Bang!
Qi Feng's shovel plunged downwards, burying itself into the ground before the snake's tail could reach, the sturdy shovel body and blade resisting the blow.
The brief collision ended, Qi Feng pulled out his shovel, retreating to create distance, warily watching Orochimaru, and the peculiar giant snake that slowly swam back to his side, encircling him protectively, leaving only its head exposed.
"Orochimaru!!" Qi Feng roared.
Orochimaru, however, remained smiling, gently stroking the place on the giant snake that had been injured by the shovel, curiously looking at Qi Feng.
He seemed to have no intention of continuing the fight.
"Lava Release, I thought you were from the Sand Village."
Orochimaru licked his lips, his hoarse voice slowly rising.
Qi Feng frowned, "Lava Release isn't exclusive to anyone."
"Indeed."
Orochimaru shrugged, not denying it.
"Orochimaru, what exactly do you mean?
I admit I'm not your match, but if I want to leave, you can't stop me."
Anyway, it's not his main body; the biggest loss would just be a puppet.
He might feel a twinge of pain, but compared to his own safety, it's nothing.
Oh, and there's also the Coffin Shovel.
"Oh?"
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow; he didn't know where the other party's confidence came from.
Indeed, possessing Lava Release, and the genjutsu he displayed last time, perhaps he was hiding some other abilities.
But all of these combined, in his eyes, he was just an elite jonin, perhaps the most outstanding among elite jonin, even if half a foot had already touched the threshold of the Kage level.
But that was it.
Where did his confidence come from that he could safely leave while facing him?
Faced with Orochimaru's questioning, Qi Feng said nothing more.
A silent, strangely quiet atmosphere gradually spread between the two, making one uneasy.
Just as Qi Feng was feeling a little apprehensive, Orochimaru finally spoke again.
"No matter who you are, I'm short on manpower right now."
Qi Feng slowly placed the shovel back on his back, "What do you mean?
You want me to work for your Leaf Village?"
"I'm the one who's short on manpower."
Orochimaru's magnetic voice rang out again.
Qi Feng raised an eyebrow.
Has he already separated the Leaf Village from himself?
"You want me to work for you?
To become your subordinate?"
"If Mr. Disciple doesn't like that way of putting it, we can completely change it..."
After a slight pause, he spat out two words, "Cooperation."
Qi Feng chuckled, "Cooperation?
Does your Leaf Village know you're doing this?"
Tossing a scroll from his bosom to Qi Feng, Orochimaru said, "When I need you to do something, I'll contact you through this scroll.
And when you need something, you can also try to contact me through this scroll; it's bidirectional."
After a moment's pause, he added with extreme confidence, "I believe the higher-ups of the Leaf Village aren't foolish enough to continue making enemies at this time."
Hearing this, Qi Feng unrolled the scroll, only to see that what was engraved within were two summoning arrays, indeed of the bidirectional type.
Using snakes for contact, it was indeed in line with Orochimaru's style.
"What a joke, you don't expect me to assassinate Onoki, that old geezer, do you?"
"You can consider the feasibility yourself, but correspondingly, when you complete it, I will give you sufficient reward, any reward you want that sufficiently matches the value of the task,"
Orochimaru said calmly.
Rolling up the scroll and holding it in his hand, Qi Feng fell into silence.
He thought to himself, "At this time, what Orochimaru needs is nothing more than two things: the Sharingan of the Uchiha clan, and bodies for human experimentation."
Of course, obtaining the Sharingan isn't for implanting in himself, but to integrate the extremely violent life force contained within Hashirama Senju's cells.
Which is what Madara Uchiha later said, the Myriad of Things.
In the end, he probably felt that the balance achieved in this way couldn't satisfy his pursuit of perfect science, so he gave up, but Danzo picked it up and used it.
"Help me keep an eye on the Uchiha clan, especially the Uchiha who possess the Three-Tomoe Sharingan,"
Orochimaru spoke again.
"The Uchiha?"
As he had guessed.
"I need the corpses of strong people, jonin, elite jonin, or even stronger, all are acceptable,"
Qi Feng also directly stated his demands.
And he believed that Orochimaru, who conducted human experiments, definitely possessed many corpses of strong people.
Kage-level might be unrealistic, but jonin would definitely not be few.
"Corpses?"
Orochimaru's eyes flashed, as if he had thought of something.
But Qi Feng nonchalantly pulled out his shovel, "I don't have any special hobbies, just a plain one: burying people."
As he spoke, he showed off the Coffin Shovel in his hand.
Burying people?
Isn't that a special hobby?
But Orochimaru didn't show too much surprise.
There are all kinds of people with all kinds of hobbies in the ninja world; burying people isn't really anything.
He excluded the clearly somewhat unrealistic association from his mind.
Collecting corpses and burying corpses seem similar, but they are really two different things.
At the same time, he vaguely understood why Qi Feng and this mysterious ninja in front of him had multiple seemingly intentional connections.
Collecting corpses and burying corpses are truly two important sequential tasks for a corpse.
It also explained why, after Kaguya Chizuru in Yugakure and Tsuchigumo in Takigakure were killed, their bodies couldn't be found.
They should have been buried by this Disciple with a special fetish in front of him, right?
Wandering around the ninja world is just to bury the strong?
