Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

The moment the light disappeared, a cracking sound came from beneath the ruins of Guiyuan Shrine.

Countless green vines sprouted from the ground, each vine tip bearing a shining name: there were villagers who were cleansed, village histories that were destroyed, the "08" that Fujiwara Shizuka carved on the wall and then crossed out, and the "younger brother" that had been hidden in the veins of the Aoba vine for thirty years.

Bai Ye stood in the center of the vine sea.

The Wood Release seed in his palm had disappeared, replaced by the warmth of vines entwining it—it belonged to his brother, to Fujiwara Shizuka, and to everyone who was remembered.

From afar, Onodera Ren's voice pierced through the vines: "Byakuya!"

Jing reversed the seal, and the memory waves spread! "Biche rode to his side, tore off a scroll from his waist and tossed it over: 'The reverse data of the End Protocol, go to the snowfield and find Kazama Shin!'"

The evening breeze lifted the hem of the white night.

He gazed at the names fluttering in the sky, then suddenly reached out and caught a speck of light—it was "Night Light".

“Brother,” he whispered to the wind, “this time, let’s go together.”

On the ruins of Guiyuan Shrine, the last rays of the setting sun are slowly sinking.

The white night's shadow was stretched out by Fujimi, overlapping with countless points of light.

At his feet, a new vine was sprouting from the ground, with two words written on its tip: "Cleaner".

As the moonlight spilled over the broken pillars of Guiyuan Shrine, Baiye's fingertips suddenly broke out in a cold sweat.

He could clearly discern every wriggling movement of the vine-like pattern on his palm—the Wood Release Seed had completely merged into his flesh and blood, replaced by countless cold fragments rampaging through his meridians.

The warmth of Sakura Tsushima's body, the touch of Chiho's trembling eyelashes, the nameless child's last clenched fist before his name was erased—these memories that didn't belong to him flooded his heart like a tide, pressing down on his knees until he knelt heavily on the ground where Shindo was sprouting.

"Cough—" He felt a sweet taste in his throat, and vomited black blood mixed with broken leaves onto the green vine.

Where the blood splattered, a translucent green sprout emerged from the putrid blood, trembling in the night wind as it unfurled its five petals.

Bai Ye stared at the flower, when suddenly he heard a hoarse voice calling from the distant hillside: "Are you... Ye Ming?"

He looked up sharply.

Under the moonlight stood an old farmer carrying a hoe, his coarse cloth jacket stained with grass clippings, and his wrinkles still glistening with sweat from his labor.

The old farmer's cloudy eyes shone with an astonishing light, as if some long-buried light had cleaved through the chaos: "My mother said that Ye Ming is a little bodhisattva who carries people's names..."

The moment the words "Night Light" struck his eardrums, Bai Ye's fingers trembled violently.

He recalled the light that floated up before Aoba Hachi disappeared, and the "younger brother" who had been wrapped in vines for thirty years; he recalled the "08" that Fujiwara Shizuka had crossed out and then carved on the dungeon wall; and he recalled the warm palm that always stuffed candy into his heart deep in his memory—his brother always said, "Byakuya, you must remember all the names for me."

"Yes," he replied in a hoarse voice, tears suddenly falling onto the green vines.

The three characters "Scavenger" clinging to the tip of the vine glowed slightly, as if responding to this belated recognition.

"white night!"

Ren Onodera's voice came rushing over on the wind.

Her hair was streaked with vine fluff, she held a celadon box in her arms, and her fingertips were still stained with dark brown sap—clearly petals she had just picked from that translucent flower.

She squatted down next to Bai Ye, not in a hurry to speak, but first touched the back of his neck to make sure his body temperature was normal before holding up a petal: "The sap of this flower has a completely opposite resonance frequency to that of the Blood Ink Vine."

Bai Ye gazed at the light flickering in her eyes.

As a spirit seeker, Ren Onodera rarely showed such fanatical focus: "I tried thirteen kinds of blood ink array patterns," she said, drawing a bone pen engraved with runes from her waist and quickly drawing an intertwined pattern of vines and chains on the ground. "This sap can solidify flowing memories into tangible engravings."

The final agreement is meant to burn 'living memories,' but what if we carve those memories into stone, into the veins of vines...?

“Carve it into ‘stone language’ that can’t be burned away,” Bai Ye replied.

He saw Ren Onodera's eyelashes tremble, like a child who had finally found the last piece of a puzzle.

She stood up abruptly, her loose black hair brushing against her cheek: "Go to the village entrance!"

I need the villagers to carve the names they remember into the stone pillars wrapped in new vines.

Using my blood as a catalyst, memories and the vine can coexist.

Before the words were even finished, a commotion could be heard outside the ruins of the Guiyuan Shrine.

Kazama Shin ran ahead, carrying "The Lost Names," the spine seal rustling in the night wind; several villagers who had been hiding in the woods clutched stone knives, charcoal, and even a woman held up a rusty thimble—the one she used to sew a name onto her daughter.

"Carve the cherry blossoms of Tsushima first!" someone shouted from the crowd.

Bai Ye recognized the old woman who had been squatting and crying in front of the ruins that morning. Her hands, covered with age spots, clutched a shard of pottery. "My Aying, she was only fourteen when she died..."

Ren Onodera tore open his sleeve, and the tip of the bone pen pierced his wrist.

The moment the blood dripped, the row of new vines at the village entrance suddenly grew wildly, the vines wrapping around five stone pillars as tall as a person and rising from the ground.

The old woman was the first to rush over, and the pottery shards traced the three crooked characters "Tsushima Sakura" on the stone pillar.

Suddenly, the vine veins glowed with a warm light, as if gently enveloping the engraved mark.

"Chiho!"

"Inumaru!"

The calls echoed through the night sky.

Bai Ye stood at the edge of the vine sea, watching the villagers carve their names on the stone pillars, some crying and some laughing, and watching Onodera Ren grit his teeth to maintain the blood array, his hair stuck together in strands by blood droplets.

Under the moonlight, each engraving cast a faint glow within the vine veins, much like the specks of light from Qingye Ba's name that floated up when he dissipated.

"Mr. Bai."

Tian Jiuzhong's voice came from behind.

He clutched a roll of tea-stained paper in his hand, and his forehead was still smudged with charcoal ash—clearly, he had just run from the underground bookstore. "The silent protests in the three southern cities were suppressed," he unfolded the paper, which was densely covered with words like "blood ink residue in the water" and "aphasia." "The inspector didn't arrest anyone, but he put blood ink in the water."

I guess...

"A partial trial run of the End Protocol," Bai Ye finished speaking for him.

Tanaka Hisashi's Adam's apple bobbed, and he pulled out a leather bag from his pocket, inside which were half-finger-long charcoal sticks: "Hiru's informants can contact merchants."

I made miniature rubbings of "The Cleaner's Paradox Notebook" and hid them inside charcoal sticks. "He took out a charcoal stick, gently pried it open with his fingernail, and sure enough, there was a tiny scroll of paper embedded inside," I added annotations at the end of each charcoal stick...

"Don't be afraid of pain; pain is proof that you've lived." When Bai Ye read this aloud, he saw the tips of Tanaka Hisashi's ears turn red.

The copyist, who always huddled in the shadows of the bookstore, now had an astonishingly bright eye, as if he had finally stepped out of his shell as a recorder.

Chapter 1041 Urgent Border Report

"Mr. Bai!"

Bi's voice came from the village entrance.

His black horse puffed out white steam, a brass letterbox hanging from its saddle. "Urgent report from the border." He dismounted, the letterbox gleaming coldly in the moonlight. "At the border of five countries..." He suddenly paused, glancing at the villagers carving names, then at Bai Ye. "Take care of this place first."

Bai Ye took the mailbox, and the moment his fingertips touched the body of the mailbox, he vaguely heard the sound of sand rubbing against each other inside—like some kind of abnormal movement that was being deliberately concealed.

He didn't rush to open it; he simply put the letter tube into his pocket.

Under the moonlight, the ruins of Guiyuan Shrine cast long shadows, enveloping him, Fujimi's stone pillars, the villagers with their names engraved, Tanaka Hisashi holding charcoal sticks, and Onodera Ren holding a blood-stained array in the same warm light.

In the distance, newly sprouted vine tips, glistening with dew, swayed gently in the wind.

The sound of the new vines emerging from the ground was extremely subtle, yet it was like a fine needle piercing through the trance of the white night.

As he bent down, his fingertips brushed against the two words on the tip of the vine, the rough touch shooting through his nerves into his heart—this was the temperature of the last specks of light that lingered in his palm when Qingye Ba dissipated.

"Mr. Shiro?" Tanaka Hisashi's palms were sweating as he gripped the charcoal sticks. "Like an adult's letterbox..."

When Bai Ye looked up, Bi Zheng removed the sealant from the copper tube.

His knuckles were white, the copper tube gleamed coldly in the moonlight, and the sound of grime emanating from inside suddenly became clear—like countless tiny names rolling.

Bi paused for a moment as he pulled out the secret report, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly. Finally, when he handed the paper over, his fingertips rubbing heavily over the four words "Forgotten Wasteland."

“Wisteria flowers.” Bi’s voice was hoarse. “Three days ago, the vines on the wasteland suddenly started blooming with translucent flowers.” He loosened his collar, revealing a newly added scratch on the side of his neck. “The scouts I sent said that an old woman touched the petals and immediately cried out the childhood name of her son who died in the Third Shinobi World War.”

Bai Ye's pupils suddenly contracted.

He recalled the warm light emanating from the vine veins when the old woman carved "Tsushima Cherry Blossom"—it wasn't a coincidence after all.

"The Elders' Council is about to activate the End Protocol." Bi suddenly clenched his report, the pages rustling in his palm. "They say this is a harbinger of memory rampage, and all the Blood Ink Vines must be burned within seven days." He glanced at the villagers carving their names, his voice lowering. "I argued for three hours at the Imperial Council, proposing to use the Soul Cleansing Bell to reverse the frequency band..."

“You changed the bell’s core,” Bai Ye suddenly said.

Bi suddenly looked up, the panic in his eyes flashing for only a moment before being replaced by a bitter smile: "How did you know?"

“Your little finger was trembling when you touched the letter tube.” Bai Ye pointed to his slightly curled right hand. “Back in Yunyin, you always liked to tap the bell tongue with your little finger to test the sound when you repaired the bell.” He looked down at the secret report. “Reverse modulation is a decoy. You made the bell sound stimulate the activity of the vine veins.”

Bi's ear tips turned red, and she pulled out a bell wrapped in black cloth from her bosom.

The bell was covered in spiral patterns, gleaming a deep blue in the moonlight. "I hid Aoba Hachi's cipher in the secret chamber." He kicked aside a pebble, revealing half a bluestone slab beneath. "Back when the Cleaners performed memory erasures, they would tattoo these patterns on their arms." He crouched down, and in a hidden compartment beneath the slab lay a yellowed scroll. When unfurled, the vine-like patterns on it perfectly overlapped with a section of the mural in the underground water dungeon. "He said he was hiding a spark... so I'll hide one too."

The neighing of horses could be heard in the distance.

Kazama Shin's figure suddenly rushed out from the edge of Fujikai, the cover of "The Lost Names" slapping against his thigh.

He had bits of grass stuck to his temples, and he clutched half a charcoal drawing in his hand: "Mr. Bai!"

I met a mute child at the Northbound Inn! "He unfolded a drawing; on it were shadows of people in flames, silhouettes of figures treading on vines, and a bronze bell hanging in the center," this was the allegory of the 'Watchers' Twin Festival'!

“He drew all night.” Kazama Shin’s fingers trembled over the words “pay back the debt.” “I tried smearing his forehead with blood ink, and he suddenly opened his eyes, shouted those two words, and then fainted.” He tore open his shirt, revealing the newly written blood words on his chest. “I’ve figured it out—the End Protocol isn’t about erasing memories at all; it’s about sacrificing all the souls that refuse to be erased!” He pulled out a charcoal pencil from his pocket and wrote heavily on a blank page of the Lost Names: “We don’t pay back the debt; we collect the debt.”

The ruins of Guiyuan Shrine suddenly shook.

Bai Ye staggered, and the vine patterns on his palm suddenly burned.

He looked southwest, where the underground water prison was located—Fujiwara Shizuka's life force was rapidly weakening.

Deep inside the dungeon, Fujiwara Shizuka's fingernails dug deep into the stone wall.

Her consciousness drifted through the river of memories, seeing her six-year-old self crying while holding her twin brother, and hearing her husband say, "Only one can live"; seeing her twenty-year-old self standing in front of Bai Ye's bed with a knife in hand, the tip of the knife only half an inch away from his throat; and seeing the tremors coming from the ground at this moment, and hearing the sound of villagers carving names penetrating the rock layers like raindrops falling into a deep pool.

"So this is what it feels like to be remembered," she said softly.

With her last ounce of strength, she poured all the blood ink she had recorded throughout her life into the main control mechanism of the dungeon.

The erased dying words transformed into sound waves, spreading out along the underground water veins.

"boom--"

The stone slab at the top of the dungeon collapsed with a crash.

The moonlight shone into this dark abyss for the first time, illuminating the crumbling monument slowly rising from its deepest part.

The newly carved words on the monument still bear traces of blood: "My son Yeming, born in the year of Renwu, buried in fire, awakened by vines."

Bai Ye, a hundred miles away, suddenly clutched his chest.

His breathing quickened, as if a pair of warm hands were traveling through time and space, gently pressing on his heart.

That was his mother's warmth; he never remembered it, yet he never forgot it.

“Mr. Shiro?” Onodera Ren placed his hand on the back of his hand.

Her blood array was still intact, and blood was seeping from the wound on her wrist, yet she smiled like a newly blooming vine, "The vine veins are trembling."

Did you feel it?

Bai Ye nodded.

He felt the translucent green sprout inside his body grow a little bigger, drilling upwards along the meridians.

This time it wasn't pain, but something clearer—like an outline gradually emerging from fog blown away by the wind.

The vines at Guiyuan Shrine surged under the moonlight.

In the distance, newly sprouted vine tips, glistening with dew, swayed gently in the wind, while in Bai Ye's palm, the vine patterns glowed faintly with his heartbeat, as if responding to the call of the broken monument a hundred miles away.

The night dew at Guiyuan Shrine dampened Baiye's sleeves.

He sat leaning against the ruins for half the night, the vine patterns on his palms still slightly warm.

Chapter 1042 Debt Collection Declaration

This is the third day. Every day before dawn, that translucent green sprout will burrow an inch toward my heart. At first, it was a tingling and itchy sensation, but now I can clearly hear it—not my own heartbeat, but thousands of overlapping, fragmented beating sounds, like a downpour hitting a pottery jar, or like countless people saying the same thing at the same time.

“Mr. Haku?” Onodera Ren’s voice came from the depths of the Fuji Sea.

She was wrapped in a blood-stained cloth, the bloodstains on her wrists still seeping faint red. "You didn't sleep all night again?"

Bai Ye looked up and saw that her hair was covered with stars.

Lately, she's been constantly traveling between the underground water dungeon and the shrine. The depletion of the Blood Ink Array has caused a faint blue to appear at the corners of her eyes, yet her eyes are astonishingly bright, like tempered glass. "Did you hear that?" He stretched out his hand, the vine patterns gleaming blue in the moonlight. "It's not the sound of the wind, it's... a heartbeat."