Cultivation Starts Young

Hui Youling looked at the masked person before her, a strange feeling clearly stirring in her heart.

How to describe it?

It was a feeling both familiar and foreign.

Repulsive yet attached.

As if this person had once been a sliver of light, yet was also her own darkness.

She stopped overthinking it; the tangle in her heart was simply impossible to unravel.

"Thank you!" Hui Youling said as she took the item.

The person suddenly looked up at her, replying with a clearly disguised voice, "You're welcome."

Hui Youling glanced at him in confusion, and seeing him vanish with a Body Flicker, she gave a soft smile; there were some things she still lacked the ability to fathom.

Turning back around, she saw Naruto sprawled on the sofa asleep, so she let out a helpless laugh and went to make breakfast herself.

Yet, her height was so short she felt like flipping the table!

She had to stand on a chair to work, but she couldn't move around, which caused a lot of trouble.

"Naruto!"

Hui Youling placed the fried eggs and milk on the table, her roar jolting Naruto awake.

Naruto climbed off the sofa, dazed and confused, and upon catching the scent, he asked suspiciously, "Smells so good, Hui, what did you make?"

"Hey, get up and eat." She called out again.

"Oh..." Naruto finally came over obediently.

While eating, Hui Youling suddenly set down her chopsticks and said seriously, "Hey, Naruto, do you want to become strong? Strong enough to knock down a whole group of people and make them fear you!"

Naruto, for some reason, wasn't startled and continued eating with gusto—was he just used to it?

"What are you up to now?" he asked naturally.

"Naruto, we need to train!"

"Did you know? Those people all became powerhouses after training. How could we miss out on that!"

Hui Youling wore an expression that suggested this was the absolute truth.

"Really!" Naruto fell for it again...

"That's right, we'll be one step closer to becoming Hokage!" She raised an eyebrow, continuing to hoodwink him.

"Then I want to train too!" Naruto shouted excitedly.

"Mm, so do you have any training scrolls?" Hui Youling finally cut to the chase.

"Huh? What are those?" Naruto replied blankly.

Hui Youling was momentarily speechless. How could she have forgotten that Naruto wasn't even six years old yet? He hadn't entered the Ninja Academy, nor was he from a great clan; he had no secret techniques, not even the basic Three Body Technique. What could he possibly learn!

It doesn't matter, let's train in taijutsu! Hui thought.

"It looks like I absolutely have to find Rock Lee!" Hui Youling was suddenly troubled.

"Hey, Naruto, have you seen someone with a bowl cut, big eyes, and thick eyebrows?" She looked to Naruto for help.

"Who's that? Sounds so ugly!"

Naruto imagined it and blurted out the question. A large vein popped on Hui's forehead, and she slapped Naruto on the head.

"You're the ugly one! Your whole family is ugly!"

Wait, that's not right—the Fourth Hokage was a handsome man.

"You're just ugly!" Hui Youling added.

"But..."

Naruto rubbed his head, speaking innocently, but shut his mouth when he saw Hui Youling was angry.

"Let's go, time to train!"

She hopped off the chair, cast a light glance at Naruto, and headed out.

"If I don't go, will I get beaten to death? Why are you nothing like a girl!" Naruto wailed.

In this world, where there are geniuses, there are idiots, and one trait of an idiot is having endless stamina!!!

Hui Youling looked at Naruto, who was running far ahead, and sighed powerlessly at the sky.

"Hui, hurry up!" the person ahead clamored.

She stopped. "Naruto, you run ahead, I'm going to rest for a bit."

"Oh, then just wait for me here." Naruto said, then ran off.

Hui Youling gazed toward the Konoha River; it was sparkling in the early morning, peaceful and serene, yet something unpleasant had managed to mix in.

"That guy is actually living with that person!"

"Hmph, it's no surprise that two bastards are living together." Two women gossiped.

"How can you say such a thing!" Another female voice roared at them in dissatisfaction.

"What do you know!" one of the matrons said irritably.

"Don't go too far; if it weren't for that person, you would all be dead!" the woman retorted.

"So what if she was that woman? What do you young people understand!" the other matron added.

"Tsk, let's go!"

The woman who had spoken first grabbed her companion and left, and the other woman walked away in a huff as well.

It seems things are so chaotic that even they cannot decide what is right or wrong. Hongye, what exactly did you do? Hui thought to herself.

Hongye was the name of Hui's mother, who also lacked a surname. Hui Youling stood up from the ground.

"This and that, it's all so annoying."

At this moment, Naruto returned. "Hui!"

He called out and rushed over.

Hui Youling looked at the Naruto before her, suddenly remembered her small wooden cabin, and said, "Naruto, you go home first. I have something to do."

After saying this, she hurried away before he could even reply.

"Hui..." Naruto hesitated, but he didn't manage to stop her.

With a soft sigh, he began to run along the riverbank again; Hui Youling had said that one must not lose out on stamina from the very beginning.

Standing beside the wooden cabin, Hui Youling carefully recalled her memories of that time, wondering where she had put something very important. Upon returning home, she spoke instinctively:

"I'm home!"

This was a habit of the body, likely born from a deep fear of loneliness, leading her to imagine someone was waiting at home. She did it without thinking, but the empty house truly held nothing.

This was a small shack on the edge of the village where only her mother had lived. Her mother had been gone since she first gained consciousness; even her name had been told to the original owner by the Third Hokage. She had only ever seen a photograph and did not know how she had died.

Thinking of this, her heart filled with sorrow. Hui Youling remembered seeing a scroll for the Body Replacement Technique somewhere, but not knowing what it was, she had carefully tucked it away.

She went to a dim room and pulled a box from the bottom cabinet, only to find it was a combination lock.

"I have absolutely no memory of this password!" Hui Youling roared.

Why set a password? It seemed she would have to listen for the clicks to identify it.

She stood the box upright and listened intently to the sound of the tumblers. The moment she closed her eyes, her hearing became exceptionally sharp, and she opened the box on her first attempt. She looked inside with curiosity, her pupils constricting.

"Zero-zero-zero."

This surely did not carry a good meaning.

If the past had been so important, why not set a real password instead of using the default? It could only mean it was chosen intentionally.

Three zeros represented emptiness and a blank slate.

"Lost and no longer existing..."

Hui Youling whispered, then gritted her teeth. She recalled the mood of that time—that hollow, vacant feeling, filled with pale, powerless despair.

But.

Why had she almost forgotten it?

She solemnly opened the box and smiled faintly.

Small cloth clothes.

Small gloves.

A small cart.

There was also a book with a metal cover, several scrolls, and some small toys, though they had all lost their original luster.

These were things her mother had prepared for her, as if she had known from the start that she would be a girl; they were all in bright, warm colors.

Looking at these items, the pain in her heart seemed to spread throughout her entire body, yet a faint warmth lingered as well. She closed the box, locked it, and put it back in its place.

Hui Youling looked at the Body Replacement Technique scroll in her hand and gripped it tightly.

Absolutely.

She absolutely had to be strong enough to protect herself, to protect Naruto, and to protect everyone in Konoha.

Although there were still three years left, she wasn't sure when Yashamaru would attempt to assassinate Gaara. She understood that his heart had turned cold from that very moment; the sooner she reached his side, the better.

"I won't let your heart ache again. Even if it's just for one meeting, I must convey my feelings."

She could not wait nine years; she could not wait until his heart had already turned cold before meeting him.

Suddenly, she felt envious of a technique like Kamui that could ignore geographical distance. It was ironic that she, the one who loved him, remained unknown to him.