Hyuga Ningyuan

[Ding! You completed one sleep cycle. Sleep Experience +8, General Experience +1]

What was that sound?

A slender arm reached out from beneath the blankets. It first felt around under the pillow, then stretched toward the bedside. After fumbling around for a while, it seemed to sense that something was wrong, so it lifted up and started feeling behind the bed.

But after searching for ages, it still came up empty.

"Where's my phone?" The child sat up indignantly and looked behind him.

Forget the charging cable—even the wall was three or four meters away.

And the walls had turned to wood, without even a single hole in them, much less an outlet.

"What's going on?" The child froze. "This isn't my home. Wait, these aren't even my arms!"

"Huh? These aren't even my eyes!"

"Did I transmigrate?"

He tapped his temple and frowned in thought, slowly beginning to recall things.

Before long, based on the memories lingering in this body, he understood everything.

"Naruto, Konoha, the Hyuga Clan, the Branch Family!"

Ningyuan had been a not particularly successful Earth Online player, twenty-eight years old, and a veteran Naruto fan.

In this life, his name was Hyuga Ningyuan. He was a Branch Family member of the Hyuga Clan in Konoha, Land of Fire, and was five years old this year.

He had been branded with the Caged Bird Seal for two years. It was obvious whether his transmigration had anything to do with that seal.

At least he was not as miserable as Hizashi Hyuga, who had become a Branch Family member just minutes after being born.

After all, Hyuga Ningyuan's family had belonged to the Branch Family for three generations. His lineage was pure and proper!

Well, that was not exactly something to be happy about.

"Come to think of it, how did I transmigrate? I think I was sleeping!" Hyuga Ningyuan frowned as he pondered. Why would sleeping lead to transmigration? Could it be that a truck had hit him in his sleep, so he had not felt a thing?

But I was on the fourth floor!

"Forget it. Since I'm here, I might as well make the best of it!" Hyuga Ningyuan shook his head and quickly accepted the fact that he had transmigrated.

After all, he had had no parents in his previous life and no attachments left behind.

He did have a girlfriend, but because of their jobs, they lived apart and spent little time together. They did not even have time to play games together. That relationship had long existed in name only.

Adults did not need to say the words "break up." All they had to do was quietly disappear from the other person's life.

And besides—

He felt the vitality brimming through his current body, as well as his sharp vision, which let him see the grain in the wooden ceiling even in the faint morning light.

Then he thought of his previous body, worn down by late-night work and an irregular lifestyle, and the nearsightedness that had started in sixth grade and soared to eight hundred degrees by high school.

He would gladly trade for this kind of transmigration a hundred times over!

Although he no longer had a phone, this world had superpowers!

And Naruto's technology developed quickly. Maybe smartphones could be invented here soon enough.

Hyuga Ningyuan sprang up with a kip-up. He knew how to do it, but with his physique in his previous life, he could only imagine it and never actually pull it off.

This body had clearly been trained, though, and he got up with ease.

"These clothes are fine. They're worn pretty much the same way as in my previous life." Hyuga Ningyuan pulled out a set of clothes from beside the bed. They looked like long-sleeved thermal underwear and elastic-waist sweatpants, except they were all white, and the fabric was especially soft, somewhat like ice silk.

They were obviously designed for cultivation and training—loose and nonrestrictive.

Still, starting training at the age of five was rather outrageous.

But then again, Konoha was basically an assassination group and mercenary organization, so perhaps it was not that strange.

Places like northern Myanmar and African warlord factions had never lacked child soldiers either.

"Huh, why do I look a little like I did in my previous life..." There was no mirror in the room, so Hyuga Ningyuan followed his memories to the bathroom.

The place was surprisingly spacious, complete with a shower and bathtub. The conditions were far better than the rental apartment from his previous life.

There was also a huge mirror beside them. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and other toiletries sat in front of it, along with a few cosmetics such as lipstick.

Those belonged to Hyuga Ningyuan's mother, Hyuga Mie.

"There are traces of my previous self, but how is that possible? Isn't appearance determined by genes? Or did I not transmigrate at all? Was I reincarnated, and only awakened my memories today?"

The person in the mirror had delicate features and fair, luminous skin. Combined with the white training clothes, he looked light as a swallow and radiated heroic spirit.

Even those pure white eyes possessed a different sort of beauty. Rather than looking terrifying like a cosplayer wearing colored contacts, they carried a noble, almost divine quality.

Come to think of it, how could something artificial compare to eyes passed down from gods?

And there were faint traces of Ningyuan from his previous life as well, making him wonder whether he had not transmigrated after all, but had instead been reincarnated and awakened his memories from that life.

As for why those memories had stopped at the moment he went to sleep—

Given his long-term irregular diet and sleep schedule, perhaps he had died suddenly in his sleep!

"So this is the Caged Bird Seal!" Unlike Neji, who still wore a strip of cloth over it, Hyuga Ningyuan's forehead was exposed. Two horizontal scepters were drawn on it, with a green X-shaped pattern between them.

The Caged Bird Seal was a seal created by the Hyuga Clan to protect their eyes. It could activate automatically after the bearer's death, destroying the brain tissue and the Byakugan.

It was not exactly ugly.

But later, the Caged Bird Seal had changed in nature and become a tool for the Main Family to oppress and rule the Branch Family. Thus, a seal that had originally been merely ordinary—neither beautiful nor ugly—had become an ugly creation.

"This thing... tsk." Ningyuan shook his head and stopped paying attention to it. He could not solve it now, so there was no need to keep obsessing over it and draining himself mentally.

Besides, he had come from a world without magic. People there were desperate to learn martial arts, gain superpowers, and cultivate immortality. Some had reached the point where, if you handed them a copy of the Sunflower Manual, they would cut themselves immediately.

Now, not only had he transmigrated, but he had superpowers, could learn martial arts, and could cultivate immortality!

It was just an extra Caged Bird Seal. He could accept that!

Besides, it was not as though there was no way to deal with the seal.

Although the original story had never mentioned a way to remove the Caged Bird Seal, Ningyuan was not an idiot. He could think for himself.

And in just this short time, he had already come up with a workable method: kill everyone from the Main Family. If everyone left had a Caged Bird Seal, then would that not be the same as nobody having one?

If you could not solve the problem, solve the people who created it. Perfect!

"Ningyuan." A gentle call suddenly sounded behind him. It made Ningyuan, who had been immersed in thought, jolt so hard his heart skipped a beat, and he hurriedly turned around.

"My god, you nearly scared me to death. You walk without making any sound!"

The newcomer was a young woman wearing a blue kimono dotted with cherry blossoms. Her features were gentle and refined, her curved brows and beautiful face somewhat resembling the Japanese actress Yuki Amami from the last century.

Even in wooden clogs, she was only around 157 centimeters tall, which made Ningyuan worry a little about his future height. Would he not even reach 1.70 meters?

Did Japanese people really wear kimonos early in the morning? He did not understand.

The newcomer was none other than this body's mother, Hyuga Mie.

She was called his mother, but people in the ninja world married young. Though Hyuga Mie already had a five-year-old child, she was only twenty-two this year.

And Hyuga Ningyuan had been twenty-eight before transmigrating...

So Ningyuan opened his mouth, yet could not bring himself to call her Mother.

Hyuga Mie sensed the change in Ningyuan's mood, but did not think much of it.

After all, Hyuga children were all like this, especially those from the Branch Family.

Her already low spirits sank even further as she noticed the change in Ningyuan's gaze.

Until Ningyuan spoke. "Is breakfast ready?"

"Oh, it's ready!" Hyuga Mie hurriedly replied. "I'll help you wash up. Today is the day you go to Ninja Academy, so you absolutely must not be late!"

"I'll do it myself!" Hyuga Ningyuan quickly refused. "I'm old enough to start school. I should learn to take care of myself!"

"Uh..." Hyuga Mie fell silent, and the light in her eyes seemed to dim a little.

Hyuga Ningyuan was speechless. "Fine. How about you help me after all?"

"Mm!" Hyuga Mie's spirits immediately rose again.