This was a world where rumors flew everywhere.
After carrying out Yanbai's bizarre order, Konoha's Anbu discovered that the villagers were actually unwilling to believe negative news about him.
It was not because they respected Yanbai all that much, but because they feared him deeply.
Perhaps the spread of education had something to do with it, too. People's trust in rumors had plummeted.
Even when they heard a plausible rumor, they could not help asking themselves: Was this true? Where was the evidence?
Once that question arose, people naturally began looking for holes in the rumor. As long as they found two or more, their attitude was bound to become, Only an idiot would believe that.
Besides, even if those rumors were true, what difference would it make? Yanbai was irreplaceable.
And so the people voluntarily tossed all those rumors onto the garbage heap.
Although the civilians of the Land of Fire were rational, foreign visitors were not quite so sensible.
Spies came to Konoha Shinobi Village under the pretext of tourism and collected a mountain of bizarre-sounding rumors about Yanbai.
These people remained half-convinced by the rumors and gathered them all, true or false, making their workload enormous.
Some of them were envoys from nations large and small who had come to sign "friendly cooperation" agreements with Konoha Shinobi Village.
The rumors in Konoha Shinobi Village left them dizzy.
The Konoha Military Police Force.
Inside Shimura Danzō's private office.
In a secret room, Shimura Danzō read the "Hokage's orders" delivered by Konoha's Anbu, his brow tightly furrowed. Once he finished, the writing on the scroll gradually vanished.
Shimura Danzō did not quite understand the intent behind Yanbai's orders.
Why would he suddenly manufacture rumors about himself?
But Shimura Danzō firmly believed that Yanbai's wisdom was beyond anything ordinary mortals