Chapter 221 Is that a Konoha ninja?

"My home is right there!"

Xiaoshi pointed to the village in front and looked excitedly at the people behind him.

However, after entering this mountainous area, the scene in front of him made Hu Ping's expression change slightly.

Most of the farmhouses scattered on the hillside are dilapidated. Their eaves are overgrown with weeds and no one has cleaned them. They look desolate as far as the eye can see.

"Little stones."

Standing behind Xiaoshi, Ye asked the others to disperse and hide. He looked at the abandoned fields and frowned, "What's going on with those farmhouses? How come there are so many of them without anyone taking care of them?"

"Well, everyone in the family must have left or died." Xiao Shi scratched his head, "It rained continuously for many years, and we had to pay a lot of food. We either fled to the capital or to the north. After the farmhouse was abandoned, there were not many people. Appreciable.”

Hu Ping's eyes flickered and he said to himself: "I didn't expect that after not coming back for so long, it would turn out like this..."

He was once a child born in this village, but there were at least a few hundred people living here at that time.

Nowadays, after experiencing wars, plagues, famines and plunders, there are probably less than a hundred people who have died or escaped.

Compared with the vast wasteland in the north, this place is really in decline.

"I should have come earlier." Hu Ping's tone was a little self-reproaching, "I haven't been back for all these years... If I could have noticed it earlier, I would have saved many people from starving to death."

The houses on the shore were empty, and so was his heart.

A dilapidated farmhouse means the death of a family.

"Grandpa! I'm back!"

"Woof woof! Woof!"

Unknowingly, they had arrived at Xiaoshi's home.

In front of that dilapidated house, there was an old man with a stooped back. After hearing the sound, he subconsciously looked up and saw the small stone running towards him, with a smile on his face with ravines.

Xiao Shi whispered into the old man's ear for a while, and the old man looked at Ye and others with surprised eyes.

"Old man." Hu Ping also walked over with a playful smile, "It seems that you are in good health."

"Are you...Skinny Monkey? Do you still know how to come back?"

The old man smiled, pinched his arm, and said with emotion, "Not bad, not bad. You are a lot stronger. You are the only one who can come back alive after going out. You must have suffered a lot."

As if thinking of some bad experience, the smile on Hu Ping's face also faded a lot, but he quickly explained with a smile: "Actually, there are a few people who survived, but they didn't come with me this time. You should see them back in a while.”

"Okay, okay, it'll be great if you can come back." The old man smiled and nodded, looking up at Ye who was approaching.

The originally burly Ye had transformed back into a normal human figure. He walked up to the old man and said in a serious tone, clasping his fists and saying, "I'm sorry for bothering you."

"It's okay, Xiao Shitou told me everything."

The old man smiled, waved his hand, and patted Hu Ping's head again: "I also want to thank you for taking care of Shouhou. This kid has no parents. He used to rely on the village's financial support to survive. I watched him grow up and he is Half a grandfather."

"Old man, I'm not called Shouhou anymore." Huping rubbed his head and muttered, "I have a name, my name is Huping."

"Huping, what a good name, sounds better than Skinny Monkey." The old man laughed, looked at Ye and said, "It's daybreak, and the weather is rarely good during this period. I have to go to the fields in a hurry, so I'll let Xiao Shitou first. Greet you."

"Of course we can't delay the farm work. Please don't pay attention to us. We are just taking a break and leaving in the evening." Ye said in a polite tone, "I have nothing to do. If you don't mind, I will go and help."

"help?"

The old man's turbid eyes swept over Ye, and when he saw the neat black robe, he shook his head and said: "You should be a samurai or a ninja. You don't have to force yourself to do such a despicable thing."

"How can you say farming is a cheap job?"

Ye subconsciously retorted, then slowed down and explained: "Please don't get me wrong, we are not ninjas or samurai. We were once civilians, and now we are just trying to find a way to survive."

The old man put away his smile and said in surprise: "Not a samurai or a ninja? Then you..."

Although he has little experience, he still knows and has seen samurai and ninjas. In his eyes, samurai, ninjas and civilians are not the same class at all.

Samurai are the personal guards of nobles, and ninjas are people who don't work in production.

The old man really didn't like these two kinds of people. He just didn't want to offend them. After all, he knew at a glance that they were not easy-going people, but he didn't expect that they were not samurai or ninjas...

Hu Ping couldn't help but said: "Old man, Ye...Uncle Ye was once just a refugee. He saw the refugees exchange their children for food, and almost starved to death. How could he think that farming is a despicable thing?"

"...Refugees can also have such achievements. It seems that something terrible happened in the north."

The old man was silent for a long time, sighed deeply, and his smile became more sincere: "Even so, there is no reason to let the guests work."

A few words made Ye reluctantly give up the idea of ​​helping, and the old man called Xiao Shi aside and whispered: "I hid a sweet potato under the table. When I cook porridge for them later, don't just put sweet potato leaves, but also a sweet potato." Go in."

Xiaoshi licked his lips subconsciously, nodded repeatedly and said, "I understand, grandpa."

The old man turned to look at Ye and Huping, and said with a smile: "Then you talk, and I'll leave first."

Yemu saw the old man off and turned away, his eyes gradually becoming deeper.

With his sharp ears, he naturally heard what the old man secretly said to Xiao Shi, and he couldn't help but feel a little touched and uncomfortable in his heart.

At this moment, the corner of Ye's clothes was tugged. He subconsciously looked down and saw that he was carefully holding a small black square stone.

"What is this?" Ye was stunned for a moment.

"Oh." Huping recognized the black lump and said nostalgically, "It's black bread. I haven't seen it for a long time."

After that, under Xiao Shi's eager gaze, he picked up the piece of black bread and stuffed it into his mouth. While chewing it, he made a clicking sound while giving a thumbs up to Xiao Shi in front of him and said vaguely: "Familiar. smell."

"Pooh!"

He spat out two stones, touched his belly and said, "Bread baked with wheat flour mixed with bran, mixed with sawdust and small gravels is garbage given by nobles to their servants or used for disaster relief."

"At that time, I couldn't even eat anything I wanted. When I left the village, a mother-in-law gave me a piece of it."

"It felt really delicious at first, but now that I think about it, I don't like eating it, I just have no choice, because I'm hungry, I'm too hungry, and since it can be kept for a long time, other people won't like it, so they won't be robbed."

Hu Ping knew very well that such a piece of black bread only needed to be swallowed in one piece, followed by a few sips of water, and it would last for two days. He had experience in this regard.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but sigh: "At that time, how could I have imagined that I would have enough food and clothing for a day? Not only did I gain strength, but I also managed hundreds of people under my command. My fate was really bizarre."

"I hope Lord Kumokawa can win this war and bring the south into the scope of Dawn. In this case, they can also eat real bread."

Huping talked to himself, but Ye didn't speak.

He just put his hand on Xiao Shi's head, took out a candy from his arms and handed it over: "Thank you for the bread. This is the candy my wife left for me. Here it is for you, Little Shi."

Xiaoshi was originally a little frustrated because he had given up the black bread. After hearing this, he immediately looked up at the paper-wrapped candy. He knew at a glance that it was a candy that had been hidden in his arms for an unknown period of time.

He never had candy.

"Thank you, uncle." A smile appeared on Xiaoshi's face, and he felt the hand on top of his head touching his head. The palm was very broad, and there was a kind of warmth that he had not seen for a long time.

He kind of likes this uncle he just met.

He just felt a little cold and there was almost no smile on his face.

"Hmm." Xiao Shi opened the candy wrapper and held the candy in his mouth. Feeling the sweetness, he narrowed his eyes slightly and said vaguely, "Uncle, give me the candy left for you. Is that really okay?"

"You've eaten everything." Ye couldn't help but smile, gently rubbed his head, and whispered, "It doesn't matter, even if she is still alive, she won't object."

Looking at the rising sun in the distance, Ye felt an inexplicable sense of déjà vu.

That day seemed to be a day in winter. When the sun rose from the other side, the footsteps of those guys came from afar, bringing inexhaustible flames and death.

Finally, the wooden door of the last room was violently kicked open, and three people rushed in. However, they only saw the stove that had been extinguished for a long time with only a few sparks left.

They trampled the photo frame that fell to the ground and took away the few remaining food. But just as they were about to leave, they saw the shaking cabinet and the corner of the skirt exposed outside the cabinet...

In the evening, the lean man came back from hunting. He brought back two rabbits with thick fur and bought some candy that his wife loved along the way.

But when he walked over the last hillside, his eyes were illuminated by the fire in the distance, and the deep-set eye sockets were lit with flames.

He dropped the prey in his hand and ran home wildly until he saw the kunai pierced through the cabinet and the blood flowing out of the cabinet.

Maybe they did it unintentionally, they just threw out the kunai when they noticed someone was there, or maybe they did it intentionally, and they just silenced them to ensure that no one knew.

The man didn't know, he just stood there, like a frozen stone, his whole body was dead.

Until a man who called himself Tsukimi Sato Kumikawa came over, threw the heads of two dead Konoha ninjas and one Konoha ninja in front of him, and told him that these three people killed his wife.

Then, he rushed forward with red eyes. He never thought that his thin body, which could only hunt and trap rabbits, could actually have that kind of power.

He raised his fist and brought it down again, smashing the face of the Konoha ninja beyond recognition. In the end, those fellow villagers who were lucky enough to survive were unable to hold back this thin man who seemed to have no strength at all.

His brain was bleeding all over the floor. It was a disgusting scene, but it seemed to be the most beautiful scenery a man had ever seen in his life.

"Look." Yun Chuan pointed at his bloody hand and smiled, "Can you tell whose blood it is? Your blood is all the same color."

"Whether it's the blood of a noble, the blood of a samurai, the blood of a ninja, or your blood, it's all the same bright red. So, why didn't you chase them after you clearly saw them just now? Is it fear or weakness?"

"Do you want my 'blood'?" he said with a smile.

Later, the man followed him back to the city called "Dawn". No one was drinking and having fun, and no one was wearing gold and silver. They just cuddled together and hugged each other for warmth.

But he followed Yun Chuan and heard countless greetings along the way.

Once, he had seen those nobles go out, and countless people would greet them, but they behaved very humbly, with unconditional flattery, nodding and bowing like a dog wagging its tail on the roadside.

But the greetings he saw at this moment seemed so natural and sincere, a kind of respect from the heart.

He could feel it, so he liked it there and stayed there.

This is him, this is the origin of "Ye", all of which he thought he had forgotten, after all, he even gave up his name.

But unexpectedly, when he knew that he was sent to ambush Konoha, he still brought this candy with him, and just now he subconsciously took this candy out of his arms...

"Uncle?"

When Xiaoshi's voice came into his ears, Ye came back to his senses, met his puzzled eyes, shook his head slightly and smiled: "Nothing, you go to help your grandfather, no need to trouble you to look after us."

He understood that he was not as calm and rational as he seemed on the surface. He wanted to win, as long as it was Konoha, no matter who the other party was, even if it was Jiraiya, even if it was the disciple of the third generation Hokage.

He didn't want this already dilapidated place to become the ruins he saw at the beginning.

Hearing what Ye said, Xiaoshi scratched his head and hesitated, "Then I, go to help grandpa first?"

"Go."

"Oh."

After Xiaoshi left with the black dog, Ye turned to look at Hu Ping and said indifferently: "Tell others to get ready. After dark, we will continue to move forward and don't disturb the villagers."

"Yes." Hu Ping nodded seriously without any playfulness just now.

The only flaw of being a "ghost" is that he is afraid of light and hates light.

Although he will not die if he is exposed to light, his recovery ability will be greatly weakened.

Therefore, this is the only way for the troops led by Jiraiya. They plan to wait here until dark before continuing to move forward.

While preparing here, Xiaoshi has climbed up the nearest hillside, panting and sitting on a stone to take a rest, and took out the paper used to wrap the candy and licked it.

But at this moment, the big black dog beside him, who was chewing grass, suddenly looked up and started barking as if he saw something.

"Xiaohei, what's wrong?"

Xiaoshi was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously followed his sight. With narrowed eyes, he saw more than a dozen figures wearing green vests coming from three directions in the distance.

Xiaoshi recognized the identities of those people in an instant, and the candy paper in his hand fell to the ground in a daze.

Is that a Konoha ninja?