The One Standing Before You Now Is

To keep Asuma from making any more earth-shattering remarks, Soseki hurriedly returned to the previous topic. "But only the eyes can't be hidden by a mask!"

Asuma nodded thoughtfully, then stared straight at Soseki. "Soseki, hurry up and guess what I'm thinking right now."

Soseki looked back calmly, making Asuma feel inexplicably nervous. "Before, you weren't thinking about anything at all. Now, you're probably warning yourself not to think about anything."

Asuma's eyes widened. "That's amazing! Is this mind-reading?"

Soseki shook his head lightly. "It's not that magical. I'm just too familiar with your personality. If it were a stranger, even with their eyes, expressions, and body language, I could only analyze a few details at most."

"That's still amazing." Asuma rubbed his hands together and coaxed, "Soseki, can you teach me that?"

"Of course. I was already planning to bring it up in the Psychology Club."

"Eh? I thought your Psychology Club just needed people to listen."

"If it's a Psychology Club, we first need to understand everyone's true thoughts."

Soseki smiled faintly. He didn't mind letting psychology take root in this world.

On one hand, psychology's nature meant that many people would be interested, but very few would truly be willing to delve deeply into it. On the other hand, what he intended to teach was mainly microexpression analysis. Not only was that useless against people who could control their microexpressions well, but they could even deliberately make others interpret the "true thoughts" they wanted to convey.

After listening to Soseki's brief explanation, Asuma felt that he was already ready to graduate.

Wasn't psychological analysis just a matter of having eyes?

Who should I practice on? Asuma muttered to himself. Then his eyes lit up, and he swaggered off in a certain direction.

"Why are you little brats back again?" The stall owner who had sold them alcohol before felt utterly depressed when he saw Asuma standing proudly before his stall.

Asuma crossed his arms, deciding to use the "seize the initiative" tactic Soseki had taught him. "You're selling fake liquor!"

The stall owner was startled at first, then snapped angrily, "You little brat looking for a beating?"

"Eh? His eyes didn't dart elsewhere. That means he doesn't feel guilty. Damn it, I failed on my first try." Though Asuma was frustrated, he didn't care about the man's attitude. He was the Hokage's son—what was wrong with being a little arrogant?

Seeing that the man was about to lose his temper, Soseki stepped forward. "The liquor isn't fake, but it's been diluted many times, hasn't it?"

The owner replied with complete confidence, "You little brats don't understand. Liquor is supposed to be blended."

"But the flavor is so weak. Are you sure it isn't so bad that even the Raikage would say it tasted... awful?"

The stall owner's expression froze. Asuma, meanwhile, leaned close to Soseki and shouted, "He looked to the side! He really does feel guilty!"

Hearing him yell that, the stall owner flew into a rage from embarrassment. "What do you know? Lord Raikage was originally—no, why do I have to explain myself to little brats like you?"

Seeing that the man was on the verge of exploding, Soseki calmly pointed at Asuma beside him. "The one standing before you now is the Hokage's son, a rebel, the Sarutobi Clan's top future heir, and the vice president of the Psychology Club!"

The stall owner's raised fist stopped in midair, and his expression became exceptionally colorful. "Sorry to disturb you!"

Asuma accepted Soseki's introduction as a matter of course, then asked with some lingering excitement, "Soseki, are there any more?"

"Do you want me to say your bounty is measured in units?" Soseki gave him a strange look but still shook his head.

"I think Mind Hunter sounds pretty good. This hunter shall begin hunting those who have fallen into darkness!" Feeling very pleased with himself, Asuma scanned the marketplace back and forth, searching for his next target.

Just then, Soseki suddenly stopped in front of a shop.

"Soseki, why did you stop there?" Asuma tilted his head, then his eyes suddenly brightened. "Soseki, wait. Don't say anything yet—let me analyze it."

Soseki was quite gratified by Asuma's enthusiastic yet woefully unskilled performance.

Once Asuma got past this initial period of novelty, it really would be hard for him to handle him.

"Hmm~ When you stopped just now, your eyes were focused on the sign in front of this shop, and your brows furrowed very subtly. That means you think there's something wrong with this shop's sign."

As he spoke, Asuma looked over himself.

"So it's this shop. I noticed it when we passed by earlier. The owner wrote the prices on the sign outside in advance, and the prices are very high. He's probably trying to keep poor people like us from going in and bothering him."

Asuma looked at Soseki. "So, what's the problem?"

Soseki pondered for a moment. "That was what I thought at first too. But when we passed by a second time, I noticed something that didn't seem right."

"What doesn't seem right?"

"This shop sells nothing but specialties from the Land of Lightning. If it were a Leaf Village merchant buying goods from Land of Lightning merchants, they should wait until those merchants had left before selling them. So this shop was very likely rented or bought by a merchant from the Land of Lightning."

Asuma seemed to have an epiphany as inspiration struck. "The Cloud Hidden merchants around here all set up stalls directly. Only this one rented or bought a shop. If he doesn't plan to return to the Cloud Hidden Village, then the thing he should be doing now is buying up goods and hoarding them for profit. But not only hasn't he done that, he's set absurdly high prices, practically driving customers away. That means this business is probably just his 'mask.'"

Soseki nodded. "We can't be sure yet, but it is indeed very likely."

"Hmph, whether he has a problem or not, this hunter will go in and test—"

"Wait. The previous method might not work this time. If he really has a problem, his mental fortitude definitely won't compare to that man's."

"Then what should we do?"

"Hehe, of course, we make them reveal a flaw themselves! So this time, Asuma, you'll need to play yourself..."

After discussing it for a while, the two great actors officially made their entrance, accompanied by an incomparably arrogant voice.

"Boss! Boss!"

"I'm here, I'm—" The owner ran out cheerfully. Seeing the two little kids at the entrance, he blanked out for a moment, but quickly regained his composure. "Little friends, what are you doing here?"

Hmm, this boss's 'skill' really is impressive! Having already decided that the man was a bad guy, Asuma silently evaluated his acting.

"We're obviously here to buy something. What, did you think we came to watch you bathe?"

"Cough, cough!"

The owner looked baffled, but he still said gently, "Little friends, the things here are very expensive. You should go play somewhere else."

Asuma said nothing, merely lifted his chin and looked at him through his nostrils.

At that moment, Soseki stepped forward. "The one standing before you now is the Hokage's son, a plunderer, the Sarutobi Clan's future heir, and a strong candidate for Class Leader of Ninja Academy second year!"

There should be a few places later in this book where microexpression analysis is used, but not many—mainly because I don't know much about it either. These parts will mainly draw from some works by the Bilibili creator Mind Detective Ming Baichen, and I have received Brother Chenbo's permission. Some readers may feel this kind of analysis is somewhat hindsight-driven, since it is difficult to use and distinguish in real life. But this is, after all, set in Naruto, where characters' emotions are overly rich, and there are supernatural abilities as well—such as later using Chakra sensing in conjunction with it—so it should have some effect. In any case, please bear with me if there are parts I haven't written well. ω)