Chapter 99: There Is No Such Thing as an Honest and Simple-Minded Uchiha

Having already weighed things in his mind, Uchiha Gin did not linger in the backyard. He returned to the old house to light the stove and cook. Before long, Senju Itama drifted over from the new house, following the aroma.

"Finished cleaning up?"

Uchiha Gin, wearing an apron and holding a spatula, asked with a frown.

"Obviously. How could such a small matter stump me?"

Senju Itama, covered in dirt, raised his small fists and said triumphantly, though the mask of dust and sweat smeared across his face made his words entirely unconvincing.

"You'd better go take a bath before you come back."

Uchiha Gin, covering his nose, waved his hand in disgust.

"Hmph!"

Realizing he did indeed need to wash up, Senju Itama snorted with his head held high. Before walking into the bathroom, he poked his head out and warned with a guarded expression,

"Don't you dare peek!"

"Who would peek at a brat like you?"

Hearing this, Uchiha Gin, who was stir-frying, nearly dumped an entire jar of salt into the pot. With black lines running down his forehead, he retorted,

Perhaps having learned from the last lesson, Senju Itama washed very quickly this time. By the time Uchiha Gin brought out the last dish, he was already sitting at the dining table, steaming, waiting to eat.

"You really are useless at everything except eating."

Seeing the brat was so fast, Uchiha Gin voiced his mockery.

"Nagging, hurry up and serve the food!"

Driven by his cravings, Senju Itama ignored his nemesis's mockery. His eyes were fixed straight on the sweet and sour fish in Uchiha Gin's hands, his expression one of drooling anticipation.

"I'm digging in!"

Seeing the sweet and sour fish he had been longing for, Senju Itama, appetite whetted, could not care about anything else and began to devour the food like a whirlwind.

"Sweet and sour fish for lunch, sweet and sour fish for dinner; aren't you afraid of getting diabetes, you brat?"

Picking up a chopstick of his own masterpiece and savoring the cloyingly sweet sauce, Uchiha Gin thought with malice, without reflecting at all on how he was just as addicted to sugar.

Uchiha Gin, who ate relatively quickly, was the first to put down his empty rice bowl. Watching the brat still fighting away, he picked his teeth and stood up, saying,

"I have something to do at work, remember to clean up for me."

"Mm-mm-mm."

With his mouth stuffed with food, Senju Itama could not speak and could only make "mm" sounds to indicate he understood.

Walking out of the house, Uchiha Gin headed toward the dungeon where he worked.

Entering the main gate, he took a few turns and arrived at the entrance of Dungeon No. 3. At this moment, the guards were still the two youths he had seen a few days ago.

"Little brother Jiro, is it your shift again today?"

Uchiha Gin greeted the honest-looking youth with a square face on one side in a familiar manner.

"You are... my brother's friend!"

Uchiha Jiro was startled when he heard the other party call his name. He thought quickly in his mind before remembering that this person was his brother's friend.

"That's right, that's right. I forgot to introduce myself last time; my name is Uchiha Gin."

Uchiha Gin smiled and introduced himself, looking as warm as a neighborly big brother.

"Big Brother Gin, are you here to check on the prisoners again?"

Remembering the other party's status as an archivist, the youth asked.

"Yes, there are some questions about the files, so I came to verify them. Do me a favor and let me in."

Uchiha Gin made up an excuse to trick the youth into letting him in.

"No problem!"

The honest and straightforward Uchiha Jiro immediately opened the cell door and let him in.

"Then many thanks to you two young brothers."

Seeing his goal achieved, Uchiha Gin waved goodbye to the two with a smile.

"Jiro, don't you think this guy is very suspicious?"

After Uchiha Gin had walked far away, Uchiha Hoka, who had not said a word the whole time, asked with a frown.

"What's suspicious about him? He's my brother's teammate. I asked my brother a few days ago, and it really is this person. That curly hair is very easy to recognize."

After his first interaction with Uchiha Gin, Uchiha Jiro had gone home that day to ask his brother, Taro, about Uchiha Gin's situation. The other party had only said with a strange expression that he was indeed his teammate, while telling him not to pay any attention to this person.

"But the name Uchiha Gin, I feel like I've heard someone mention it somewhere before, and just mentioning it gives me a bad feeling."

Uchiha Hoka rubbed his little head, unable to figure out why he had such a resistant thought.

"Could it be that you hallucinated from jerking off at night?"

A hint of awkwardness appeared on Uchiha Jiro's honest face. It seemed that his honesty was just a protective color; this Uchiha was yellow and oily when sliced open.

"What is jerking off?"

The naive Uchiha Hoka was exposed to a new term for the first time. The confusion in his eyes was about to overflow, and he couldn't help but ask.

"Hehe, after work I'll show you something good. I stole it from my brother."

Uchiha Jiro glanced around to make sure no one was there and whispered into Uchiha Hoka's ear.

Uchiha Gin followed his memory, groping his way through Dungeon No. 3, and finally saw the target of his trip.

In the dim corridor, a hunched figure was slowly cleaning with a broom. Uchiha Gin walked up, stared at the familiar back, and spoke,

"I want to see Grandfather."

Hearing this, the hunched old jailer raised his pale, withered face and said expressionlessly,

"Good."

The voice sounded like fingernails scraping against glass, giving him goosebumps.

As the word "good" left his lips, the old jailer turned into a puddle of black mud, quickly squirming toward Uchiha Gin, crawling up his legs, and wrapping him up in an instant.

Enduring the physical discomfort, Uchiha Gin took a deep breath and did not resist the old jailer's engulfment. Then, everything went black before his eyes, and his body felt as if it were moving at high speed.

When he saw the light of day again, Uchiha Gin found himself back in the cell where Uchiha Yao was being held. The old man he had seen a few days ago was still hunched over his desk writing furiously.

Hearing the movement behind him, he raised his head silently. Seeing that the visitor was actually Uchiha Gin, he asked with great surprise,

"Gin, why are you here so soon? Has the matter been settled?"

Mistakenly believing that Uchiha Gin had already manipulated Wuming, Uchiha Yao was very surprised, but Uchiha Gin shook his head and replied,

"Not yet, Uchiha Tajima hasn't made a move."

"Then what are you here for?"

The old man stopped his pen and stood up, staring at him with his one remaining good eye, asking.

"I want to ask about my Sharingan."

Uchiha Gin asked straightforwardly. Within the entire Uchiha clan, besides Uchiha Miao, whom he had seen during the day, only Uchiha Yao before him had studied the Sharingan deeply.

It would be inappropriate for him to go ask Uchiha Miao directly, as that might arouse Uchiha Tajima's suspicion, whereas there were no such concerns with Uchiha Yao.

He could sense that the old man had ulterior motives, but adhering to a style of doing things where he would take advantage of freebies whenever possible, Uchiha Gin asked boldly.

"Has your vision deteriorated?"

Uchiha Yao asked with a frown. He knew the origin of Uchiha Gin's eyes very well. After transplanting the original Mangekyo to Wuming, the ones replaced were the eyes Uchiha Yan had gouged out from the corpses of the Kaguya clan.

He vaguely remembered that the owner of those eyes was the sidekick beside Kaguya Sosuke, but unfortunately, he had been stabbed through the heart by his own leader.

"No, I just wanted to ask, can these eyes of mine still awaken the Mangekyo?"

Uchiha Gin's eyes widened slightly, and a pair of three-tomoe Sharingan appeared before Uchiha Yao. The old man could clearly perceive the surging ocular power contained within these eyes.

"As expected of Jin's child, to actually be able to nurture eyes that aren't your own to this extent."

(End of chapter)