The Meeting of Two Acting Masters!

With the "Earth" Scroll in hand, Team 7 had finally gathered the credentials to pass.

Less than twenty-four hours remained before the exam ended, but that did not mean they were safe. The closer they got to the central tower, the denser the lurking predators became.

"Everyone, be careful. The aura ahead feels a little off."

Sasuke lowered his body, his Sharingan warily sweeping the surroundings. After Ye Tian's "treatment," although the Curse Mark had been temporarily suppressed, his perception of danger had become even sharper.

"Oh, what a coincidence, Sasuke, everyone."

A gentle voice with a faintly sinister undertone came from the shadows of the bushes.

A young man wearing round glasses and a silver ponytail slowly stepped out, wearing that signature harmless smile.

Kabuto Yakushi.

"It's you?" Sasuke frowned deeply, his Kunai still raised. "You're that senior who's taken the exam for many years."

"Don't be so tense." Kabuto adjusted his glasses, his gaze seeming to casually sweep over everyone before lingering for a moment on Ye Tian, who leaned on a cane with a pale face. "I just gathered my scrolls too and was about to head for the tower. Since we're going the same way, why not travel together? After all, there's strength in numbers at this point."

"Senior Kabuto! Great!" Naruto, that single-celled organism, immediately dropped his guard with a foolish grin.

At the back of the group, Ye Tian half narrowed his eyes and lightly coughed into a handkerchief.

Under a Cultivator's Divine Sense, this "kind senior" before him looked completely different.

The Chakra flowing through Kabuto's body was extraordinarily refined, even more precise than that of an ordinary Jonin. A faint yet razor-sharp aura lingered around his hands, as if always ready to cut something—that was the trace left behind by long-term Chakra Scalpel training and... live dissection.

"Orochimaru's gold-medal assistant. The number one spy of the Shinobi World."

Ye Tian sneered inwardly. A surveillance point delivered right to my door. It'd be a waste not to use him.

The group temporarily rested beneath a wind-sheltered rock formation.

"Junior Ye Tian, your complexion looks terrible."

Kabuto took the initiative to approach, his face full of a senior's concern. "I'm a Medical Ninja. Do you want me to take a look?"

Before Ye Tian could refuse, Kabuto's fingers had already naturally settled onto his wrist.

[Probe]

A barely noticeable cold glint flashed through Kabuto's eyes. He did not believe Lord Orochimaru's judgment could be wrong. This seemingly useless sickly boy definitely had something strange about him. He silently sent a thread of Chakra into Ye Tian's Meridians.

However, Kabuto's pupils abruptly contracted the next second.

A mess!

It was far too chaotic!

If an ordinary person's Meridians were a river, then Ye Tian's were ruins that had just suffered a magnitude-ten earthquake. The channels were fractured and blocked, with "dead knots" everywhere. Yet amid that wreckage was a weak but terrifyingly resilient mysterious force, barely holding that broken body together like glue.

"This pulse..." Kabuto was horrified. An ordinary person would have died eight hundred times over! How is he even still alive?

"Cough, cough... Senior Kabuto, how is it?"

Ye Tian weakly pulled back his hand, revealing a bleak, bitter smile. "Is there no hope?"

In reality, this was a "false pulse" Ye Tian had deliberately fabricated with Divine Sense. For a Cultivator, controlling the flow of his own blood and energy to create an illusion was nothing more than a trivial trick.

"Uh... it is indeed difficult." Kabuto collected himself and adjusted his glasses to hide his awkwardness. "Your Meridians are severely damaged. The fact that you're alive... is practically a medical miracle."

"Yeah, I took the wrong medicine as a child and burned my body out."

Ye Tian went along with it, then abruptly changed the subject. His seemingly murky eyes suddenly turned meaningful.

"Just like Senior Kabuto. You're clearly so strong, yet you always 'fail' the Chunin Ninja Exams... Is it because you have some unspeakable reason? Or are you... waiting for someone?"

Kabuto's fingers stiffened slightly.

Their gazes met in the air.

Ye Tian's eyes held the sly look of someone saying, "I understand everything," while deep wariness hid behind the glare on Kabuto's lenses.

"Hehe, Junior Ye Tian really knows how to joke." Kabuto resumed his perfect fake smile. "I simply have bad luck, and my talent is mediocre."

"Same here. I have bad luck too. My body's just too weak." Ye Tian smiled as well, like a fox that had just stolen a chicken.

The two acting masters reached a strange tacit understanding at that moment—they would each play the other for a fool, or perhaps an old fox.

"Enemy attack!"

Just as the two were having such a pleasant conversation, the mist around them suddenly thickened.

Dozens of Amegakure ninja wearing raincoats and breathing masks emerged from all directions without warning. Like ghosts, they charged over in a dense swarm, Kunai waving in their hands.

Amegakure's secret technique—[Hazy Clone Technique].

"Careful! They're all solid!"

Sasuke shouted and rushed forward with his Sharingan activated. Naruto also created Shadow Clones to meet the attack.

However, these enemies seemed endless. Every time one was dispersed, three more appeared.

Amid the melee, an Amegakure ninja appeared behind Kabuto like a ghost and viciously drove down his Kunai.

"Ah!"

Kabuto let out a scream. His arm was slashed, blood pouring out as he rolled away several times in a miserable heap.

Good acting.

Ye Tian silently praised him from behind a rock.

Under his Divine Sense scan, none of the enemies covering the mountainside had physical bodies. They were all illusions created by genjutsu and Chakra. The only real body was hiding fifty meters underground, furtively forming hand seals.

Kabuto could have easily dodged, but he deliberately let himself get injured to appear weak. He was truly going all out to hide his strength.

"Since Senior is working so hard, I can't fall behind."

Ye Tian watched an "Amegakure ninja clone" charge toward him, a glint flashing through his eyes.

He neither dodged nor counterattacked.

Instead, when the clone was still three meters away—

"Urgh!!"

Ye Tian suddenly clutched his heart with both hands, his eyes bulging as his face instantly turned purple-red.

"The... the killing intent is too strong! My heart... my heart is going to explode!"

Then, under the dumbfounded stares of everyone, including the Amegakure ninja clone, Ye Tian's entire body convulsed violently. Foam poured from his mouth as he fell straight backward, stiff as a board.

Bang!

He hit the ground with a loud thud, limbs rigid, as though he had died on the spot.

Kabuto, who had been preparing to "fight desperately": "..."

The charging Amegakure ninja: "..."

This was Konoha's Genin?

I haven't even touched you yet! Are you seriously trying to scam me?!

"Ye Tian!!!" Naruto let out a heart-wrenching scream. "That bastard killed Ye Tian with his aura! Unforgivable!!"

Because of Ye Tian's "sudden death," Team 7 instantly erupted with astonishing combat strength—mainly because Naruto went berserk—and forcibly smashed this group of phantoms to pieces.

After the battle ended.

Kabuto held the wound on his arm and stared at Ye Tian, who had just "woken up" and was now weakly drinking water. The corner of his eye twitched wildly.

He had thought that pretending to be weak made him shameless enough.

He had not expected there to be someone even more shameless in this world.

Looks like I was overthinking it. More than half of Kabuto's vigilance toward Ye Tian dissipated, replaced by deep contempt. This guy isn't just physically useless. His mental fortitude is even worse. Lord Orochimaru probably misjudged him.

Ye Tian wiped the foam from the corner of his mouth and gave Kabuto a weak, apologetic smile.

"Sorry, Senior... An old problem flared up. Sorry you had to see that."

But inwardly, he thought:

Trying to out-act me? You're still too green.