bookbashuk Chapter 340 Return to Quiet
Chapter 340 Return to Quiet
Chapter 340 Return to Quiet
The first to move was a young woman holding a child.
Without asking any further questions, she picked up the child and ran home. Immediately afterward, another old man slapped his thigh and shouted, "What are you all standing there for! Get ready!"
The chaotic crowd finally began to disperse.
Some rushed home, some helped the elderly out, some hurried to fetch their cattle, and some ran outside carrying bamboo baskets filled with medicinal herbs, tears streaming down their faces. The whole village was in an uproar; footsteps, shouts, the sounds of livestock, and the opening and closing of wooden doors all mingled together.
Jingyin quickly spread out the documents and, together with several literate young people from the village chief's family, registered the documents by household.
"The Zhang family, five members: one elderly person and two children—go over there and line up!"
"Those with mobility issues, please turn to the left!"
"Keep the livestock tied up in one line, don't let them run off!"
"Take only what's necessary, don't carry the pots! Konoha will replenish the pots behind us!"
A woman cried, her eyes red and swollen: "My meager dowry—"
Jingyin grabbed her hand: "Let's stay alive first, then we'll figure something out, okay? Let's stay alive first."
Meanwhile, Izumi had already led Kakashi, Shikamaru, Tenzo, and several Anbu members deeper into the village.
Shikamaru walked along, looking up at the houses and alleys.
"The village is even more densely populated than I thought."
"Um."
"It's easy to bury, but it's also easy to burn it too early."
"So it wasn't all destroyed."
Chi Quan didn't stop walking, but his gaze swept over every roof beam, courtyard corner, woodshed, wellhead, and turning alleyway.
The houses in this village are mostly made of wood and stone, with shallow foundations but many cellars and storage pits inside. The gaps between the courtyard walls are also small. Some houses have herbs drying in front of them, some have firewood and miscellaneous items piled up behind their doors, and a few small workshops still have the hard-earned smell of herbs and powders.
Kakashi asked slowly, "How do you plan to arrange it?"
Chi Quan pointed to several spots.
"Here, at the first row of empty houses at the village entrance, we didn't put up heavy medicine, only talismans and light medicine, to trick them into exploring first."
Shikamaru immediately understood: "Lighter at the front, heavier at the back."
"right."
"Let them think that Konoha only buried some small things at the village entrance."
Chi Quan then pointed to several intersecting alleyways in the village.
"The real heaviest parts are here. The second-floor buildings, the well, the corner—it looks most like a courtyard suitable for settling down and temporary gatherings."
Tianzang looked at those locations and whispered, "If they send scouts in, their first round will probably bypass the village entrance and check the well and the courtyard first."
"Therefore, there must be one near the well."
Chiquan stopped in front of a slightly larger courtyard in the village. There was a well in the courtyard, and piles of chopped firewood next to it. There were three main rooms and two side rooms. The courtyard wall was also a bit higher than the other houses, which was obviously a suitable place to serve as a temporary base.
"This is one of the core areas."
Kakashi looked at it and said, "It does seem like the kind of place they would choose."
Shikamaru squatted down, touched the ground, and glanced at the beams and door frame, his mind already starting to draw lines of motion.
"If they send in an advance party of ten to fifteen people first, the most cautious way is for three to scout the house, two to scout the well, two to watch the back wall, and the rest to scatter outside the courtyard and at the alley entrance to keep watch."
Chi Quan looked at him and said, "Then let it get on both inside and outside the courtyard."
"Use explosives, not pure talismans?"
"Pure talismans aren't ruthless enough," Chi Quan said. "What I want is for them to be blown to bits, even if they don't die instantly, after stepping in."
His face was covered in blood, and he could barely stand.
Kakashi's eyes crinkled into a smile: "You sound like you're in a good mood."
Chi Quan said calmly, "It's alright."
Shikamaru's lips twitched.
"You're defining 'okay' in an increasingly dangerous way."
The deployment began quickly.
The ninja tool team unrolled several scrolls, revealing not ordinary explosive tags, but packets of sealed black powder and thin metal fuses. The sealing team, on the other hand, handled the remotely detonating tags, pressing them into thin wooden boards, brick seams, and beam joints, then using chakra threads as concealed fuses.
Tianzang is best suited for use as a cover.
Wherever he touched the base of the wall or the ground, tiny wood roots or pieces would gently sprout, covering the buried medicine blocks and thread openings, making them look almost identical to the original foundation and wood cracks.
Kakashi squatted at the door of a woodshed, watching the Ninja Tool Team stuff medicine packets deep into the woodpile.
"Should we put it here too?"
"Hmm," Chi Quan said, "If they're cautious, they'll check the woodshed and storeroom first, in case of an ambush."
"But if we blow up the woodshed first, won't it scare them so much that they won't dare to go inside?"
"Therefore, the construction of the woodshed will be delayed, and will be carried out together with the well in the back courtyard."
Kakashi glanced at him.
"You even factored in whether they'd stop after being startled."
Chi Quan said, "What I want is something that can't be stopped."
Shikamaru, who had just finished drawing a path through an alley on the other side, clicked his tongue upon hearing this.
"That's really bad."
Chi Quan looked at him: "Aren't you cooperating?"
"I'm being forced to be bad with you." Shikamaru stood up, dusting off his hands. "We also need to set up those two courtyards in the second row on the east side of the village. Those two places look the most suitable for someone to temporarily take command; the houses are tall, the view is good, and the walls are thick."
"Go do it."
"Know."
Time passed little by little.
As the sun rose higher, the evacuation of Guihua Village entered its most chaotic phase.
Cries, shouts, the sound of donkey carts, and the mooing of cows mingled together, kicking up dust at the village entrance. The first group of elderly people and children had already been led south to the rendezvous point, while several people with mobility issues were carried on makeshift stretchers, followed by their families carrying luggage and sacks of grain.
I've shouted myself hoarse.
"Don't look back! Go on!"
"Aunt Zhang, you really shouldn't catch that chicken! It can run away on its own!"
"Is anyone still not out of their house?!"
The village chief, his face flushed and neck bulging, held up the roster and roared, "The Wang family! Where are the Wang family members? One is missing!"
A boy of about six years old rushed out of the alley, carrying a piglet in his arms, and was covered in sweat.
"Here it comes!"
The village chief nearly slapped him: "What time is it and you're still hugging a pig?!"
The boy shrank back at the shout, clinging tightly to the pig and refusing to let go.
Shizune glanced at it, then waved her hand, "Never mind, take it with you, hurry up and get back with the group!"
Several more families started crying, reluctant to part with the herbs in their fields and the grain that had just been dried in the sun. But when they saw the people of Konoha handing out boxes of money, vouchers, and resettlement documents, and when they saw the people in front of them already leaving, they gritted their teeth and carried on.
By noon, most of the villagers had already left.
As more and more rooms became empty, the original sounds and warmth of people gradually dissipated, leaving only the sound of the wind passing through the empty courtyard and the occasional soft knocking of an unsecured door.
Jingyin stood under the old osmanthus tree in the village, watching group after group of villagers leave, and suddenly felt a strange emptiness in her heart.
"It's like they've completely hollowed out a village."
She said in a low voice.
The medical ninja next to him gave a soft "hmm".
"Hopefully they'll be able to come back later."
Jingyin pursed her lips and didn't answer.
Meanwhile, Chi Quan and his team have been laying their traps deeper and deeper.
The first layer of fake marks is very deliberate.
Some houses even had several ordinary explosive tags left behind, clearly made using Konoha techniques. The tags weren't completely hidden, as if they were hastily placed and not properly concealed. Similar traces were also found behind the doors, in the corners of the walls, and near the stoves of two houses at the village entrance.
Shikamaru shook his head at the sight.
"This is just like a 'Look, there's a trap here!'"
Kakashi smiled.
"We need to make sure they can dismantle the structures smoothly at first."
The real potent medicines were gradually shoved into deeper clusters of houses and alleyway nodes.
A section of the stone rim around the well was hollowed out, with medicine packets hidden along the well wall. The base of the courtyard wall was dug up and then resealed with soil, with even heavier medicine scrolls buried inside. Long-range talismans were nailed into the joints of several roof beams; once detonated, not only would the area below explode, but the beams would also break, and the roof would collapse.
Tianzang stood behind a house, watching the sealing team press talismans into the cracks in the wall, and asked in a low voice, "At this distance, is it possible to detonate them remotely in time?"
Chi Quan said, "We'll make it. We won't wait in the village."
"Outside the village?"
"The low slope behind the western forest belt."
Shikamaru continued, "From there, you can see the village entrance and half of the village. That's enough."
Kakashi stroked his chin as he looked at the picture: "But to see exactly how far they've gone, it's best to have some Byakugan."
Izumi nodded: "Neji will come."
Shizune, who was in the village overseeing the villagers' evacuation, turned around upon hearing this and said, "Neji? Isn't he in the village assisting with the chain explosion test?"
"We've called them over," Chi Quan said. "They need eyes here more."
Jingyin looked at him for a long time before saying, "Did you already think through the whole thing from the moment you received the message?"
Chi Quan didn't speak, but bent down and gently smoothed out a piece of soil that had just been covered, as if checking to make sure there were no traces of it.
Seeing that he didn't answer, Jingyin didn't bother to ask any further questions.
In the afternoon, the last group of villagers finally left.
At the village entrance, only a series of crooked cart tracks and muddy footprints left by livestock remained. With a gust of wind, the village's former smoke and human presence seemed to have faded considerably. The paper windows of the empty houses swayed gently, and the remaining buckets, drying racks, and a few old items left behind in the courtyards seemed all the more jarring.
The village chief was the last to leave.
Before leaving, he stood at the village entrance for a long time, leaning on his cane, looking at the village where he had lived for half his life. His lips trembled several times before he finally turned back to look at Chiquan.
"Konoha—will they hold out?"
Chi Quan looked at him and said, "Yes."
The old man nodded, his eyes reddening, but he didn't say anything more and turned to follow the group.
After the last villager disappeared down the southern path, Guihua Village finally fell completely quiet.
The stillness wasn't the stillness of villagers sleeping soundly at night; it was emptiness.
More than a hundred households were empty, chicken coops were half-open, water buckets by the well were leaning against the stone edge, and some stoves still had half-burnt firewood. The wind blowing through the alley carried a hollow echo.
The middle-aged man from the ninja tool squad stood in the main alley of the village and couldn't help but shiver.
"This place really looks a bit creepy now."
Kakashi said slowly, "It will be even more terrifying once the Allied Forces arrive first."
The man felt a chill run down his spine as he thought about it.
As darkness gradually descended, the second round of deployment was completed.
Chi Quan led his people through the entire route again.
The false traces at the village entrance, the first layer of light explosive points, the second layer of heavy explosive courtyard, the main explosive at the well, the chain reaction at the alley entrance, the roof beam collapse point, and the evacuation line on the back slope were all reconfirmed.
Neji arrived in the evening.
As soon as he landed, he opened his eyes and scanned all the talismans and medicinal spots buried in the village, his temple veins bulging slightly.
"There are two light points at the village entrance, three heavy points in the main alley in the village, one core point in the West Well Courtyard, two points in the East Second Row Courtyard, and one more point at the end of the South Alley."
After he finished speaking, he fell silent for a moment.
"—This is no longer a matter of just one or two moves."
Shikamaru sat on the threshold of an empty house and yawned.
"Welcome to Chi Quan's 'Not Bad'."
Neji glanced at him: "You guys didn't sleep all night, and then spent the whole day doing this?"
"almost."
"You can still laugh."
Shikamaru shrugged: "I have to do it even if I don't want to smile."
At this moment, Ikezumi walked over from the other side and asked Neji, "From the west slope, can we see which floor the first group of people went to?"
Neji looked up and said directly, "Yes. As long as they're not all hiding inside, they can be seen from the village entrance, the main alley, and the well courtyard."
"That's enough."
Neji hesitated for a moment, then asked, "When do you plan to summon them?"
Chi Quan looked at the now empty village.
"Look where they stepped on it."
"What if only two or three people go in?"
"Don't move for now."
"What if we join an scout team?"
"Destroy the first floor and a well courtyard."
"If they suspect a trap, and dismantle the light scouts at the village entrance, will they then turn around and back out?"
"Then make your move when they feel they understand the situation best."
Neji remained silent for a moment, then nodded slightly.
"Understood."
As night fell, no more lights were turned on in Guihua Village.
Everyone retreated to the low slope behind the woodland on the west side of the village. The grass was tall and the trees were dense, and through a few gaps, one could see the village entrance and half of the houses, but not so close that they would be exposed. Tianzang also used wood-based techniques and branches to provide some cover, making it extremely difficult for anyone to leave a trace from the outside once they were inside.
Jingyin finally got a moment to catch her breath, and sat down against a tree root, her hands still numb.
She looked at the deserted village motionless in the night not far away and whispered, "They really will come, won't they?"
Kakashi sat down next to him, casually placing a book on his lap. He didn't read it, just smiled.
"It will come."
How can you be so sure?
"Because things are going too smoothly here." Kakashi gazed at the darkening rooftops in the distance. "And they're desperate to regain their dignity right now."
Shikamaru rested his head on his arm against the grassy slope, his eyes half-closed.
"Konoha just burned down their warehouse. What they fear most now isn't danger, but being looked like fools." With Osmanthus Village right here, even knowing the danger, if they don't go in, the rest of the group will have second thoughts. Going in, at least it shows they dared to tread this path.
Mute sighed.
"Do you men really care so much about this inexplicable matter of saving face?"
Shikamaru said with his eyes closed, "It's not just us, it's the army that cares. If you let a large group of people whose grain has just been burned not dare to take a single step on the border, then you might as well not lead the rest of the army."
The wind blew gently across the hilltop, causing the grass tips to bend low.
After darkness fell completely, the distant Osmanthus Village was reduced to a silent, dark outline. The rooftops resembled layers of crouching shadows, and occasionally a door would be lifted by the wind and sway gently before slowly returning to silence.