The Hyuga Classmate Who Wouldn't Drown

To Hyuga Kaze's surprise,

his son had mastered this common knowledge thoroughly and possessed considerable experience as well.

Some of the things he did had not even occurred to Hyuga Kaze, a ninja who had carried out missions for years.

Yet his son, a Ninja Academy student who had repeated a grade, did them as naturally as breathing.

As though he had suddenly learned them.

Hyuga Kaze did not ask further. As long as his son knew how, that was enough.

The father and son had spent four or five days walking there.

On the way back, they had walked for a full ten days and still had not reached the village.

Twelve days later, they finally returned to Konoha.

After settling Hyuga Kaze into the hospital, Hyuga Qingchuan rushed into the Hokage's office.

He reported everything he had learned to Sarutobi Hiruzen.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was greatly shocked and hurriedly passed the intelligence to the relevant ANBU departments for a thorough investigation.

Afterward, he highly commended the father and son for their achievements.

From the village's Will of Fire values to their personal self-improvement, he encouraged them on every front.

After a long speech, they finally got to the tangible benefits.

Hyuga Kaze's treatment at Konoha Hospital would be fully subsidized.

They were also credited with an A-rank mission completion and awarded 150,000 ryo.

This delighted Hyuga Qingchuan immensely.

With those 150,000 ryo, they could greatly offset the impact of the Hyuga Clan cutting the Branch House's pension payments.

After submitting the mission, Hyuga Qingchuan went home first.

His grandmother was at home. If he stayed out too long without returning, she would worry.

When he got home, his grandmother asked where Hyuga Kaze had gone.

Hyuga Qingchuan casually made up an excuse and fooled her.

The next day.

Early in the morning, the school was already packed with people. Before anyone knew it, the term had begun.

Hyuga Qingchuan stood at the school gate, his eyes scanning the newly assigned class lists posted on the wall.

Ever since Kakashi had set the record by graduating early, a trend of striving for early graduation had quietly swept through the school.

The village seemed to have tacitly approved of the trend, secretly lowering the standards until many classes no longer had enough students.

So the school decided to merge and reorganize some classes.

Hyuga Qingchuan's original class had been broken up, and he had been assigned to join another class to continue his studies.

"Building A, third floor..."

Hyuga Qingchuan found his name on the class list.

After turning this way and that and checking room after room, he finally found his new classroom.

The classroom was already packed. Some were chatting, while others were playing with paper airplanes.

Boys and girls alike were fooling around.

A female teacher emerged from the faculty office and headed toward his classroom.

She wore her hair in a ponytail, with bangs swept diagonally across the corner of her eye, and black-framed glasses.

Her professional teaching attire was neat and fitting. She looked like a strict teacher.

Judging by the teacher's photo on the class list, this should be his homeroom teacher—Inoue Lingyue.

Hyuga Qingchuan quickly went up to her and explained his situation.

Inoue Lingyue's expression darkened upon hearing this, her gaze filled with helplessness.

There had not been many early graduates from the class she was in charge of, so there were not many vacant spots.

Yet the school had still squeezed another student into her class and assigned her a student who had repeated a grade.

And he was even a notorious problem student at the school.

Sigh! My performance rating will be lower again this year.

She looked at the handsome student before her, sighed, nodded, and led Hyuga Qingchuan into the classroom.

When she reached the podium, Inoue Lingyue slapped the desk hard.

"Quiet!"

Her stern voice instantly drowned out the noise. Once the little ones below had quieted down, she pulled Hyuga Qingchuan forward.

"This is our new transfer student, Hyuga Qingchuan!"

"From now on, everyone should learn from one another."

Then she looked at Hyuga Qingchuan. "Introduce yourself to everyone."

Hyuga Qingchuan nodded and stepped up onto the platform.

He introduced himself openly. "Hello, everyone! I'm the new transfer student, Hyuga Qingchuan."

His handsome, clean-cut face paired with a sunny smile instantly drew every eye in the room.

The room fell silent for a moment, then erupted into enthusiastic cheers and shrieks.

"Ah! The new transfer student is so handsome!"

"What transfer student? Don't you know Qingchuan? He's one of the school's famous handsome guys."

"Really? Then I officially remove Uchiha Toshihiko from my husband list and replace him with Hyuga Qingchuan."

"Fengling, you're so fickle."

"Can't help it. He's too good-looking. Sorry, Toshihiko."

The girls in the class were beaming, thrilled.

"Tch! What's the big deal? Another pretty boy."

"Yeah, who knows what he's acting so smug about."

In contrast, the boys in the class all cast hostile looks his way.

For a moment, voices rose from every direction.

Inoue Lingyue secretly thought, Just as expected. He starts causing a commotion the moment he arrives.

The noisy clamor below irritated her, and she picked up a ruler and struck the podium hard.

"Alright, quiet!"

The noisy cries below subsided once more.

She turned to Hyuga Qingchuan and pointed to an empty seat in the last row.

"You'll sit there. Your desk mate is from the Hyuga Clan as well."

"Alright. Thank you, Sensei."

Dodging several little hands that tried to secretly slip him notes along the way,

Hyuga Qingchuan finally reached his seat and discovered that he had been assigned a female desk mate.

She had her head buried beneath the desk, doing who knew what.

"Hello, I'm your new desk mate, Hyuga Qingchuan," he greeted her.

She did not respond and kept her head down.

Hyuga Qingchuan did not mind. He sat down on his own and casually picked up the stack of newly issued textbooks on the desk, flipping through them one by one to see what subjects they covered.

Good grief, they really had to study everything from astronomy to geography.

There were a full eleven books in one stack.

But those were only the basic courses.

There were also additional elective courses.

Things like Intelligence Gathering, Wilderness Survival, Tracking and Counter-Reconnaissance, Emergency Treatment...

There was a whole mountain of them. No wonder the people of this Shinobi World, who had superpowers fueled by chakra, were groaning under the workload.

The most ridiculous one was the Will of Fire.

A single sentence from the First Hokage had developed into five or six books, including The Origins and History of the Will of Fire, The Future Development of the Will of Fire, and On the Contemporary Will of Fire.

He had originally been brimming with confidence and determined to perform well, but seeing so many courses, he could not help taking a deep breath.

After a while, his female desk mate finally moved.

She cautiously raised her head a little.

Like a rabbit poking its head out of its burrow, she revealed pale jade-like eyes and blinked as she looked around.

When she noticed someone suddenly sitting beside her, she was initially confused, then jerked upright in fright.

The cute animal pattern printed on the front of her clothes trembled along with her.

Her cheeks, which had been stuffed full and happily chewing moments ago, instantly froze.

Her eyes widened round as a startled rabbit's, making her look utterly adorable.

"I'm your desk mate, Hyuga Qingchuan." Hyuga Qingchuan smiled and held out his hand.

Her eyes were clear, but her little head seemed not to have processed it yet.

A moment later, she suddenly panicked and hurriedly stuffed the remaining half of her bread into her mouth.

She chewed it haphazardly a few times, swallowed with difficulty, then grabbed her water bottle and gulped down a huge mouthful of water.

Finally, she wiped her hand on her clothes before cautiously reaching out to shake Hyuga Qingchuan's hand.

His female desk mate was very pretty!

Her skin was fair, her nose was delicate and refined, and she looked innocent and sweet.

As he lightly held her small hand, a smooth, soft, faintly cool sensation brushed against his fingertips.

"My name is... Hinata Ayane."

She gave him an embarrassed smile, her curved eyes as lovely as crescent moons.

Only after seeing her turn around did Hyuga Qingchuan understand why he had failed to recognize her true appearance earlier.

She wore a loose white T-shirt decorated with cute little animals.

The excellent genes of the Hyuga Clan gave her a figure that filled out the loose combat uniform just right.

At her waist, it tightened into a dramatic curve, creating a stark contrast with her still-childish face.

As he looked at her long, silky black-purple hair draped casually over her shoulders, Hyuga Qingchuan felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

"Have we met somewhere before?" Hyuga Qingchuan asked.

Hinata Ayane froze at his words, a thoughtful look appearing in her eyes as though she were trying hard to remember.

A moment later, she shook her head. "I don't really remember."

Hyuga Qingchuan also felt that he might have been overthinking it. "Maybe I remembered wrong."

Hinata Ayane blinked her beautiful eyes and looked curiously at her new desk mate. "When did you sit here?"

"I was here from the start. I even greeted you earlier, but you probably didn't notice."

"Haha, sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

As she spoke, she seemed to suddenly remember something and turned sideways.

She asked softly, "Um... would you like some of this?"