Senju Chen stood in the corridor, the suitcase moved to his left hand.
"Chasing deer." He said, "Master Shikaku, how many years have you Nara Clan been raising deer?"
"They were raised before the village was built."
"Then you should know that real hunters never chase deer." Senju Chen took two steps forward, "People who chase deer can hunt one deer a day at most, and they are half exhausted. Deer legs are longer than humans, and deer ears are smarter than humans. When you move, it moves first."
"So."
"So what you have to do is to occupy the water source, the salt land, and the only downhill road after going up the mountain." Senju Chen said slowly, "Then you sit down and wait. The deer will come over by itself, come to your feet, lower its head and drink water. It doesn't know you are there. It only knows there is water there."
The corridor was quiet for a while.
Dehumidifying air flows up from the stairs.
Shikaku reached into his sleeve, took out the twice-folded piece of paper, held it between his fingers and weighed it.
"The water source is West Mountain Ore Vein." he said.
"Hmm."
"Salt land is Eagle Claw Gorge's grain road."
"Hmm."
"Then the downhill road." Shikaku finally raised his eyes a little, "What is the downhill road?"
Senju Chen didn't answer.
Shikaku stared at him for three seconds.
"... Inside Iwagakure?"
Senju Chen smiled.
The smile was gentle and the eyes were clean, just like when I said "I'm not going to go around with you" in the conference hall just now.
Shikaku folded the paper again, stuffed it back into his sleeve, and yawned.
Then he raised his hand and pressed on Senju Chen's shoulder.
"I will join the preparatory team."
"Isn't Master Shikaku most afraid of trouble?"
"I'm afraid of trouble." Shikaku walked towards the stairs, his voice floated back lazily, "But I'm even more afraid that someone else has finished such a fun game for me, and I haven't touched a word of it."
"Minister Chen." He turned around at the corner, "There is a loophole in the second step of your three-step plan."
"Hmm? Shikaku-sama, please speak."
"Twenty-seven flares will light up at the same time, and the five camps will be illuminated at the same time." Shikaku said, "But the empty shell camp will reveal one thing - no one runs out at night. The real camp will be in chaos, and the fake camp will not have a ghost. You are like pointing out their empty shells to every Iwagakure Ninja on site."
Senju Chen's footsteps stopped.
"Ōnoki will not be afraid." Shikaku continued, "But the two captains of the real alliance under him will think of one thing: the old man will push three empty shells forward, and we will be the ones pushing forward."
"Also, I suggest you let Anbu implement this plan, and you Public Security Department will help!"
Senju Chen looked at Shikaku Nara for a while and suddenly smiled.
He understood Shikaku Nara's attitude and also understood Shikaku Nara's intention to let Anbu participate and implement it.
"Shikaku-sama."
"Hmm."
"You're already halfway through the downhill road."
Anbu laboratory is on the third underground floor.
There are no windows, just a row of cold white lamps, and there is no shadow when the light falls. There is a Land of Fire map of the North spread out on the table, with four iron paperweights pressed on the corners.
A dozen animal masks surrounded the table. No one spoke.
The team leader was a hawk-faced team leader named Anbu, numbered "Wu". His finger paused at the position of Eagle Claw Gorge on the map for a long time.
"Minister Chen." He finally spoke, his voice filtered through the mask and flat, "We have read the three additional terms."
"How?"
"No crossing the border, no killing, no recognition." Wu raised his head, "We can do the first two, but not the third."
"Why."
"Because your drone is not a human," Wu said. "If a human is caught, he will bite the poison sac, self-destruct, and burn his identity clean. Machines will not. The machine will only fall down."
He stretched out two fingers and tapped twice on the table.
"Iwagakure is a sentient ninja. Among the ninjas of Land of Earth, there is a team called 'Stone Ear', which is dedicated to listening to Chakra fluctuations. If your thing flies eight hundred meters, it will be heard by Chakra. If it hears it, it will be shot down."
"What will happen if you beat me down?"
"There will be wreckage." Wu said, "There will be a whole piece of iron with Konoha technology written on it, placed on Daimyo of the Land of Earth's table. By then, Lord Hokage's 'not knowing about it' will become a joke to all Shinobi World. Lord Third's three additions, the third one will be invalidated on the spot."
A soft exhale came from under the mask.
"With all due respect," Wu said, "You showed them seven pieces of paper on Council of Elders and counted all the toilets. But we are not elders. We are the ones who want to go down. If you make a mistake in calculating those numbers once, we won't be able to come back."
Senju Chen nodded.
"Captain Wu is right."
Some of the masks are at an angle.
"So I'm not going to convince you today." Senju Chen put the suitcase on the table and flipped the buckle, "I'm going to show you something."
He tilted his head.
"Hiraga."
"Here." A young man in a white coat squeezed up holding a square iron box and connected it to a freshly welded port on the wall.
The cold white light dimmed.
A layer of faint blue light floated above the iron box, unfolding inch by inch, and finally spread out into a topographic map looking down. The shadows of the trees on the map were moving, and the wind pushed the tree crowns up and down.
The lower jaws of more than a dozen masks had a bright edge illuminated by the layer of faint blue.
"This is not a border." Wu said.
"No." Senju Chen said, "This is the cypress forest, seventeen kilometers north of Konoha."
He raised his hand and clicked on the picture.
The picture zooms in. Under the trunk of an old cypress tree, a small white outline curls up in the shadow of Root.
"Every three days." Senju Chen said, "This person changed the record scroll under this tree six times. Each time it was the same tree, the same tree hole, and the same time. Captain Wu, if I were Iwagakure, I don't have to arrest him. I only need to change a fake one in the tree hole on the seventh time."
Wu said nothing.
Senju Chen's finger moves eastward.
"The second one."
The screen switched. In the darkness, a small dot of orange-red suddenly appeared, which was particularly bright in the night.
"This is thermal imaging. He used a fire stick to light cigarettes at night, three times a night." Senju Chen said, "To the naked eye, it is a small spark, and it disappears when the wind blows. In the heat sensor at an altitude of 800 meters -"
He zoomed out.
That bit of orange-red burns alone on the entire dark blue terrain.
"This is a lamp."
Someone's hands tightened on the edge of the table.
"The third one." Senju Chen moved the scene to a rocky slope, "The wreckage of Body Replacement Technique three days ago. The wood was not completely buried, and the thickness of the covering soil was less than two inches. It rained the next day, and the soil was washed away."
In the picture, half of the charred wood protruded from the mud, with vague runes still on it.
Senju Chen Put your hands down.
"Everyone," he said, "You don't believe that machines can see people clearly."
"But you are the first to see clearly this machine of mine."