Loulan Ruins

When Mukade killed Arai Hayato, Neji seemed to sense something. He turned back for a glance but saw nothing. The Sand Village group had already gone beyond the Byakugan's range of sight.

"What's wrong, Neji?" Shizune asked when she noticed his odd reaction.

"Nothing! I suddenly felt a little irritated just now. Maybe I didn't get enough of a fight earlier. If I run into that Sand ninja again, I'll definitely beat him up. Those ninjas have tempers like stones in a latrine—stinking and hard."

Neji suppressed the strange feeling in his heart and joked.

Beating him up was impossible, of course. After all, Neji had been the unreasonable one first. But he felt no burden over it. Ninjas spoke with their fists to begin with.

"Young master, I'll beat him up for you next time!" Xiao Xi said with a grin.

"Hahaha! Good!" The weight in Neji's chest instantly vanished.

"Junior brother, you won't find a girlfriend if you're so violent!" Shizune teased.

"You brat, I've told you already—stop talking about fighting and killing all the time. When you're out in the world, one more friend means one more path..."

Tsunade kept nagging while Neji let it go in one ear and out the other.

Their laughter immediately eased the anxiety in everyone's hearts.

The group moved carefully through the ruined walls and rubble.

"Young master, look, there are murals here!"

Xiao Xi suddenly stopped beside a long corridor. Along its side stretched a continuous wall covered in paintings.

Though time had worn them down until they were no longer very clear, the graceful lines and traces of their former splendor could still be seen.

"It's impossible to make much out now, but judging from their poses, they're probably praising great deeds and virtues. Since the people of the Loulan Ancient Kingdom liked painting, there's no way they wouldn't have recorded something as important as sealing the Dragon Vein. Everyone, look around for more solemn buildings, such as Loulan's council hall. There might be clues there."

The information brought by natural energy allowed Neji to clearly sense the vast, surging energy underground. Unfortunately, after wandering around for quite a while, they still found no trace of the seal's entrance.

Everyone continued deeper through the ruins. The stone slabs beneath their feet had long since shattered, and several tenacious weeds sprouted from the cracks, swaying gently in the wind.

Neji kept his Byakugan activated, his vision piercing through layers of rubble as he searched for possible clues.

"The Loulan Ancient Kingdom favored towering architecture. The royal buildings should have been even more magnificent."

Tsunade looked around, her fingers lightly brushing over a stone pillar carved with intricate patterns. "These carvings... look like scenes from some kind of ritual."

"Split up and search!" Neji ordered. "Pay close attention to murals, stone tablets, or any ruins with written records."

Xiao Xi nimbly leaped onto a half-collapsed platform and suddenly shouted, "Young master, over here!"

Everyone quickly gathered around and found a relatively well-preserved hall. Though part of its dome had collapsed, the reliefs on all four walls remained clear.

On the central wall, a huge mural depicted a solemn ritual—several ninjas stood around an enormous sealing formation, while two figures stood conspicuously at its core.

"Is this... a record of the Dragon Vein's sealing?"

Shizune leaned in to inspect it, her fingertips lightly touching the mottled paint on the mural.

Neji's gaze locked onto the two figures in the center of the painting—they had striking blond hair, one large and one small. The larger one wore Konoha's standard flak jacket, while the smaller one looked like a boy.

"It's the Fourth Hokage!" Tsunade said with certainty, pointing at the larger ninja.

"Who's that blond-haired boy?" Xiao Xi tilted her head in thought. "Other than the Fourth Hokage, who else in the village had blond hair?"

After thinking for a moment, Shizune said, "I've never seen him before. Could he have been an ANBU ninja?"

Watching them guess back and forth when he clearly knew the truth but could not say it made Neji feel as if cats were clawing at his heart. It stifled him so badly that veins bulged on his forehead. He hurriedly widened his Byakugan and pretended to search around for clues.

"No, that's not right." Tsunade shook her head. "This boy's clothing doesn't look like that of a Konoha ninja, and..." She pointed to the blurred writing at the edge of the mural. "It seems to mention a '... traveler.' The word before traveler can no longer be made out."

"A traveler?" Tsunade muttered. "Could the Fourth Hokage have sealed the Dragon Vein with some blond-haired ninja from another village?"

The group fell into brief silence. Only the whistling wind carrying yellow sand seemed to answer their doubts.

"Regardless, since the Fourth Hokage took part in the sealing, there must be traces of his jutsu here." Neji cut off their speculation. There was no point thinking about it. "Keep searching. We might find a way into the Dragon Vein."

Neji tried using natural energy to search for traces of the chakra seal, but the violent energy underground disrupted his senses.

"I can't use my sensory ability. The Dragon Vein's power is too domineering—it's interfering with my perception."

Neji said this while pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Then we'll conduct a thorough search. We have to find the entrance!" Shizune said without hesitation.

Xiao Xi stood on tiptoe, her fingertips brushing over flakes of peeling paint at the edge of the mural. Suddenly, she let out a soft "Huh." "These cracks... look like they were made deliberately!" She pointed at several regular scratches in the lower-right corner of the mural, completely unlike the surrounding marks of natural weathering.

Neji's Byakugan suddenly narrowed, veins bulging around his eyes. "Someone really did try to erase part of the information—the scratches contain trace amounts of chakra. They bear the marks of Wind Release ninjutsu."

Neji focused his attention and finally sensed a faint fluctuation.

"These were carved recently. Were they made by people from Sand Village? Aren't they supposed to be guarding the Dragon Vein? Could they be after it too? Hmph! They've got quite the wishful thinking. They found the place and deliberately didn't tell us, making us take the lead. What a fine scheme. Stay alert—they may be following us!"

After Tsunade spoke, everyone immediately became vigilant. Though Neji felt that something was off, he could not explain why. He simply searched in every direction with his Byakugan, especially beneath the sand.

A moment later, Neji crouched down and pressed his palm to the ground. Chakra spread outward like ripples. "There are traces of a structure thirty meters underground, but the layout is too chaotic... as though some force forcibly twisted it."

Neji suddenly leaped onto the broken dome, his Byakugan piercing through layer after layer of rock. Under everyone's astonished gazes, he fiercely punched a seemingly ordinary brick.

Crack!

The brick shattered, exposing hidden sealing runes within. They had lain as dormant as wood and stone; no wonder no one had been able to sense them.

If Neji had not discovered traces of a mechanism underground and focused his Byakugan according to the usual principles of mechanism control, he might not have found it either.

Neji carefully examined the runes before him. He was no longer the clueless novice he had been years ago. At this moment, the patterns of the runes danced before his eyes like beautiful notes.

He understood in an instant and formed hand seals. "Release!" As flowing light spread across the runes, the seal was undone. The floor of the entire hall began to tremble, and broken stones rained down.

The hall suddenly split apart, and a spiral staircase rose from beneath the ground, winding downward. Its end disappeared into darkness like the gaping maw of an abyss.