A teacher's lack of effort left his students to suffer.
That was what happened to children who lacked affection.
So Zhengyi urged everyone to treat their children well and let them grow up in a loving environment.
Otherwise, don't come crying when they grow up and get lured away by some blond guy with a bowl of porridge.
After news of Sunagakure's surrender spread, the Shinobi World suddenly fell still, as if frozen. Every village stopped fighting, apparently waiting to see what would happen next.
To be honest, they didn't want to keep fighting this war. Far too many people had already died.
They were like headless flies, attacking one side, then another. Looking back, they hadn't gained anything at all.
And so the first half of the Third Shinobi World War came to an end.
On Killua's birthday, Zhengyi asked Lord Orochimaru to handcraft a skateboard for him.
The skateboard could be charged with chakra and ride on its own.
Zhengyi couldn't help sighing. If only his teacher had spent all his time on research, the Shinobi World would have been playing Naruto mobile games ages ago. Instead, for the sake of all that pointless romance and affection, he didn't live like himself at all.
The snake lady who saw through everything in Boruto was much better.
"Shikouyi! Teacher!"
Killua hugged Zhengyi, kissed him, and jumped around. Sakata Yuji also kept praising Zhengyi as a great teacher, while looking forward to what he'd get from him on his own birthday.
"Heh, as long as you're happy."
Zhengyi thought it was great having a few students. It was nice to have some company.
As soon as Zhengyi left, Killua took Yuji with him and immediately rode off on the skateboard to meet up with an old Ninja Academy classmate.
Then someone stole their skateboard on the way. It was a group of Genin a year older than them.
They couldn't let that stand!
How dare they steal something from my cutest student!
When Zhengyi heard about it, he took the two boys along and beat the thieves up, then took the skateboard back.
The Genin went crying to their teacher, who was a Chunin. He stood no chance against Zhengyi, so after getting beaten, he called over his friends. Every last one of them came from a shinobi clan.
Would Zhengyi put up with that?
So Zhengyi called in his own connections around the village.
The students from their year! They even had the Hokage's son among them. Come on, let's go!
The whole thing blew up.
Seeing that Zhengyi's side had more people, the other side called in their relatives.
"Hey, hey." Kakashi had been dragged over in the middle of his bath, wearing nothing but a towel. "What exactly are you people trying to do?!"
His lean, muscular build showed that he'd been training in secret whenever he could.
"Zhengyi's a jerk! He's no good, but neither are you." Obito, that adorable little guy, was good at saying things that were both nice and not so nice. He knew plenty of people in the Uchiha clan.
Among the Uchiha he'd called over was Shisui Uchiha, a prodigy who had burst onto the scene in Konoha.
The brawl got pretty intense. Both sides called in everyone they knew, and things nearly got out of hand.
"They look even more built than we are."
"Heh, that's just dead muscle from the gym. It's nothing compared to us, who study our clans' secret jutsu."
They faced off in Konoha's central plaza, and neither side had a single coward.
The other side's cold remark was aimed straight at the hearts of Zhengyi's people.
Building muscle was no easy feat. You might only know that a lean physique looked good, but did you know how much hardship they'd endured and how much sweat they'd shed to build those muscles?!
Kakashi hadn't wanted to get involved, but then he spotted someone on the other side who had once insulted his father. He went straight for that man, throwing punch after punch.
Guy also spotted the person who'd called his father a perennial Genin. He couldn't beat him back then, but now! Now he was a Chunin!!
The most incredible thing was that everyone on Zhengyi's side had worked out at the gym. They were all built like tanks.
"So you like bullying people, huh?"
"You really enjoy picking on people, huh?!"
What kind of decent person stole someone's skateboard? And what kind of decent teacher would teach a shinobi who stole someone's skateboard?
That day, Zhengyi carried out a crackdown on bullying in Konoha.
He had to. Who knew if he might be bullied one day?
If Hashirama were still alive, then when people heard that at the First Five Kage Summit, he'd planned to give the Tailed Beasts to enemy villages until Tobirama stopped him, wouldn't Hashirama have been bullied too?
It was pretty scary.
Zhengyi had gone a little too hard on them.
Orochimaru arrived a little too quickly.
A fight this serious had broken out in Konoha's central plaza. As the "acting Hokage," he couldn't just ignore it.
The Uchiha Police Force showed up too. When they saw one of their own in the fight, they naturally ruled in their own clan's favor.
Just imagine how terrifying it was when both groups of judges were on your side. There wasn't a shred of fairness to be found.
"Lord Orochimaru!" The other side tried to plead their case when they saw him. They hadn't been a match for Zhengyi's group, and they were covered in bruises, looking thoroughly miserable.
Unfortunately, they were of no use to Orochimaru—or, rather, they were worth less to him than Zhengyi.
Orochimaru's attitude toward them was frighteningly cold.
They had a thousand things to say, but could only swallow every last one.
The other side was locked up in the Uchiha Police Force building for fifteen days and had to compensate Zhengyi's group for their losses. Just think how much strength they'd missed out on building at the gym while they were stuck inside! That was a huge loss!
They had to pay up!!
After that day, bullying incidents in Konoha became much less common.
Before, nobody did anything about bullying.
But now, bullies really could get beaten up.
How were you supposed to know whether the person you bullied had connections?
Those kids who liked bullying others were good at reading the room.
With fewer bullying incidents in Konoha, Zhengyi was in a much better mood. He even went and took the exam to become a Jonin.
There was now another genius who'd become a Jonin at the age of twelve.
But Hiruzen Sarutobi held him back, adding two words to his title: Special Jonin.
A Special Jonin was someone with expertise in a particular field, but whose overall strength was still that of a Chunin. Adding the word "Special" to the title did nothing but insult all the effort Zhengyi had put in.
He really wanted to ask Hiruzen Sarutobi: Have you ever seen the sun rise over Konoha at four in the morning? Have you seen how much I train and how carefully I manage my diet every day?
The Orochimaru faction was treated like some stray dog on the roadside.
In the Jonin meeting room.
"Orochimaru, give us a report on Konoha's finances."
Zhengyi had at least earned his way into the meeting room. Today's topic was the money Konoha had lost during the war.
In plain language, Konoha was broke.
If another Shinobi World War broke out, Konoha wouldn't have a penny to spare for fighting.
Even a hero couldn't get far without money.
Konoha F4 sat there with worried frowns, wondering where they could raise the money.
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