Uchiha Chen bent down, picked up the thin stack of envelopes, and flicked the dust off them.
The envelopes were light. He could tell there wasn't much money inside—not even as much as last night's dinner had cost.
Seeing the expressions on their faces, how could he fail to realize that opening a shop was just a lie meant to cover Dai's embarrassment? Clearly, Dai had run out of money and was borrowing from Teacher Nishimura.
So the hero who would one day fight seven enemies alone, successfully cover three people's retreat, and ultimately die a glorious death now needed handouts from friends just to survive?
Might Duy might even be the strongest Taijutsu practitioner of this era! How had he fallen so low?
Uchiha Chen sighed. Poverty was an illness, and a terminal one at that. Dai seemed to be in its final stages.
Still, it was easy enough to understand why Dai was so poor. As a Genin, he was not qualified under village rules to accept high-ranking missions, so his income had to be pitifully meager.
Meager income would have been bad enough, but he also could not extract Chakra and could only specialize in Taijutsu. Yet training in Taijutsu was extremely expensive, requiring all kinds of medicinal herbs to nourish the body.
Especially after opening the Eight Gates Formation, the damage it inflicted on the body was far beyond what ordinary people could endure.
Perhaps that was why Dai wore those green tights year-round. After all, they were not merely "stylish"... more importantly, they were cheap.
Thinking of that, Uchiha Chen felt that he ought to do something. For instance, answer the call for targeted poverty alleviation?
"Teacher, what kind of shop are you planning to open?" He decided not to expose Teacher Nishimura's lie.
"We