Bounty Exchange

After leaving the village, Lin Chongshu first found a passing merchant caravan and bought several sets of clothes with cash.

He currently had three hundred thousand ryo on hand. One hundred twenty thousand had come from Shan Tianzhu, while the other one hundred eighty thousand had been looted from the Hidden Mist rogue ninja.

He found the far side of an empty sand dune. Sand peeled away from the bracelet, and the amount of fine sand he could control was now considerably greater than before.

The sand gathered before him, first spreading into a layer of sand clothing tightly fitted against his skin. Starting from the soles of his feet, it wrapped around his calves, thighs, waist, and abdomen like a suit of custom-made armor.

Then he began expanding outward, molding the sand into a tall shell.

The entire process took nearly an hour. It was far more troublesome than making gold ingots, but the results were decent.

When he emerged from the dune again, he was no longer that thin black-haired boy, but a burly man draped in a black burlap cloak.

He had originally worried that wrapping himself in a layer of sand would roast him like a beggar's chicken under the sun. Unexpectedly, the sand insulated against the heat. It felt cool around his body, much more comfortable than standing directly under the blazing sun.

He recondensed the Gold Sand into a bracelet and wore it around his wrist, then hung the Hidden Mist rogue ninja's forehead protector at his waist before heading west of the village.

The temple was at the westernmost edge of the village, just as the woman had said.

The steps before the temple gate were covered in sand. There was no ash in the incense burner, only an empty iron basin.

A middle-aged man dressed in old monk's robes sat at the entrance. He was bald, but his eyes looked nothing like those of a religious man. They were thin, narrow, and full of viciousness.

His gaze swept over Lin Chongshu. "Sir, this place is not open to the public. Please leave as soon as possible."

Lin Chongshu said nothing. He flipped over the Hidden Mist forehead protector at his waist, revealing the slash across it.

The middle-aged man withdrew his hand and stepped aside to make way.

As Lin Chongshu walked inside, he pondered it. He now roughly understood why rogue ninja liked to cut a line through their forehead protectors.

He had once thought it was some kind of ritualistic flair for becoming a rogue ninja, like having to dance naked to join the Illuminati.

Now, it seemed this thing was simply a pass into the underworld.

A forehead protector itself symbolized a threshold of strength. Whether ninja or rogue ninja, possessing one meant you were at least a genin and had a certain level of ability.

As for rogue ninja without forehead protectors, they were not even genin. There was no need for them to come to a place like this.

The temple was more spacious inside than it looked from the outside.

The corridor was dim, the rooms on both sides had their doors shut, and the air carried the stale scent of paper and ink mixed with a faint smell of blood.

The middle-aged man led the way, pushing open a heavy iron door at the end of the corridor.

Inside was a cold storage room. White frost coated the walls, a dim lamp hung from the ceiling, and a thick ledger lay open across the table.

The middle-aged man walked behind the table and sat down, looking up at Lin Chongshu.

Lin Chongshu took a sealing scroll from his robes and released the seal. A puff of white smoke drifted out, and the Hidden Mist rogue ninja's head appeared in his hand.

Without changing expression, the middle-aged man took it, then opened the thick ledger and flipped through it page by page, comparing the face to the head.

Lin Chongshu did not say a word throughout. He leaned against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, keeping his breathing steady.

The more he said, the more likely he was to slip up. Better to keep quiet and act like an expert.

After a while, the middle-aged man seemed to have found it.

He first gave the rogue ninja forehead protector at Lin Chongshu's waist a brief glance, then spoke in a dry, flat voice. "A C-rank rogue ninja from Kirigakure, genin. He stole a village ninjutsu scroll during the Chunin Exams and fled."

"The Land of Water offered a bounty of sixty thousand ryo. Returning the B-rank ninjutsu scroll would earn an additional ninety thousand ryo."

Lin Chongshu sighed inwardly. The Bloody Mist Village truly lived up to its name. From jonin down to genin, not one of them didn't defect. What an enviable social atmosphere, where the strong can legally bully the weak.

Still, this life was far too cheap.

He nodded, then pointed at the head to indicate that he did not have the scroll.

The middle-aged man said no more. He took several stacks of banknotes from his pocket, counted out a few, and pushed them in front of Lin Chongshu: eighteen thousand ryo.

"Standard bounty channel. Seventy percent service fee."

Lin Chongshu looked at the few thin bills on the table without changing expression, but he was already cursing inwardly. That's fucking ruthless.

But anyone who came to the Bounty Exchange to claim standard bounties was already someone who could not show their face in public. They had no bargaining power at all.

Rogue ninja rarely hunted one another, because the risk and reward were severely mismatched. After the seventy percent fee on a sixty-thousand-ryo bounty, the payout was not even enough to buy a stack of Explosive Tags. With that kind of spare time, they might as well rob a merchant caravan.

He tucked the money into his robes, then pointed at the ledger in the middle-aged man's hand.

The middle-aged man glanced at him, took out another booklet from beneath the counter, and placed it on the table. "Nine thousand ryo."

Lin Chongshu put several bills on the table. Since he was already here, he could not skimp on intelligence.

He opened the booklet and memorized its contents as he read.

Perhaps because this was the border between the Land of Wind and the Land of Rain, the first half consisted of official wanted notices from those two countries, arranged by rank, from S-rank to C-rank.

The latter half contained privately funded bounties from every country. Their rewards were higher than the official ones, and the targets were mostly merchants, politicians, and ordinary ninja.

A hand-drawn map was also attached at the back of the booklet, marking the two nearest Bounty Exchanges. One was within the Land of Wind, while the other lay in the heart of the Land of Rain.

When he flipped to the wanted notices from the Land of Wind, he saw his own name.

A C-rank wanted notice, with a bounty of seventy thousand ryo.

So Rasa really had put a bounty on him. But seventy thousand ryo should not be enough to make rogue ninja go out of their way to hunt him down, right?

He continued flipping through the pages. A few pages later, another wanted notice appeared among the privately funded bounties.

Bounty: one million five hundred thousand ryo. Sunagakure rogue ninja, Lin Chongshu.

Lin Chongshu stared at that line. His expression was hidden beneath the black burlap, but he was already cursing in his heart. Damn it, it had to be Rasa. He put up a C-rank bounty through normal channels to throw people off, while secretly placing an A-rank bounty on my life at the Bounty Exchange.

I didn't even cuck you. Do you really have to hate me this much?!

Once I learn Impure World Reincarnation, I'll definitely revive both you and Karura and make you push from behind.

Now that he had figured out why the Hidden Mist rogue ninja had been hunting him, he still needed to get himself a legitimate identity.

"Land of Grass. Identity." Lin Chongshu's voice came from beneath the black burlap, deep and deliberately lowered.

The middle-aged man made a few notes on paper. "An ordinary identity costs one hundred thousand ryo. A custom identity costs three hundred thousand ryo."

Lin Chongshu paused. "What's the difference?"

"With an ordinary identity, we only guarantee that your documents are genuine. Paper documents, complete with official seals." The middle-aged man lightly tapped the tabletop twice.

"With a custom identity, we can make new documents using your face. No matter who checks, or where they check, your identity will be real."

Lin Chongshu was startled inwardly. He had not expected the Bounty Exchange to be capable of such a thing.

This was not merely forging identification. It was fabricating a person out of thin air.

He was tempted. If he could go to the Hidden Leaf Village with a normal identity, that would be ideal.