The Financial Trickery of Outsourced Projects and the Balance-Sheet Dilemma of a Peripheral Squad

The night wind in the Wind-Eroded Rock Zone was harsher than anywhere else in the Sea of Sand.

Baishi's patrol squad moved along the boundary line of the new defense zone, their Chakra consumption rate thirty percent faster than usual. The energy field here was intensely chaotic, and that restless aura deep underground felt like a trapped giant beast, constantly battering his sensory perception.

At the corner of a rock wall, a dim light shone.

That was a maintenance station for one of the peripheral nodes of the Underground Palace Barrier, a stone house half-buried in the sand.

According to regulations, the patrol squad and the maintenance squad had independent duties and did not interfere with each other.

Yet Baishi's steps paused for a moment.

Suppressed arguing came from inside the house, very low, but in this silent night, it was enough for him to catch.

"...The accounts won't balance! The shortfall is too big! Those bastards sitting in the office skim layer after layer, and by the time it reaches our hands, there isn't even enough money to buy sealing paper!"

"Keep it down! Do you want everyone to know?"

"So what if they know?! The inspection team is coming down tomorrow! What are we going to show them? Should we use our brothers' lives to fill that hole?"

A water canteen was slammed heavily onto the ground, the sound dull.

The arguing stopped, leaving only heavy panting.

The two team members behind Baishi exchanged glances and tacitly bypassed that stone house. In Sunagakure, this kind of thing was not uncommon, and no one wanted to stir up trouble.

Instead, Baishi lifted his foot and walked over.

He stood at the doorway of the stone house and knocked on the door frame.

The voices inside came to an abrupt