Positive and Negative

The silver light paved the road, and the night was so quiet that the chirping of insects could be heard.

Ye Zi looked at the girl who made him feel annoyed and said indifferently, "Is there something?"

The two short words seemed to add a bit of chill to the air, and the sound of insects seemed to quiet down at that moment.

The young man exuded a cold aura that kept people at a distance, but Kushina didn't flinch in the slightest. Her gaze shifted from the bandaged areas to Ye Zi's indifferent eyes. Her tone was as natural as it was over a year ago, and she smiled as she said, "What are you holding? Is it something delicious?"

Ye Zi glanced at the lunchbox in his hand, then silently looked at Kushina's smiling face, his mood becoming even more irritable.

Seeing Ye Zi's silence, a hint of disappointment flashed in Kushina's eyes, but it was quickly filled with bright light. She was like a chatterbox and continued to ask, "The little flowers on the cloth wrapping the lunchbox are very cute. It looks like a girl. Is she your new friend? Is her cooking delicious?"

Under the silver light, the girl chattered incessantly. In the moonlight, Ye Zi's eyes were still filled with indifference, but he carefully and seriously observed Kushina. As she grew older, her beautiful face seemed to slowly overlap with the most important person in his memory. Perhaps in two or three more years, she would look even more similar.

"Do you know? I'm a great cook now. After you made fun of me that time, I really put in the effort to learn."

Feeling Ye Zi's indifferent gaze unchanged, Kushina's cheerful tone gradually became low, and a faint sadness appeared in her eyes. To this day, she still didn't understand why Ye Zi had changed so suddenly, becoming so indifferent.

She slowly closed her mouth, and after a long silence, she finally asked the question she most wanted to ask: "How did you get injured? Does it hurt?"

The bandages that almost covered his entire body indicated that the injury was not minor. How could it not hurt?

Ye Zi's indifferent gaze showed a slight change. In his memory, back then, they would fight over even a piece of moldy bread, and sometimes finding stinky seafood was like finding treasure, which was followed by even fiercer fights. Every time he returned to their humble dwelling with injuries, someone would look at his wounds with pity and always say these words to him.

A barely perceptible sadness flashed in his dark pupils. He silently gazed at Kushina, and after a moment, he slightly lifted the lunchbox and said coldly, "Is there anything else?"

Kushina was stunned for a moment, then slowly lowered her head and whispered, "No, there's nothing else."

Ye Zi looked at Kushina, who had lowered her head. At that moment, his icy gaze melted like an iceberg, becoming exceptionally gentle. That gaze was terrifyingly tender, as if the person in front of him was a very precious family member. But soon, the gentle gaze returned to its coldness.

Minato, who was hiding in the dark, caught the fleeting gentleness in Ye Zi's eyes. He looked slightly surprised, then thoughtfully watched Ye Zi disappear from his sight.

On the silent street, Kushina stared at the ground covered in silver light, her expression sad. After a moment, she looked up, her expression still strong. She looked at the road ahead and took a firm step, then another.

Minato walked on the rooftops, looking sideways at the girl under the moonlight, walking with her.

They walked on the same road, in the same direction. And in another direction, on another road, was the young man who seemed to have a trace of gentleness within his cold shell.

From then on, every day, Ye Zi would receive blood-replenishing meals cooked by the medical ninja. He silently thanked the girl. Thanks to these nourishing dishes, his body recovered faster than usual. Occasionally, they would meet by chance, and there seemed to be an unspoken understanding between them. They would never look at each other more than necessary, not even reaching the level of acquaintances.

Ye Zi didn't want to get too involved with this world. He could have woken up and thanked her when he was being treated, because it was her job. So he wouldn't thank her for preparing food that could help him recover faster, even though saying thank you was so simple.

He had his reasons, but what about the girl?

He sometimes wondered why the girl did this, but each time he would forcefully suppress the doubt and bury himself in books.

Two weeks later, after his injuries had healed, Ye Zi was quickly assigned another mission: to assassinate a spy hidden within Konoha.

After narrowly escaping death and stealing confidential information about the spy's identity from the Stone ninja last time, Root immediately conducted a secret large-scale purge of Konoha. However, truly excellent spies would not leave behind identity information within the ninja village. They had excellent disguise skills and terrifying abilities to steal information. No one knew who their contact person was, nor did anyone know how they delivered information.

These excellent Stone ninja spies were hidden within Konoha. There was no connection between the spies. Each spy had a specific contact person, and only the main person in charge of the intelligence agency knew the identities of all the spies.

Spies were troublesome existences.

Although the information Ye Zi stole had led to a purge of some spies, it hadn't removed the most crucial elements.

However, Konoha's Root was not to be trifled with. In just two weeks, they had identified three suspects. Ye Zi's mission was to observe and confirm the true identities of these three suspects, and then... kill them!

Among the three suspects was an old man named Kimura Takuya, whom Ye Zi knew. This old man lived alone. According to the intelligence data, the old man was a very old ordinary resident of Konoha, one of the first residents since Konoha's founding. Apart from never marrying, his life experiences were unremarkable. It was hard to imagine that such an old resident would be one of the suspects.

"Kimura Takuya."

Ye Zi quietly looked at the file, thinking that his very first mission after graduating from the Ninja Academy was to help this old man living alone clear weeds. He vaguely remembered the old man's aged face and his occasional kind smile. Such a person was actually one of the suspects.

His cold gaze fell on the person in the photo. The wrinkled skin looked like bark on a dying tree, and the mottled age spots highlighted a deathly aura of old age. Only his eyes, which were not yet cloudy, still held clarity.

At dusk the next day, Ye Zi, dressed in casual clothes, carried a yokan bought from Jujiaya and walked towards Kimura Takuya's house.

Kimura Takuya lived in the suburbs, with fields surrounding his house. He had a large plot of land that he used to grow vegetables.

As the sun set, it shone at the end of the dirt path. Ye Zi could see the wooden house illuminated by the orange light from afar, and Kimura Takuya sitting on the wooden corridor, holding a cup of hot tea.

Ye Zi walked naturally towards the wooden house, stopped at the fence gate, and called out to Kimura Takuya, "Grandpa Kimura, I've come to see you."

"Oh?"

Kimura Takuya squinted his left eye, while his right eye lifted, as if it was a great effort to open. He looked at the young man at the fence gate, and confusion showed in his opened right eye as he tried hard to remember who the young man was. Then, he looked at the yokan next to the teapot and suddenly realized, "It's you. Come in, hehe."

Ye Zi smiled slightly, pushed open the fence gate, and walked in.

Kimura Takuya gently patted the spot next to him, signaling Ye Zi to sit down. The latter obediently sat down. Just as he was about to hand the yokan he bought to the old man, he suddenly saw a yokan on a plate next to the teapot. He was stunned. The faint aroma that wafted to his nose indicated that it was yokan from Jujiaya.

Kimura Takuya looked at the packaging box Ye Zi handed over, chuckled, and said, "This afternoon, the girl who was with you before also brought yokan to visit me. You are both so thoughtful, remembering that this old man likes Jujiaya's yokan."

Hearing that Kushina had visited this afternoon, Ye Zi's expression remained unchanged. He smiled slightly, handed the yokan to Kimura Takuya, and asked, "How are you?"

"I'm just an old bone. What could be wrong? I won't live much longer. But seeing you full of vitality always makes me feel like I can live a few more years," the old man squinted his eyes, watching the setting sun cast its last rays, and let out a long sigh.

Ye Zi smiled and said, "You are strong for your age; you will surely live for several more decades."

The old man's eyes curved slightly and he said, "The sun has set. If you're not in a hurry, stay for dinner."

Ye Zi's eyes changed slightly, and he happily agreed.