Chapter 49: Intelligence
Noon, Tsuruzuki Izakaya with few customers.
Qiao Yi sat dejectedly behind the counter, fiddling aimlessly with the ledger in front of her.
Where had he been these past few days, why hadn’t he come to see her?
Remembering how his movements had gotten faster in the previous nights, her pretty face suddenly flushed red.
She had witnessed his growth stronger, both in ninja strength and masculine power.
Perhaps he had taken some mission and left the village.
Two merchants entered the izakaya.
“Boss’s Wife, bring a bottle of sake.”
Qiao Yi heard the voice first, her heart suddenly tightening.
This voice…
She slowly raised her head and saw a girl, a girl younger than her.
Younger sister?
A shocked look flashed in her eyes and passed.
Qiao Yi worked as a spy for the village, and her more talented younger sister worked as a ninja in Hidden Stone Village.
All the remuneration and rewards issued by Hidden Stone Village to Qiao Yi were directly handed to her younger sister Mei Yi.
Why had her younger sister appeared here?
Could her younger sister be the contact person? Coming to Konoha as the contact person?
Why would the village do this? She had already done so much for the village?
Qiao Yi had just obtained a very important piece of information: Mito Uzumaki would hold a funeral five days later.
When the First Hokage Hashirama Senju was alive, he did not conceal the identity of the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.
With Hashirama Senju’s strength, the mere Nine-Tails was nothing, no need to keep it as the village’s highest secret.
Mito Uzumaki was the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki; this was public information.
Qiao Yi knew the village would attach great importance to this information, but she hadn’t expected the village to send Mei Yi to find her.
With Mei Yi’s appearance, Qiao Yi had to go all out, risking her life to confirm the truth of the information.
This was the village’s final order to the spy.
Either successfully gather information, and the spy is recalled to the village, becoming a ninja in the sunshine.
Or fail to gather information, death. Along with everything the spy cherished most at the end, all disappear together.
Mei Yi was disguised as a merchant who came to Konoha Village on a commission mission, her identity extremely easy to expose.
“Coming! My family’s sake has mid-grade, high-grade, and special grade varieties. I don’t know what price range you want?”
“Special grade, let us taste the good sake from a big village like Konoha!”
The code matched.
Qiao Yi’s last shred of hope shattered; Mei Yi wasn’t in Konoha by chance.
Selecting a bottle of sake, Qiao Yi delivered it to Mei Yi.
Mei Yi was also very excited; she hadn’t seen her older sister in three years.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t recognize each other and had to pretend not to know one another.
Mei Yi picked up the wine cup, looked at it carefully, and found the special mark.
Two days later, this wine bottle would appear in a nearby trash can, hiding Qiao Yi’s finally confirmed information inside.
The village had to know the most accurate information about Mito Uzumaki.
Qiao Yi walked into the backyard, into the room.
She took out all her money, preparing to take action in these two days to confirm the information.
While tidying the room, Qiao Yi saw the razor.
This was his razor.
She didn’t know if he had found some other little vixen.
The funding for her final action came partially from him.
Every time he came, he ordered a lot of expensive beef and drank the sake with the least impurities.
If she were really a villager of Konoha Village, she might try to be with him.
After knowing each other for so long, he had told her a name, but Qiao Yi knew it was a fake name.
He said his name was Miqu, too perfunctory; that was just a raw material name on a sake bottle.
His temperament was stable, which was a huge advantage among ninjas.
Many ninjas had mental illness; they looked like normal people but were particularly frightening when they raged.
Some ninjas drinking in the izakaya would suddenly remember certain things from some mission and smash things like madmen.
They might have killed the wrong person, killed too many people, been tortured by enemies, or been suspected by the village.
Fortunately, it was very close to the Uchiha Guard Department here; Uchiha ninjas would come to handle the raging ninjas.
Qiao Yi came to the largest sake dealership in Konoha Village.
“Boss, my izakaya’s performance has been declining recently. I’m preparing to do a promotion tomorrow. How much special grade sake do you have left?”
“How much special grade sake can your one store take?”
“At least stock 20 cases of special grade sake every day, for five days.”
While chatting with the boss, Qiao Yi gave a hand signal to one of the sales staff.
The sales staff understood Qiao Yi’s meaning and hurriedly stepped forward, taking the boss away on the pretext that an important client had appeared.
The boss told Qiao Yi to wait in the office; he would be back soon.
That sales staff was a subordinate she had developed, who hadn’t been of much use until now, but was useful at this moment.
Qiao Yi went to the boss’s office, closed the door, and took out a key.
This was a key she had secretly duplicated long ago.
Carefully opening the safe, Qiao Yi saw the boss’s ledger.
The Senju Clan had paused procurement of alcohol?
Qiao Yi checked the date; starting from yesterday, the Senju Clan no longer ordered alcohol.
She continued reading and saw the piece of news that excited her the most.
The Uchiha Clan had ordered many more cases of sake!
The Uchiha Clan and Senju Clan had an extremely bad relationship, always the biggest rivals inside the village.
Especially after Kagami Uchiha’s death, the Uchiha Clan’s bridge of communication to the outside was cut off.
The Senju Clan stopping orders proved they knew something bad might happen to the clan.
But the Uchiha Clan ordering many more cases proved they thought something good was going to happen.
Confirming each other, Qiao Yi believed the information from her spy teammate was true; something really bad was about to happen to the Senju Clan.
This matter could only be the death of the long-lived Mito Uzumaki.
Leaving the sake dealership, Qiao Yi headed to the next location to seek other evidence.
Inside Konoha Village, one by one Hidden Stone Village spies scurried about, secretly investigating.
At the same time, on the border of the Land of Grass, a middle-aged man floated mid-air.
The Third Tsuchikage Oonoki gazed in the direction of Konoha.
Behind him were 5 Stone Ninja brigades.
The Five-Tails Jinchuriki steam ninja Han came to Oonoki’s side.
“Tsuchikage Lord, the troops are assembled.”
Han looked at the Tsuchikage and noticed the Tsuchikage’s ups and downs mid-air were quite large, proving the Tsuchikage was also somewhat uneasy inside.
Leading elites to raid Konoha Village, taking advantage of the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki transition, taking advantage of Mito Uzumaki’s death, to severely strike Konoha, thereby giving Hidden Stone Village an advantage in the Ninja War.
This was a gambling-style adventure; success would yield huge gains, failure might mean all these hundreds of elites die.
Oonoki said:
“The more critical the moment, the less we can be impatient.
We are massive, hard mountain rocks; either we don’t move, or like a mudslide, we destroy everything below the mountain.
Wait for the spy’s final confirmation of the information, then we raid Konoha from a thousand miles away!”
This was the most precious opportunity heaven gave to Hidden Stone Village.
The legendary Nine-Tails had a violent temperament, an aggregate of resentment, sealed by Mito Uzumaki for so many years; it must hate Mito Uzumaki and Konoha to death.
Using the Nine-Tails, they could definitely deal a heavy blow to Konoha.
In a certain alley of Konoha Village.
Mei Yi picked a wine bottle from the trash can.
The wine bottle had several scale marks; that was the code of Hidden Stone Village spies.
The information was true!
After confirming the information, Mei Yi quickly left.
She was disguised as a merchant who had completed the commission mission and was about to leave Konoha Village.
Finally glancing in the direction of Qiao Yi’s izakaya, Mei Yi thought, Older Sister can finally return to the village; we sisters won’t have to be separated anymore.
Land of Grass, Oonoki who received the information waved his hand mid-air.
He would personally lead the team to raid Konoha and deal a heavy blow to Konoha!
