Early in the morning.

A hazy mist suddenly descended, shrouding the small village of Konoha, which was barely fifty years old, in an air of lethargy as if it were still forty-nine.

“Ha~”

Having finished washing up, Fei Niao pushed open the door and stepped outside. He looked at the thick fog surrounding him and muttered,

“If only I could have a grilled fish sprinkled with chili powder right now... don’t you think?”

Turning back to the house, he saw the fat orange cat still sleeping. After a twitch at the corner of his mouth, Fei Niao snapped his fingers and summoned two honey mustard-flavored family buckets, placing one on the table while he hugged the other and walked out the door.

Today marked the monthly clan meeting. Since he had decided not to defect, he might as well attend and hear when they would discuss the plan for a comeback.

Click~ Click~

The streets were not busy early in the morning, and the sound of Fei Niao eating loudly echoed far down the street.

When he arrived at the shrine, he found quite a few old men had already gathered there.

“Hmph!”

Hearing footsteps from afar, Uchiha Madou saw that it was Fei Niao and snorted coldly, immediately turning his head to look elsewhere.

“Hey, Elder Madou, you haven’t forgotten about yesterday, have you?”

“Shut up; I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Eat something; it’s not good for old people to skip two pounds of meat in the morning.”

“Take it away; I don’t eat such greasy food in the morning.”

“Greasy??”

Staring at the family bucket in his hand, Fei Niao’s expression turned serious as he said,

“Who do you think we are? We are Uchiha.

Other clans’ elders need to focus on health and eat light food because they have poor digestion.

Don’t put our clan on the same level as others.

Besides, I heard that Lord Madara's grandfather, although over seventy, had to eat five pounds of fried meat for breakfast every meal and eventually lived to see the founding of Konoha.”

Watching Fei Niao raise five fingers at him, Madou’s cheek twitched.

Yes... some people are indeed in good health, still able to smoke two packs a day, drink a pound of liquor per meal, and eat ten pounds of meat daily...

But I am not...

Bang!

At that moment, Fei Niao used a summoning technique to conjure a pile of greasy food, distributing it to the old men around him.

Just when Madou thought those old men would refuse the food, he saw those white-haired elderly men calmly accept the greasy food and begin to eat heartily.

Damn it, they were just telling me yesterday that vegetables and pickled vegetables were good for health, and today they’re eating this!

You old guys won’t see Uchiha become the Fifth Hokage.

After taking a few deep breaths, Madou suddenly felt a hint of “damn competitive spirit” arise in his heart as he looked at the dripping chicken wings, gritting his teeth and saying,

“Bring me two buckets.”

...

When Fugaku arrived at the Nanga Shrine just in time for the meeting, he smelled the rich aroma of fried chicken in the air and glanced at the clan ninjas with grease around their mouths, kindly suggesting,

“Everyone, it’s not wartime; there’s no need to eat such food in the morning.”

“Hmph!”

Uchiha Madou snorted. Although he felt somewhat nauseous, he still held back the urge to vomit and calmly replied,

“The Uchiha clan is the strongest in Konoha, so our stomachs are naturally made of iron.

In the past, Lord Madara’s grandfather could eat twenty pounds of meat in one meal; what we are eating this morning is just an appetizer.

Burp~”

A melodious burp came from Elder Madou. Fugaku, smelling the increasingly rich fried chicken aroma, felt a twitch in his eyelid and warned,

“Elder Madou, don’t refer to traitors as ‘Lord’ in public.”

“I know.”

After saying this, Madou puffed out his belly and walked straight to his seat.

At this moment, in the hall of the Nanga Shrine, there were four rows of tables arranged from east to west, with varying numbers of tables in each row. The southernmost row had the most, with dozens of tables, while the northernmost row had only one.

Seeing the sudden change in arrangement, Fei Niao was momentarily dumbfounded at the entrance.

Wasn’t it just two rows before? The older ones sat in the front.

Why has it suddenly changed to four rows today??

However, the other Uchiha clan members attending the meeting seemed to have known about the change already. They quickly found their seats and sat down, leaving only the outermost empty seat for Fei Niao.

Once Fei Niao sat down, looking bewildered, he glanced at Uchiha Fugaku, who was very close to him, and then tugged at the elder sitting beside him, whispering,

“How did I end up here?”

“Oh!”

The elder wiped the grease off his mouth casually and said,

“You little brat ran off last time and didn’t see how I was punching everyone.

After the last civil war ended, the elder arranged the tables this way, which also puts the factions out in the open.

The row with the most people on the outer edge is the brave and combative faction, the second most in the middle row is the competitive faction, and my row has fewer people, which is the calm and serene faction...

As for you...”

He glanced at Fei Niao, dipped his finger in the cup of tea, and wrote a few characters on the table.

[The Divorce-Advocating Faction]

“......”

Fei Niao's face instantly darkened. He looked at the elder who was lost in thought at the table and gritted his teeth, saying,

“Does that old man have something against me?”

“Ha, you actually know that the elder has issues with you?

The moment you insisted on learning medical ninjutsu back then, the elder was already unhappy with you. After you proposed the marriage alliance yesterday, the elder was even more displeased.

So, what do you think? The elder is getting old; are you interested in recommending me to take his position?”

“Silence!”

Hearing the whispers from below, Fugaku pressed down with his hand. He scanned the few people in the front row before his gaze landed on Fei Niao, speaking in a low voice,

“Uchiha Fei Niao, just now, a command came from the Fourth Hokage, assigning you to temporarily oversee three newly graduated students. After some time, you will enter the Fourth Hokage's direct department, the Anbu.

I hope you can be a bridge between the village and the clan.”

“I’m a teacher now?”

Fei Niao pointed at himself, blinking in disbelief as he looked at his clan leader.

Is someone really appointing a member of the Uchiha clan to be a teacher??

What is the Hokage thinking?

After Fugaku gave him an affirming look, he nodded at two others, informing them of their entry into the Anbu, and then looked down at the clan members, continuing,

“The Fourth Hokage intends to mend the conflicts with the clan, and as the clan leader, I should also take the initiative to show goodwill. Soon, I will let Itachi enter the ninja academy for study, and after graduation, he will apprentice under the Fourth Hokage.”

“Hmm~”

Around them, the clan members nodded in agreement, looking approvingly.

The strength of Minato Namikaze is well-known and acknowledged throughout the ninja world; being able to study under the Fourth Hokage is naturally a good thing, and Itachi is the clan leader's son, which they can’t interfere with.

Most importantly, becoming a disciple of the Hokage means that the clan has once again secured a ticket to the Hokage position.

Thinking of this, many old men looked at Fei Niao with glee.

Although the clan meeting is a place for open discussion and even outrageous actions can be laughed off, some things, once done, remain firmly imprinted in their minds, impossible to forget.

For example... advocating for the clan leader's divorce...

“Cough~ cough~”

At this moment, Fei Niao lightly coughed, looking in the direction of the elder, speaking in a flat tone,

“Elder, I’d like to introduce a marriage proposal; the woman is the grandmother of a friend from the Hyuga clan. For the honor of the clan, I hope you won’t refuse...”

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Suddenly, a series of sharp whistling sounds filled the air, and countless shuriken, glowing with black light, flew like locusts, controlled by some force, falling towards Uchiha Fei Niao.

The shuriken obscured half the sky in a giant funnel shape, completely covering the sky above Fei Niao.

“Old man!”

Fei Niao looked up at the sky, watching the shuriken rain down, raising his right hand high. His wide sleeves fell away, revealing arms carved like jade, white and powerful.

A red light orb formed in his right palm, and in the next moment, it erupted with brilliance, sending intense heat radiating in all directions, instantly turning the tea water in the meeting space into steam.

At that moment, Fei Niao looked like a god, single-handedly lifting a sun.

Fire Release: Blazing Sun!

This was his original ninjutsu. Back when he was studying the Rasengan, he felt that his technique was too weak and then thought of the Lava Release: Spiraling Shuriken, merging his fire attribute chakra into the Rasengan to create a ninjutsu with immense destructive power.

The key was that it didn’t require hand seals.

“Glug!”

The surrounding Uchiha ninjas watched the incredibly violent and scorching red sun, all swallowing their saliva.

No matter how many times they saw this ninjutsu, it was always so shocking.

But was this really necessary?

Watching as the shuriken in the air were melted into molten iron by the intense heat, falling like a rain of fire, the molten iron splashed onto the ground, creating black pits one after another.

“Alright!”

Seeing that there were no more shuriken in the sky, Fei Niao casually dissipated the fireball in his hand, used a shuriken to push the molten iron that dripped onto the table aside, and then pulled out a pen and paper from his pocket to record,

“February 2nd, Year 51 of Konoha. Since Uchiha Fei Niao became a ninja, the Uchiha clan’s elder has continuously challenged him. After enduring rigorous training and tough fights, Uchiha Fei Niao finally defeated the elder for the 27th time.

Justice stands victorious once again.”

Looking at the elder, who was fuming, he shook the booklet in his hand and casually picked his nose, saying,

“Elder, don’t forget the rules you set.

One move per person; too many moves can easily create enmity, which is detrimental to clan unity.”

“Phew~ Phew~”

The elder looked at Fei Niao’s face and took several deep breaths to suppress the impulse to strike again. His feelings toward this guy were very complicated.

Half love, half hate.

In a family, it takes decades for a genius to emerge.

However, the birth of a genius can determine the historical process for the next several years, decades.

Those things that occur slowly in sequence or concurrently will all compress into a brief moment that makes an unchangeable decision for future generations, determining a person’s life and death and the survival of a clan.

Such moments often happen only on a certain day, at a certain hour, or often only within a certain minute.

And Uchiha Fei Niao is such a genius.

But this genius is really not doing his job properly; before even entering the ninja academy, he ran off to learn medical ninjutsu, and when he got to the academy, he was messing around with bottles and jars doing some scientific experiments, and after graduating, he started studying the legendary Sage Techniques...

Except for medical ninjutsu, everything else was a waste of time; he didn’t understand any of it.

And now, it’s said that this guy has even given up on medical ninjutsu.

What a waste of so many years.

After watching Fei Niao for a while, the elder slammed the table heavily, turning his head to look elsewhere.

He hated geniuses, especially those who wasted time.

A genius’s time should all be spent on training, not on researching what kind of partner to introduce to me.

A partner...

From the Hyuga clan...

Hmph!

Whoever she is from the Hyuga clan, it doesn’t matter.