform, the crystal on his scepter refracting a rainbow of colors in the setting sun.

He looked at the densely packed crowd below the stage, a cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth—these fools think they can overturn history with just a few names.

He raised his scepter, about to recite the "purification incantation," but found that the crowd below no longer bowed their heads.

First, an old woman in the front row held up a faded strip of cloth embroidered with "Hideo Tanaka" in red thread; then came a craftsman in a coarse cloth jacket, his sleeves rolled up, revealing "Kenta Kawakami" tattooed on his arm; and then, even the most respectable merchants held up wooden signs with the ink still wet on them, bearing "Hiroki Senju".

Speaker Scott's pupils suddenly contracted, and he subconsciously looked at the crystal at the top of the scepter—the symbol of Scott's "legitimacy," which should have reflected his majestic face.

Chapter 970 Name is the anchor of destiny.

But there was nothing inside the crystal.

There was only one line of pale gold text, as if someone had gently traced it on glass with their fingertips: "Chairman of the House of Representatives - This name is not recorded in the first imperial edict."

His scepter clattered to the ground.

On a distant mountaintop, Bai Ye gazed at the lights of the Fire City, the metallic taste in his throat long since dissipated.

He touched the vine-patterned wristband on his wrist, and the aura of the First Generation emanated from his skin, as if to say, "You see, the name is the first truth."

Speaker Scott missed a step as he stepped back. He reached for the railing but only grasped at thin air.

The shouts of "names" from the audience surged up, enveloping his eardrums. He suddenly remembered a sentence he had seen in a fragment of the first imperial edict twenty years ago when he was still a junior clerk: "Name is the anchor of destiny."

The wind swept the ashes of the paper past his feet, one of which was stained with ink. He bent down to pick it up, but the moment he saw the writing, his blood froze.

His childhood name was written on that piece of ashes.

Speaker Scott's fingers gripped the edge of the ashes tightly, the two characters of his childhood name like red-hot iron sticks piercing his retina.

He recalled the smoke rising from the kitchen when his mother called him "Acheng," and the old director's words when he was fifteen and kneeling before the tattered scroll of the first imperial edict, copying it: "Your name must be engraved in the jade book to be valid." But now, the names on the strips of cloth, tattoos, and wooden plaques held up by the people below the stage were like countless needles, piercing the "orthodoxy" he had carefully woven over the past twenty years.

"Speaker?" came the attendant's voice from below, tinged with a deliberately suppressed panic.

Speaker Scott then realized that he was kneeling on the steps, his scepter had rolled to the third step, and the crystal head was facing the crowd.

A girl in a coarse linen skirt squeezed to the front row. The tattoo on her neck was still stained with blood—it was "Eri Suzuki," the name that had just been designated by the Secretary of State as the "orphan of the rebels" three days ago.

The girl looked up, her eyes shining like fire: "You said a name only counts if the historian approves of it, so what about your name?"

The wind on the mountaintop whipped up the stray hairs on Bai Ye's forehead.

He gazed at the surging sounds of people in the direction of the City of Fire, and a faint, metallic taste rose in his throat again—it was the old wound from the fierce battle with the Shige Dark Army yesterday, inflicted by a kunai.

The vine-patterned wristband on his wrist suddenly became hot, and the aura of the First Generation flowed up his veins. He could see the "Memory Tree" in the five kingdoms' ley lines with his eyes closed: the roots that had been twisted by Shige's magic were now trembling, and every call of "name" was like a hammer, shattering the black chains wrapped around the roots.

"The time has come." Bai Ye chuckled and took out a ceramic bottle from his robes.

The bottle is engraved with the spiral pattern unique to Sunagakure Village. It was sent by the Iwagakure caravan on behalf of Granny Chiyo yesterday.

He uncorked the bottle, and pale golden powder drifted down the cliff on the mountain breeze, merging into the thawing stream: "Name the spores, it's time to awaken." The stream suddenly shimmered with a silvery light, and the powder seeped in all directions along the water's flow. He gazed at the eastward-flowing water veins, his voice as soft as a sigh, "A name is not a symbol, but a living root... You must take root firmly in the soil for those whose jade books were burned."

The secret chamber of Nightingale's Pavilion in the City of Fire reeks of mildew.

Kitahara Shizuka leaned against the damp brick wall, her fingertips pressed against the surface, drops of blood seeping from under her fingernails falling onto the engraved marks.

Three secret agents from the Smith House stood guard at the door, and the one in the middle with the bushy beard had already slammed his fist on the table three times: "Speak!"

Where did you steal the first collateral line mark in your family tree? She ignored it and continued to trace the lyrics of "Tianjianling" with her fingernails—the one her mother hummed to her before she died: "Sow a seed in spring, reap a thousand roots in autumn."

"You filthy bitch!" The bearded man drew a short knife, the tip pressed against her collarbone. "If you don't talk, then..."

“Look.” The spy on the far right suddenly froze, pointing at the wall.

Kitahara Shizuka stopped and saw that pale green liquid was seeping out of the engraving, winding along the brick seam like a living thing, dripping onto the ground with a "drip" and then crawling out through the gaps in the bluestone slab.

Three days later, at dawn, the young maid sweeping the courtyard was passing by the old locust tree with a bamboo basket when she suddenly screamed.

The tree is full of snow-white flower buds that are about to bloom, and each petal has a faint green mark on it—"Beiyuan".

She picked a flower and tucked it into her bosom. As she ran across the bluestone path, the words on the petals swayed gently with her steps, as if they were speaking.

“Kitahara!

Kitahara! "At dusk, children from the slums ran past the street corner holding flowers. Old Zhang, who sold sugar paintings, squinted and leaned closer to look: "This character... is the same as the surname of the first collateral branch that my father mentioned." He pulled off his apron to wipe his hands and changed the character "Zhang" in the last sugar painting to "Kitahara".

Meanwhile, the scent of ink wafts from the abandoned accounting room deep within the Konoha Archives.

Onodera Ren knelt on a straw mat, his left hand pressing down on the gold-flecked paper used by Shige, while his right hand held a wolf-hair brush suspended in mid-air.

She stared at the photocopy of the "Fragment of the First Imperial Edict" on the table, and suddenly her pen fell—"Li Chengyan, descendant of the first Fire Temple Cleaner; Wang Jiuhe, grandson of the first Martial Arts Arena Protector..." Before the ink was dry, she took out a sandalwood box from her bosom. At the bottom of the box lay a replica of the Fire Kingdom's jade seal, the dragon pattern on the seal face being almost identical to the genuine article.

"Clap."

The wooden door to the accounting office was suddenly kicked open a crack.

Onodera Ren's hand trembled, and the ink spread out in a small circle over the character "罪" in "赵无罪".

She looked up and saw the night watchman, Ah San, peeking in with half his face, his eyes scanning the papers on her desk—this was the "clue" she had deliberately left in the corridor that morning: half a piece of Hetian jade of decent quality, tied with a red string, which she had left at the bottom of the steps that Ah San would inevitably pass.

"Lieutenant Lian, still here so late..." Ah San rubbed his hands together and moved further inside, his gaze landing on the last page of the stack of papers. "This is..."

"Don't touch it!" Onodera Ren hurriedly tried to take it back, but deliberately slowed down a beat when A-San reached out.

The moment the guard's finger touched the corner of the paper, she screamed and lunged at him. In the struggle, several sheets of paper fluttered to the ground.

As the Indian man bent down to pick it up, he happened to see the words "Descendant of the First Generation of Heroes," and his pupils dilated instantly.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!" Onodera Ren hurriedly tidied up, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ah San stuff half a piece of paper into his belt.

She lowered her eyes, concealing her smile—tomorrow morning, this half-sheet of paper would appear on the tea table of Zuixianlou; the day after, a "routine report" would appear on the desk of the daimyo's mansion in the Land of Fire; and the day after that...

The sacred river in Amegakure Village shimmered with silver light in the twilight.

Orihime knelt on the shore, a corner of her blindfold lifted by the wind.

She reached out her hand, and as soon as her fingertips touched the water, she trembled violently—something was flowing at the bottom of the river, like the breath of countless people, carrying warmth and names.

She fumbled in her bosom and took out a ceramic jar, which contained paper ash collected from various places, each piece of ash bearing faint writing.