I hadn't even finished the milk and rice balls in the corridor before I was tossed into the Uchiha Clan's—
Preschool?
That was what they called it, right?
It was underground, dim and expansive, with passages stretching in every direction like a beehive. Only insiders knew it existed.
As soon as I arrived, a group of medical ninja swarmed me. Some drew blood, while others ran tests. My short, pale arms were pricked until they looked like sieves, and I cried from the pain—
As I cried, I remembered that I was a boy, so I sniffled and stopped.
They carefully probed my body with chakra and put me through a series of intelligence and reflex tests.
So they were looking for promising recruits!
No wonder the great clans were so prosperous and powerful.
The tests lasted three days. They included a relentless series of rapid-fire questions, hypnosis, methods that felt like torture and interrogation, food temptations, and more. I could only answer instinctively, because they would see through any lies.
"You have beautiful eyes," a medical kunoichi murmured. Wearing latex gloves, she gently lifted my eyelid and asked, "Does it hurt?"
She was very gentle. Even through her gloves, I could feel the warmth of her fingertips.
"No," I answered honestly.
It really didn't hurt. She was the gentlest of all the medical ninja, and my eyes were clear and bright, as dark as ink. No nearsightedness or astigmatism. Compared to the seven-hundred-degree Coke-bottle lenses I'd worn in my previous life, it was one of only two things that had made me happy.
"The test results are in. Very healthy, pure bloodline, bright mind, quick reflexes, and excellent talent." They didn't bother to hide their assessment from me. As they talked among themselves, they looked at me with hopeful eyes.
"—She can be given priority training."
My heart skipped a beat, and a disbelieving joy stirred inside me.
The next day, I began special training with the clan.
All the trainees were children, ranging from four to seven years old. I looked around and realized that if I wanted to talk to anyone, I'd have to look up at them.
I was the youngest one there, and the fan crest on my back was as small as a steamed bun. When I clenched my hand into a fist, it wasn't even as big as an egg.
With my hands behind my back, listening to the instructor, I felt a little amused—and strangely excited.
I'd already started using kunai when I was three.
In my previous life, kids this age were still learning to eat, use the toilet, get dressed, and wash their faces. They were still in their parents' arms, laughing and crying...
But in the ninja world, I was already learning how to find an enemy's weak points and try to kill them.
The kunai were incredibly heavy. For a three-year-old, wielding one was like trying to chop wood with an axe. The long hours of training often left blisters on my palms. The blisters were ringed by calluses, and even the slightest friction made tissue fluid and blood seep out.
The instructor wrapped my hands in bandages and gave me black guards to wear. But training never stopped. Gradually, blood still seeped through, staining the bandages in mottled patches before dripping onto the ground.
At least, by the end, all I had left on my hands were calluses.
Along with physical training came lessons in chakra control.
I only tried guiding my chakra once before discovering something incredible—
I was freaking talented!
The chakra inside me obeyed like my own hands and feet. It went wherever I wanted and did whatever I told it to! When no one was around, I ran and leaped across the ceiling, leaving footprints all over the white surface as I laughed with delight.
I was going to make it big!
After discovering that, I rose to the top of the hard-work rankings!
What was talent?
The price of showing off! The possibility of growing stronger! The hope of survival!
After training each day, we had a two-hour assembly. I called it the Uchiha leadership's brainwashing session.
Just like the political systems of my previous life, they began with the history of the Uchiha. They spoke of how our ancestors had forged their way through hardship and how clan members had shed blood and tears. They told us that there would be no Uchiha today without them, and so on. The goal was to strengthen our sense of belonging and pride, and ultimately make us loyal to the clan, devoted to service, indifferent to personal gain, and unafraid of sacrifice.
The children here were all very young, with simple thoughts and immature minds. They easily believed and accepted everything. They were often moved to tears and fired up with emotion. They seemed ready at any moment to sacrifice themselves for the Uchiha Clan and devote their lives to it.
I nodded along and wept, filling one notebook after another—not because I'd taken their words to heart, but because I had to pass inspections and memorize everything! Boohoo.
When special training first began, my palms hurt so much every night that I could barely open my hands. My arms and legs ached and felt too stiff to move. The medical ninja treated our injuries every day, but medical techniques couldn't erase the exhaustion deep inside us.
"You've injured a bone!" The female medic treating me this time looked familiar. I recognized her as the medical kunoichi who'd examined me before.
"Uh... sorry!" During the wooden post striking drills, the sounds of everyone else hitting the posts and shouting had stirred up my excitement. I rarely paid attention to how my body felt. By the end of each day, there wasn't a single part of me that didn't hurt or feel numb, so I hadn't noticed the stabbing pain in my leg. I'd just thought it would probably be better after a night's sleep.
"Why are you apologizing? You're a child." The kunoichi sighed. "How hard were you hitting it to crack a bone?"
I lowered my gaze, not knowing what to say. I just stared at her face and grinned foolishly.
The training was always this intense. I'd already gotten used to it.
"You..." She tapped my forehead and said gently, "My name is Uchiha Xun. If you feel unwell, come find me. Don't just put up with it on your own, okay?"
"Got it. Thank you, Sister Xun."
After the treatment, I lay down, exhausted, on the dormitory's long shared bed and closed my eyes to rest. We were underground, and after lights-out, not a trace of light could get in. There wasn't even the slightest breeze.
In the darkness, children occasionally whimpered or cried out in pain. It was a kind of psychological torment.
I'd always been a light sleeper, and I'd been sleeping even less since I arrived. It wasn't that I didn't want to sleep; I just couldn't. Every night, I rested in a daze.
Fortunately, this body was incredibly resilient. Even as a child, after a few hours of light sleep and having my chakra nourish me, I could wake up full of energy. So I trained even harder, pushing myself until I grew dizzy, my head ached, and my limbs stopped obeying me. Then I'd collapse onto the bed and sleep like a log. By the next morning, I'd be refreshed again.
It wasn't that hard for me. Maybe it had been difficult at first, but once I got used to it, it became easy.
I'd mastered perseverance in my previous life.
As I thought about all this, I was almost asleep when the foot of the bed suddenly dipped. Something crawled up along my legs, and I jolted fully awake.
Then a warm, tiny bundle—trembling like a newborn snow goose—snuggled up beside me. Her arms and legs wrapped around me, and she sobbed now and then, her breath brushing my collarbone and making me shiver.
I didn't dare move. I only widened my eyes and looked down. In the darkness, I could just make out a tearful little face, full of misery.
W-what was going on?
I wanted to move but didn't dare. The sudden closeness had made me freeze completely. My mind was blank.
Judging from how soft her body felt, she was probably a girl.
That made me freeze up even more!
If she were a boy, it would've been fine. I could've just shoved him off! But she was a girl. H-how could I turn her away?
Fortunately, she didn't do anything else. As if she'd found a safe haven, she clung tightly to my waist, sobbing. When she finally cried herself tired, she fell fast asleep.
She was asleep, but I felt like I was holding a bomb. My heart pounded, my whole body was taut, and I didn't dare close my eyes. My mouth had twisted into a frown, and I wore a miserable expression.
—What was I supposed to do?!
After a long, indescribable night, I finally fell asleep just before the wake-up call sounded.
It felt like I'd only drifted off for five minutes when the little bundle on top of me disappeared. I hadn't seen her face clearly, so I didn't try to find her, and the girl never came forward to acknowledge me!
Hmph!
So everything went on as usual.
The days passed one by one.
At first, there were about thirty little Uchiha, and when I counted, there were equal numbers of boys and girls.
After half a year of special training, only a dozen or so children remained. Some had quit voluntarily, while others couldn't keep up and had been eliminated.
Every month, they gave us full physical examinations. They tested, graded, and evaluated us. We were treated like goods, scrutinized from every angle before the inferior stock was discarded and the high-quality ones kept for further refinement.
The increasingly oppressive, airtight training and constant scrutiny had somehow forged a fighting spirit in me.
That was probably the advantage of being an adult.
I knew what kind of future I was facing, so I never thought of any of this as suffering.
I was the youngest of the dozen or so children left, but I was growing the fastest. Gradually, some of the others began to follow my lead and treat me as the center of the group.
No children here were allowed to use their own names. They only had numerical codes. But the number of children kept shrinking. When I'd first arrived, my number had been two. Now it had become one.
Number one?
I had mixed feelings.
In my previous life, I'd never been number one.
Five- and six-year-olds were at the age when they loved to play. During their free time, they started giving everyone nicknames. They began adding all sorts of adjectives when they talked about me.
"Look, that most handsome Uchiha has taken first place again!"
That meant strong and handsome!
"No wonder she's number one. She's so smart! She gets full marks on everything! Ah, I wish she'd tutor me!"
That meant smart and ambitious.
"But she's not even four yet! Leave her to me, hahaha!"
This was the most important part—young.
Gradually, those words came together to form a vivid new image of me, one even I hadn't noticed: a genius of the new generation of the Uchiha Clan.
And unlike the girls, who were all smitten with me, most of the boys couldn't stand me.
"What does that ice queen have that's so great? She's always showing off!"
Showing off? I was practicing the art of silence! Silence is golden!
"Exactly! She's not even as tall as the table when she stands up. What's there to be so smug about?"
I rolled my eyes.
You think everyone's like you, growing taller without growing any smarter?
"Her face is as pale as a girl's. I don't know what you see in her!"
That one seemed to be right...
I looked in the mirror and saw that, from a lack of sunlight, my face was pale. My hair reached my ears, my eyes were round and childlike, and my eyebrows were fine. I had delicate features, and when I didn't speak, I did look a bit like a girl.
As I kept looking, I saw a girl watching me secretly in the mirror. The moment our eyes met, she immediately looked away, her face turning bright red. Her shy expression was adorable.
Sigh, this irresistible charm of mine~