Chapter 218: The Pitiful Little Guy
A pair of gentle hands lightly covered his chest. Light wove through the darkness, and Li Jiexuan gradually regained his vision, murmuring unconsciously, "Tsunade… am I back?"
"Yes, you're back!"
"No… that's not right. This voice… it's not little Tsunade?" Li Jiexuan suddenly opened his eyes. Sure enough, the person before him was not the Tsunade from the main world, but the eighteen-year-old Tsunade in ANBU attire—one of the legendary Sannin!
"I actually didn't die?" Li Jiexuan lifted his head in shock, trying to examine his injuries. He couldn't understand how, in such a desperate situation, fate had allowed him to survive.
Had it really taken one of the only two people in the world capable of saving him and sent her directly from thousands of miles away into a forest completely unrelated to her?
"Lie still." Before Li Jiexuan could figure it out, Tsunade pressed him back down without ceremony. "I told you to stay in the camp and wait for me, but you ran around everywhere. Do you have any idea how worried I was?"
"Nani?"
Li Jiexuan's eyes widened in surprise. Tsunade hadn't figured out his identity?
"Hmph!" Tsunade complained while comforting him, "You must have been captured by Hanzo's men the moment you left the camp. Those people aren't even human…"
Li Jiexuan's face flushed slightly. The strategies he had carried out in this world were indeed inhumane. But Tsunade simply assumed he was emotional because of the torture he had endured…
"Poor child, you must have suffered a lot!"
Tsunade pulled Li Jiexuan into her arms, comforting him with her "broad embrace." "When I found you, you were lying all alone in the swamp, covered in injuries. Burns, blunt force trauma, and even that horrifying poison!"
"I can't even imagine how that bastard Hanzo could do something so inhumane to such a cute child." Tsunade's heart ached as she blamed herself. "If only I had arrived a little earlier!"
"…"
Li Jiexuan remained silent. "If you had come earlier, I probably would've been exposed."
At that moment, Tsunade seemed to remember something. "Oh right, little Jiexuan, did you see big brother Orochimaru?"
"Orochimaru?" Li Jiexuan felt even more conflicted. If he had seen him, that would've been truly strange…
"Mm…"
Tsunade had only asked casually. She shook her head with concern. "At the scene, besides the salamander, I also found traces of a giant snake moving around. Orochimaru probably arrived there first."
Hearing this, Li Jiexuan's eyes snapped open. What did that mean? Had Tsunade come here for another reason?
"That's right. I think Jiraiya should be arriving soon as well." Tsunade used the Mystical Palm Technique to treat Li Jiexuan's legs, her expression filled with worry. "The Third Hokage sent us to investigate this place, but we still haven't been able to contact either of them."
"The Third…"
Li Jiexuan nodded slightly, his expression turning grim.
As expected of the Third Hokage—he had seen through the core of the issue so quickly. That's right, what they needed to deal with wasn't the fifty thousand snake-cursed soldiers, but him, Li Jiexuan!
Seeing Li Jiexuan's troubled expression, Tsunade gently reassured him, "It's okay. Once we return to Konoha, I'll heal your legs…"
"However…"
Tsunade tied Li Jiexuan to her back with a rope and gritted her teeth in a vow, "I will expose all the evil here to the world before I leave!"
Hearing this, Li Jiexuan narrowed his eyes but said nothing…
If he wanted to contend for supremacy over the world, he couldn't afford to lose his legs!