Chapter 52: Uchiha Gin

Seeing Uchiha Tajima's desolate expression, it did not seem feigned.

Uchiha Gin felt a trace of guilt for his act of picking at old scars; the tragedy six years ago had cost Uchiha Tajima his beloved wife and children, and bringing it up again was undoubtedly rubbing salt into his wounds.

"I'm sorry, Uncle, I shouldn't have..."

Uchiha Gin apologized hurriedly.

"It's fine. So many years have passed, I have long since let it go. Seeing that you were able to pull through, I am already very gratified."

Uchiha Tajima patted his shoulder as if to encourage him.

"Then I shall take my leave."

Knowing he would not get any useful answers from Uchiha Tajima, Uchiha Gin rose to leave.

"Wait." Uchiha Tajima spoke up to stop him.

"Is there anything else you need, Uncle?"

Uchiha Gin looked at him and asked.

"Recently, I may need you to accompany me on a mission; I will notify you in advance when the time comes."

Uchiha Tajima said.

"Understood."

Without asking about the details of the mission, Uchiha Gin recalled similar scenarios from his memories; they were usually negotiation or trade missions, which were good for building up one's record and carried little danger.

The moment Uchiha Gin left, Uchiha Tajima's originally sorrowful face changed abruptly, replaced by a cold, stern expression, as icy as if it had been frosted over.

"To think that guy's traces were still left behind; that old fellow Uchiha Yan is becoming increasingly sloppy."

Uchiha Tajima muttered to himself.

"In that case, I can only let this fellow Gin go and reunite with his family."

The words he spoke were colder than his expression.

Uchiha Gin, who had returned straight home, ignored Senju Itama, who seemed to want to talk, and went to sleep on the sofa on his own.

Senju Itama looked at Uchiha Gin lying on the sofa with his back to him, a complex expression in his eyes; he did not approach further and turned to return to his bedroom.

Uchiha Gin, lying on the sofa, slowly opened his eyes, pondering everything that had happened today.

In the morning, he had encountered a strange old jailer in the dungeon; after some exchange, the other party seemed to know what had happened six years ago and hinted that the truth of the whole matter lay in the abandoned dungeon.

The malice he had inadvertently sensed at the medical station made him raise a guard against Uchiha Tajima; his uncle was far from as simple as he appeared in his memories.

The photograph discovered in the frame broken by Senju Itama had brought out two more strangers.

One of them seemed to be his own grandfather, but after asking his uncle, he only received the answer that he and his grandfather had never met.

However, a photograph could not be faked, which in turn proved from another angle that Uchiha Tajima indeed had something to hide.

After organizing these details, Uchiha Gin finally fell into a deep sleep; in the darkness, his left hand emitted an alluring red glow.

Early the next morning, Uchiha Gin woke up; he had had another strange dream last night.

In the dream, he was playing with a young girl when a group of people suddenly appeared; they came before the two of them, lowered their heads and said something, and upon hearing their words, the girl knelt on the ground and wept bitterly.

Then that group of people walked up to him and also leaned down to say something; although he didn't hear it clearly, he vaguely saw that the leader of the group was a young Uchiha Tajima.

After hearing the words, he fainted directly; before losing consciousness, he saw a red full moon rise in the sky, and a strange yet familiar pattern gradually emerged on the full moon.

Pondering the scene in the dream carefully, since Uchiha Tajima had appeared, it meant this was not mere imagination.

These dreams were very likely things the original owner had experienced; the figure of the girl in the dream overlapped with the young girl in the photograph from yesterday.

Uchiha... Hikari?

Putting the matter of the girl aside for now, today he had to go to the dungeon to look for clues.

Walking in the dungeon corridor, the old jailer from yesterday had already given him enough hints; he had to find the abandoned dungeon.

According to what Uchiha Lu Cha had said, the abandoned dungeon was located between Dungeon No. 1 and Dungeon No. 2; he looked at the Y-shaped fork in front of him.

The left side led to Dungeon No. 1, the right side to Dungeon No. 2, but the wall directly opposite clearly had traces of having been chiseled, indicating that there had once been a passageway here.

Feeling for protrusions on the wall, Uchiha Gin tried to find some kind of mechanism that would allow him to open the wall in front of him, but after a search, he had no success.

Just as he was about to give up, he saw a round figure from afar; it was the elder Uchiha Yan, and standing beside him was the cold Uchiha Ryuei.

Not daring to get too close, Uchiha Gin watched the two talking from a distance and quietly activated his Sharingan; as the Sharingan recorded the lip movements of their conversation, the dialogue between the two was deciphered.

Uchiha Yan: Ryuei, has that Sarutobi clansman confessed?

Uchiha Ryuei: Lord Yan, give me a little more time; I will extract the answers you want without damaging his brain.

Uchiha Yan: As soon as possible; if it really doesn't work, force a memory extraction.

Uchiha Ryuei: But that might lead to immediate brain death; what if it hasn't been extracted yet...

Uchiha Yan: That is the last resort. Is the guy locked in Cell 0 behaving himself lately?

Uchiha Ryuei: No unusual movements; I have been guarding him personally, please rest assured, Lord Yan.

Uchiha Yan: Do not let him die; there are still many problems that need him to solve.

Uchiha Ryuei: Yes, I will go and check on him in a moment.

After deciphering the conversation, Uchiha Gin guessed that the Cell 0 mentioned by Uchiha Yan must be that abandoned dungeon.

He had not expected there to be a living person inside, and that it was being guarded personally by Uchiha Ryuei; in that case, the difficulty of entering would increase significantly.

Since Uchiha Ryuei said he was going to check on it in a moment, wouldn't he be able to find the entrance to the abandoned dungeon by secretly following him?

With a plan in mind, Uchiha Gin began to follow Uchiha Ryuei from a distance.

Given the other party's formidable strength, if he were to get too close and expose himself, it would be hard to explain, so he kept trailing far behind Uchiha Ryuei.

After following for a long while, he did not see the other party show any intention of going to the abandoned dungeon; instead, he stayed in a cell in Dungeon No. 1 for a long time.

Finally, after a long while, Uchiha Ryuei, his hands stained with blood, came out of the cell and walked straight back to his office.

Seeing that he was about to lose him, Uchiha Gin, after some thought, went up and knocked on Uchiha Ryuei's door; when there was no response after a long time, Uchiha Gin, sensing something was wrong, pushed the door open and entered.

What met his eyes was a relatively large office, but the color scheme was very gloomy, making one feel quite oppressed; looking around, he did not see Uchiha Ryuei.

"Where did he go?"

Uchiha Gin pondered in his heart, "It seems there is a secret passage in this room."

Based on years of experience with movies and television, Uchiha Gin reached this conclusion.

Usually, mechanisms are in places like bookshelves or decorative vases.

The furnishings in Uchiha Ryuei's room were relatively simple; the only thing that stood out was a vase on his desk. As a vase, it didn't even have a single flower in it, making it highly suspicious.

Just as he was about to check it, thanks to the sensory boost from his Uzumaki lineage, Uchiha Gin sensed from afar that Uchiha Ryuei's chakra was slowly approaching, but there was nowhere to hide in the office at this moment.

What to do? If he was caught trespassing in Uchiha Ryuei's office, he would definitely be in for a rough time. As he sensed the other party's chakra only a few meters away, the office wall suddenly rippled with shadows.

Uchiha Gin, prepared to face judgment, suddenly discovered that ripples were beginning to appear on his own shadow, and a familiar face appeared on it.

The next second, he felt his body sink, and he was actually swallowed into his own shadow.

Hearing the sound of the door lock turning, Uchiha Gin did not bother to resist and, a second before Uchiha Ryuei pushed open the secret door, quietly melted into his own shadow.

Uchiha Ryuei, who pushed the door open and came out, frowned and looked around; his keen senses made him vaguely feel that something was here.

However, after activating his Sharingan and scanning several times, he found nothing unusual; in the end, he had to give up, assuming he was just too tired from the interrogations these past few days and was hallucinating.

(End of chapter)