As everyone knows, Orochimaru’s scientific research is very costly. At the same time, he has many experimental bases and strongholds like a cunning rabbit with three burrows, so the amount of money scattered about can be imagined, disappearing in a flash like running water all day long.
The blue sky is clear, and the warm sun unreservedly blankets the entire forest. A gentle breeze slowly approaches, causing patches of trees to sway in succession, their branches and leaves rustling and rubbing against each other to produce soft whispers.
The sunlight is cut into countless fine, glittering gold spots by the swaying leaves, slowly wandering across the forest ground along with the forest breeze, carrying the refreshing scent of grass and trees, full of vibrant brightness.
The flowing light spills over everyone. Uchiha Sasuke props himself up on one leg, leaning against the base of a big tree, listening amidst the magnificent scenery of daylight to the stinky, copper-smelling arguments about funds among Orochimaru, Amenohoko, and Yakushi Kabuto, completely unconcerned about the pure and beautiful scenery at this moment.
——Money has become a chronic and difficult problem under Orochimaru’s forces.
The Uchiha descendant, who has never worried about money, wears a trace of confusion on his face, but soon calmly listens to their quarrel.
Anyway, here at Orochimaru’s, no matter who suffers, he will never let Sasuke suffer.
Amenohoko ponders for a moment and says: “After on-site research, the research and development of beauty products is already a matter of extreme urgency. Once introduced to the market, a steady stream of money will flow in. By then, nobles, ninjas, and commoners will all become our customers.”
In other words, all those people will be willing to spend money on it.
Orochimaru’s train of thought catches up quickly: “Mm, indeed… we can completely launch products of different qualities to target different customer groups.”
Yakushi Kabuto also casts a vote of approval, “There are many mediocre people in the world, and very few people who do not love their own faces.”
The young man who does not particularly care about his own appearance, yet happens to possess the most exquisite and stunning beauty, has eyes filled with incomprehension.
Why are these three people so certain that their beauty products will definitely sell like hotcakes? If it were the explosive tag business, that would be one thing—that is clearly a hot-selling, in-demand commodity that can be sold to the entire ninja world!
Shouldn’t the ninja world respect strength, with everyone pursuing power!
However, the three of them have already negotiated in just a few words and even decided how to produce and sell next. Orochimaru even leaves using the Body Flicker Technique right away, acting with maximum efficiency to directly get to work.
After Yakushi Kabuto leaves, Amenohoko shifts his gaze to Sasuke.
Sasuke feels that his gaze is weird and questions him with an unkind tone: “What do you want to do?”
Amenohoko gloomily looks away, but cannot help moving his gaze back, his expression subtle, and says with no small amount of regret: “Lord Sasuke’s face is definitely a top-tier signboard for ensuring the products sell out.”
The pretty child of the Uchiha family freezes for a few seconds, his eyes opening a bit wider, and then his eyebrows turn fierce as he says word by word: “A-meno-hoko!”
A ball of buzzing, dangerous blue light erupts from his left hand—
“Chidori!”
13.
However, it still takes some time from the research of the product to its production and sale. At this time, the fastest way to get money is still to take on commission missions.
Sound Village is, after all, a small ninja village, and it also has regular channels for issuing and accepting missions. Mission levels range from S to ABCD; if there’s money, they do the work—this is the form of ninja survival.
Since the Warring States period, ninjas have supported themselves this way, except back then it was by family units, whereas now it has become ninja villages, with general circumstances not changing much.
Orochimaru is not a philanthropist; he also makes the many children he raises go take on missions to earn money to make a living, and prettily calls it training their abilities and being valued by himself, and so on.
However, Uchiha Sasuke doesn’t buy this routine. What he wants here at Orochimaru’s is rigorous training and the study of ninjutsu; he is in no mood to complete any commission missions.
In the year and more he spent in Konoha Village, he had already done enough missions accepted by genin.
What’s more, he has already paid the price he placed on the scale—the body possessed by the Uchiha clan sharingan that Orochimaru has long coveted.
Orochimaru personally comes to find him, using an apologetic but hypocritical expression to say: “Running into a situation where the experimental base lacks money, I also feel deeply helpless. But Sasuke-kun, we are forced by circumstances to plan on sending you out to do missions as well. But please believe that such times will definitely not exceed five times.”
Sasuke’s complexion is very ugly, showing undisguised displeasure, and his tone is icy: “I want to train.”
Who has time to complete those boring missions.
Orochimaru is silent for a while, and with a poof in his hand, a scroll appears. Written on it is not any treacherous ninjutsu or earth-shattering intelligence, but entirely bills drawn by Amenohoko.
Sasuke suspiciously takes it and scans it from top to bottom quickly, his face involuntarily turning alternately pale and green.
The bill clearly records where the reimbursed expenses were spent. Over ninety percent of it was entirely used on Sasuke; all kinds of food, clothing, and daily necessities were of the highest grade, and probably not even Orochimaru himself had lived so lavishly and comfortably.
Sasuke carefully recalls: ever since Amenohoko came to his side, the comfort of his life has indeed improved by a large margin.
It’s just that he was single-mindedly focused on cultivation and didn’t pay attention to such trivial, minor matters.
Looking at it this way, Orochimaru is probably also driven by necessity.
Sasuke rolls up the scroll, snuffs out the irritability in his heart, and says helplessly: “I get it, what is the mission?”
Orochimaru smiles sinisterly: “I thought Amenohoko acting on his own would make you angry.”
Sasuke’s tone is peaceful: “He is just doing his best within his own scope of responsibility, and besides, you didn’t stop him either.”
“I am also doing it for your sake, Sasuke-kun; you are certainly worth the best.” Orochimaru smiles hypocritically, takes out the scroll once more, and begins chanting: “This is an S-rank mission.”
Sasuke looks solemn, listening intently.
The S-rank missions in Orochimaru’s hands cannot be said to contain any moisture; in fact, the contents are even stricter and more dangerous than imagined, so of course he has to face them with full readiness.
14.
In the cavern, white mist billows above the stone-built medicinal pool, the dark-colored medicinal soup continuously steaming. Amidst the surrounding dark purple light, this entire pool of water carries an alluringly seductive and eerie atmosphere.
Uchiha Sasuke strips off his white kimono, removing the dark armor that wraps all the way from his elbows to the backs of his hands and the roots of his fingers, his finger bones slightly protruding, in an extremely beautiful shape.
His raven hair is dampened by the moisture, clinging softly to the snow-white skin. His lips are redder than blood, and every move he makes embodies the perfect posture of a great clan’s descendant.
Originally, Yakushi Kabuto was responsible for recording body data, but ever since Amenohoko appeared, this task was silently snatched away by him.
However, Kabuto is still the one responsible for concocting the secret medicinal soup pool, and the medicinal herbs used are becoming increasingly rare and expensive, making Kabuto—the person in charge—feel a heartache as if his heart were being carved out.
Until Sasuke completely strips off his kimono and pants, wearing only a towel around his waist to cover his private parts, and finally even that snow-white towel drops to the ground, fully revealing a physique that has been tempered to the extreme of beauty and holiness.
The youth’s frame is slender, his shoulders narrow and slightly thin, his spine lean and gaunt, with a thin layer of flesh covering the bone, his two shoulder blades looking like jade butterfly wings. His waistline is extremely slender, flexible, and thin, easily encircled by a palm.
He slowly steps down into the water, his waist dimples shallowly concave, embedded in the cold white flesh, while the pale cyan blood vessels beneath the skin are faintly visible.
Water droplets trickle into his bone hollows, refracting a bright glow, and fall into a pair of white pupils—these eyes haven’t blinked for a long time.
Beauty of the highest artistry is a feast for the eyes; Otsutsuki Amenohoko hums two long, strange notes with exceptionally good spirits.
The youth abruptly opens his eyes, his pitch-black pupils staring straight ahead. The pitch-black curse marks that occupy half of his cold, white face crawl upward, flashing with a brilliant light like fireworks from time to time, their alluring beauty enchanting enough to capture souls.
Amenohoko asks: “Lord Sasuke, how are you feeling?”
Sasuke replies: “All states are good; the sore meridians have eased a lot.”
“That’s good.” Amenohoko explains the efficacy: “Herbs and buffering agents that suppress the curse mark poison have been added to these medicinal liquids, which can neutralize the corrosive nature of the curse mark and stabilize the chaotic immortal chakra inside your body. Through Lord Orochimaru’s unremitting research, the medicinal bath can also stimulate cell activity and continuously polish the toughness of bones and flesh.”
“You also don’t need to worry about these medicinal liquids causing any wear and tear on your body. They are not any forbidden drugs; they can not only help your body gradually adapt to the power of immortal chakra, but also develop a massive amount of chakra. There are only benefits and no harms.”
Sasuke gazes at him and hums: “I am very clear on this point; you don’t need to explain it anymore. Since Orochimaru wants to cultivate a perfect reincarnation vessel, of course he treasures ‘his own body’ to the extreme.”
Amenohoko’s pen tip pauses on the paper. He raises his head and says with a smile: “Alright, Lord Sasuke.”
After a moment of silence, he speaks again: “I almost forgot to mention, I will be going with you for this S-rank mission.”
15.
Amenohoko holds a pair of sunglasses in his left hand and a roll of gauze in his right hand, asking in a low voice: “Lord Sasuke, which of these do you think is more suitable as a tool to cover these eyes of mine?”
Sasuke: “?”
Suddenly asked about such a thing, he can’t help but be stunned for a split second.
Amenohoko: “I don’t want to be recognized as a member of the Hyuga family outside either. They still belong to Konoha’s faction, and they care quite a bit about their own eyeballs. If outsiders were to see my eyes, it would probably be quite troublesome if word got out.”
By then, there would be a constant stream of probing and covert investigations, which is simply annoying to death.
Uchiha Sasuke also deeply knows this point, and he looks at the gauze: “Wrapping this around won’t affect your vision?”
With a poof, the sunglasses vanish accordingly. Amenohoko decisively wraps the gauze around his eyes, not forgetting to reply: “Of course not; this little difficulty is not worth mentioning to me.”
Watching him finish wrapping it in two or three strokes, incidentally tying a knot at the back of his head, with the fluttering gauze ribbons hanging against his hair, complementing the soft-glowing white, Sasuke takes a long time to find his voice: “…You decided just like that?”
Amenohoko says innocently: “Since my first reaction was like this, it also shows that Lord Sasuke’s first choice was gauze, right?”
He “looks” in the direction where the white-robed youth is standing, proving that he can indeed still see.