Quit what? Of course, quit school.
This transmigrator had already put on a performance with his life. How could he give up now?
With a firm tone, Shin stated his demand. "Mother, I want to drop out!"
"You little brat, say that again?"
Before Aoko could react, Chiken had already grabbed Shin by the collar and lifted him up.
"Aoko, go get me a stick!" As he spoke, Chiken secretly gave her a meaningful look.
After years of cooperation, the husband and wife understood each other perfectly.
Aoko quickly "took" Shin from Chiken's hands.
Then she began earnestly persuading him, "You can't hit him! What if the child runs away from home? Wouldn't the whole of Konoha laugh at us if word got out..."
"If he doesn't want to go, then he doesn't have to. Even if he grows up to be a useless rich kid who eats and waits for death, I'll accept it as his mother."
Chiken understood Aoko's unspoken message: make sure this brat didn't run away from home.
Shin understood the unspoken message too.
But in this situation, he had to argue his case.
A great spiritual leader had once said something like this: "Persistence is victory. Keep going! Oli..."
Ahem. If he kept going, it would start to have that certain vibe.
"Father, I've never trained in taijutsu anyway. Rather than get beaten up at school, I might as well be a useless bum," Shin said, playing dumb.
"He actually pulled that move. This kid's improved a little..."
Aoko praised him inwardly for less than a second before giving Chiken a look, wanting him to play the bad cop.
Chiken immediately understood.
With a stern expression, he warned, "I don't care whether you end up becoming a useless bum, but a man must keep his word..."
"Back then, you said you wanted to attend the Ninja Academy, so you went. Now you say you want to drop out, but you can't just go back on your word!"
Damn, even Freestyle showed up. Is Skr coming next?...
But he quickly retorted aloud, "Back then I was immature. I wanted to go, so I went. Now my reputation's been ruined; even if I want to go, I can't! Skr..."
The Uchiha couple froze. What reputation? What Skr?
Fugaku, silently watching the drama from the side, felt that although he understood every word the three of them said, he had no idea what they meant when put together.
Could it be that he had really been picked up off the street?
Why was he the only one in this family of four who couldn't understand?
Fugaku simply couldn't figure it out.
Chiken couldn't imagine what outrageous thing his youngest son might have done.
So he stepped forward and demanded harshly, "What bad thing have you done now, brat? Tell me the truth, now!"
"The Senju Clan's eldest young master lost a duel to me, and he even wanted to be friends with me..." Shin promptly shifted the blame onto Nawaki.
Anyway, once tomorrow's Konoha Daily came out, the entire village would know about his little mess.
Being clever, he immediately decided that fellow Daoists could die, but he himself could not.
This time, Fugaku understood. Was that really enough to warrant dropping out? His little brother was still too young.
Back when he was in school, he had been popular with both boys and girls. Who knew how many adorable boys had wanted to be friends with him?
But if Fugaku had to choose now, he would definitely choose female friends.
As for adult matters, he claimed he didn't understand them at all.
The Uchiha couple was even more bewildered. The Senju Clan really was poisonous.
It seemed the old rumors about Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara hadn't been baseless after all.
So this was a traditional specialty of the Senju Clan!
"Ahem, ahem, ahem..." Chiken was the first to recover, coughing violently and bringing everyone back to reality.
Shin felt that his move of redirecting the disaster had been truly brilliant.
So he quickly struck while the iron was hot. "That's why the Ninja Academy is so dangerous. You wouldn't have the heart to make me stay in that awful place for five years, would you?"
Chiken immediately gave his resourceful wife a look, telling her to hurry and think of something.
Aoko stared at Shin until her eyes felt dry, yet she still couldn't find anything suspicious about him.
She estimated that he wasn't exaggerating or spreading rumors.
The Senju Clan's eldest young master had publicly wanted to "be friends" with the Uchiha Clan's Second Young Master?
The experienced couple felt that this "friendship" was probably not so simple.
After thinking for a long time, Aoko looked at Chiken awkwardly. She understood men and women, but men and men?
Aoko declared that this question had gone far beyond the syllabus, then gave him a look that told him to handle it himself.
What am I supposed to do?
Chiken felt utterly wronged. He had no idea how to deal with this "friendship" involving the rival clan.
Without relevant experience, this kind of matter was truly difficult to handle.
"Um..." Fugaku, who had been watching the show from the side, couldn't help raising his hand. "Can I say something?"
He felt that only he possessed the relevant "experience" to handle this kind of friendship.
"It's fine..." Chiken still trusted Fugaku, with his honest-looking thick brows and big eyes. "Fugaku, just say whatever you want."
With no better method available, he decided to hear Fugaku's opinion.
Fugaku walked before the three of them and confidently offered a solution. "Kids making friends is normal. When I was in school, I had quite a few friends too..."
As he said this, he glanced at the person involved. "Shin, if you don't like being friends with him, just ignore him..."
"Kids only stay interested for three minutes. If that doesn't work, tell his elders. That'll definitely solve it!"
"That's right, they're both five-year-old children!" X2
The Uchiha couple had grown so used to not treating Shin like a child that they had completely overlooked the fact that he was only five.
After hearing Fugaku's suggestion, they both suddenly saw the light.
Very quickly, the couple came to a decision.
What a brother-screwing move!
Shin wailed inwardly. Fugaku looked so honest, yet who would have thought he was this "dishonest"?
He immediately shook his head and tried to object. "But tomorrow, all of Konoha will know about this. What about my reputation? In the future..."
"Don't worry, son. Tonight, I'll have your father visit the Konoha newspaper office. We'll spend a little money to smear that Senju child, then create the image of you as the victim. People sympathize with the weak..."
Aoko revealed an incomparably sly smile. "Then we'll run a series of follow-up reports. The public's attention will shift soon enough."
Wasn't this exactly Shin's public relations strategy from his previous life?
Buy trending topics, smear the competition, whitewash yourself. The masses only wanted gossip and entertainment anyway; who had the spare time to seek out the truth?
Shin felt deeply depressed by Aoko's PR strategy.
He could now be certain that his mother's personality was absolutely black-bellied.
Still, he wanted to struggle a little. "But what if people find out..."
"So what if they find out? At worst, we'll spend a little more money to smear them for 'jumping over the wall in desperation,'" Aoko retorted.
"But then my reputation..."
"What are you afraid of? Don't go to school for the next few days. Build up the momentum first, and once this storm passes, everything will return to normal," Aoko retorted again.
"What if the Senju Clan makes trouble..."
"Let them come! The Uchiha Clan isn't made of soft stuff. No matter how many come, we'll beat them all back!" Aoko completed her third rebuttal.
Shin retreated in defeat with the "glorious" score of zero to three.
Having won, Aoko raised her pretty face and looked at Chiken as if asking for praise.
The sight made goosebumps rise all over Shin's body.
"Don't wait for me for lunch. I'll go to the newspaper office and handle this first." Chiken patted Aoko on the shoulder in praise, then left the house.
How did it turn out like this? Was all my effort going to be wasted for nothing...
"I, Uchiha Shin, officially refuse to be human from this day onward!"
On September 1st of Konoha's twenty-fifth year, this transmigrator made a decision of profound significance.
Before you continue