File a Report with Lord Kazekage! I'm Taking Him Down!

"Despicable! Shameless! Brazen!" Rasa slammed his fist onto the table in fury, knocking over the teacup. Freshly brewed tea spilled all over the tabletop.

"If you're going to lose your temper, then lose your temper. Why pound the table? Now I have to clean up again." Karura grumbled as she pulled out a rag and wiped the table.

"Have you ever seen anything like this? Have you? The factory's been running for less than a year, and that old man with the breathing tube has already raised taxes for the third time. What the hell is he trying to do?

"I paid good money for fifty years of land-use rights along the river. What gives him the right to tax me again? If he pushes me too far, I'll move the factory. Raise taxes? Go collect them from the river god of the Shule River."

"Move the factory? That won't do. Have you forgotten Lord Kazekage's instructions? We need to hold this river." Karura coaxed Rasa as though soothing a child, then casually poured him another cup of tea.

Rasa gradually calmed down. After taking a sip, he said, "Isn't it just a one-million-ryo sanitation fee? Give it to him. Treat it as charity for a beggar."

"I think we should pay it, but we can't give it to him so easily. If Hanzo of the Salamander can take whatever he wants from our Hourglass Group, he'll definitely become even worse in the future," Karura reminded him.

"Of course I'm not giving it to him that easily! Send him an invitation. We'll have dinner tonight. Tell him to sell us the Sumu Iron Mine. If he agrees, this one million will be a little personal token from the Hourglass Group. No need to call it a sanitation fee or garbage fee. It sounds cheap."

"What if he refuses?" Karura asked.

"If he refuses..." A faintly murderous smile appeared at the corner of Rasa's mouth.

"Then I'll file a report with Lord Kazekage and take down that greedy old bastard! Now I finally think the Second Kazekage Shamon was right. That Hidden Rain Village deserves a damn beating!"

"I think we may be taking this too simply. How about I write up a report on our situation and submit it, then hear what Lord Jing Hang thinks?" Karura said.

"Fine." Rasa nodded.

"Write it tomorrow. Tonight, let's hear what that old bastard has to say first. Oh, and temporarily suspend the refugee intake from Hidden Rain Village. Let's make some trouble for him first. If I'm unhappy, I'm not letting him rest easy either. He needs to learn that the pot is made of iron."

"When you delivered the notice this morning, what was Rasa's attitude?" Hanzo of the Salamander swirled the red wine in his hand, carefully watching the legs slide down the glass. He removed his mask and took a light sip, his expression full of enjoyment as his brows relaxed. Only after quite a while did he put his mask back on.

"He neither agreed nor refused. He only said they needed to hold a meeting and discuss it. But his expression was very ugly," Oboro reported stiffly.

"Very ugly? Hahahaha! That bitter-gourd face of his has always been ugly! Hahahaha!" Hanzo of the Salamander seemed to amuse himself with his own joke, laughing for a long time without stopping.

"This Rasa is nothing but Jing Hang's watchdog here. At best, he's second-rate trash. A mere one million ryo in taxes is no more than drinking money, yet he dares haggle with me over every last bit. If not for Jing Hang's sake, I'd have his shitty Hourglass factory shut down tomorrow! Worthless trash that can't be put on display!" Hanzo of the Salamander said viciously.

Ever since the Hourglass Group had gained a firm foothold along the Shule River, it had also provided Hidden Rain Village with an extremely substantial cash flow: twenty million ryo in startup capital, fifty million ryo for a fifty-year lease on land-use rights along the river, thirty million ryo for a fifty-year lease on the Sada Iron Mine, and another two million ryo in commercial taxes every month.

Those huge windfalls had Hanzo of the Salamander seeing stars. A ninja village the size of Hidden Sand Village had originally needed only thirty million ryo a year in administrative funds. Hidden Rain Village was merely a small ninja village, and the Land of Rain's daimyo allocated it only ten million ryo a year. With nearly one hundred million ryo suddenly landing in his lap, anyone would probably get drunk on the feeling of being newly rich.

On top of that, the war within the Land of Rain had now completely ended, and Hidden Sand Village had helped solve the refugee problem that had given him the worst headaches. Hanzo of the Salamander was completely free of pressure, and he completely let himself go. He abandoned his former rough and frugal ways and learned how to enjoy life.

Drinking wine, tasting tea, watching dances, bedding prostitutes—according to Hanzo of the Salamander himself: "I've fought all my life. Can't I enjoy myself a little?"

"Report! Rasa has sent an invitation, inviting you to dine with him tonight."

"Hmm. Looks like Jing Hang left someone sensible beside that bitter-gourd face. At least he knows how to behave. Send word back: I'll attend at midnight." Hanzo of the Salamander took the invitation, opened it for a look, and nodded in satisfaction.

"There is one more matter."

"Speak."

"The Hourglass Group's refugee shelter announced that it would stop accepting refugees starting today. A large number of refugees are now flooding toward the Hidden Rain Building."

"What?!" Hanzo of the Salamander shot to his feet in shock.

"Why aren't they taking them anymore?"

"They said their labor needs for this year are already saturated, and they can't afford to employ any more..."

"Bastards! How many people are coming here?"

"Men and women, young and old, around twenty thousand..."

Bang! The beautiful wineglass shattered into powder the instant it struck the floor.

A famous American psychologist named Stuttgart once said that sex was truly the best remedy for relieving stress. When facing work pressure and emotional problems, not only did the human brain become tense, but the body became stiff as well.

Sex could make people feel warmth through the contact of hands and skin, while promoting the secretion of endorphins in the brain. This chemical produced feelings of happiness and could calm one's emotions. Experiments proved that this was no empty claim. Looking at Tsunade, who was already fast asleep on the sofa bed beside him, Jing Hang carefully pulled the blanket over her bare, fragrant shoulder.

It seemed Tsunade truly had been under immense pressure. By the end of last night, her movements had nearly become frenzied. If Jing Hang had not spent more than twenty years building his strength, rigorously training his stance and waist, and keeping his virginity intact, he might have been done in last night.

Jing Hang quietly got up, rubbed his slightly sore waist, tightened his bathrobe, and cautiously left the lounge. It happened to be the weekend, so there was no one in the laboratory. While the sky was still dark, Jing Hang quickly slipped back to his villa.

The first thing he did was take another shower beneath the showerhead. As he scrubbed himself, he pondered how to handle his relationship with Tsunade. As the Kazekage, he obviously could not marry into Hidden Leaf Village, but getting Tsunade to marry into Hidden Sand Village did not seem easy either.

Although the two villages were allies now, who knew when that alliance would end?

A cross-border marriage like Shikamaru and Temari's could only happen under the backdrop of great peace after the Fourth Shinobi World War. Now? The Second World War was still in full swing, and the Third had yet to begin. In this political climate, Jing Hang did not dare even consider marrying a prestigious "princess" like Tsunade. A political marriage?

Forget it. A marriage between people of Jing Hang and Tsunade's standing would be equivalent to binding Hidden Leaf Village and Hidden Sand Village together for good. Leaving aside whether Hidden Leaf Village's upper ranks would agree, those old men on the Sunagakure Hearing Council probably would not agree either.

Damn it, what's done is done. I'll take it one step at a time. Unable to think of a good solution for the moment, Jing Hang simply stopped thinking about it.

After showering and changing clothes, Jing Hang made two sandwiches, packed them into a food box, and returned to the underground laboratory with a nervous heart.