Time moved slightly back by a few minutes.
"You are that certain that Loulan's queen will agree to discuss this business with you?"
Sasori of the Red Sand, still trapped in an extremely crude puppet body, looked at the newly collected intelligence scroll in his hand and asked Rei Kaguya without raising his head.
"Half and half."
Rei Kaguya sat in his seat, drinking medicinal tea that only had a placebo effect. As his brows furrowed from the bitterness, he answered in a slightly muffled voice,
"The failing half lies in the fact that the Loulan citizens who experienced the Anrokuzan incident back then are basically all still alive. Their memories of once being reduced to forced laborers and slaves should still be fresh. When the matter of combining the Dragon Vein with puppet techniques again is brought up, some of them may inevitably suffer a trauma response because of it…"
"Then what about the half that succeeds? Your rhetoric?"
Sasori of the Red Sand asked in an emotionless voice.
"No. It also lies with these remnants of Loulan who once saw Anrokuzan build a thousand towers for Loulan. They saw that tiny country, so small it could not be any smaller, a place with almost no sense of existence aside from the Dragon Vein it could not use, suddenly leap into becoming the City of Miracles."
Rei Kaguya swallowed the last of the medicinal tea.
Forcing down the urge to retch, he said with a ferocious expression,
"They have witnessed the miraculous productivity born from combining puppet techniques with the Dragon Vein. There will always be some smart people among them who can realize that if they want to rebuild Loulan, they cannot separate themselves from that miraculous power."
"Just listening to what you are saying, I really would think you are an ambitious man plotting against someone else's treasure."
Sasori of the Red Sand closed the intelligence scroll beside him. In his calm eyes, there was a rare and very clear trace of interest.
"However, the Dragon Vein's power is indeed worth you paying this much attention to it. Even in the hands of a mediocre, ordinary, even foolish puppet master like Anrokuzan, the Dragon Vein could display such power. If we can obtain it, the final flaw of human puppets can also be completed…"
"You are thinking too much. I have no intention of continuing down that crooked path of human puppets of yours, Sasori."
Rei Kaguya shook his head.
Looking at the intelligence scroll in his hand, he said with a speechless expression,
"But honestly, I am truly impressed by Anrokuzan's brain-dead logic. He already had the Dragon Vein in his hands. An endless supply of chakra comparable to a Tailed Beast was his to draw from as he pleased. After setting things up, he could even control all the puppets within Loulan at the same time.
"He clearly could have directly used tireless puppets to carry out endless automated military production. How did he end up thinking of capturing Loulan's residents and using them like coolies to produce puppets?"
"Humans are inferior existences compared to puppets. Is there anything wrong with using incompetent, useless humans who will eventually rot to produce eternal and perfect puppets?"
Sasori of the Red Sand asked without expression.
"Then are puppet designs completed by humans or not?"
Rei Kaguya propped up his face and looked at Sasori of the Red Sand, who was clearly already a prisoner, yet still had no awareness of it.
Pointing at the regeneration core on his puppet body, Rei said,
"If your regeneration core is removed, can this puppet body you are parasitizing still continue moving? Can it design newer and stronger puppets?"
"No. But that does not change the fact that a puppet's body is better than a human's."
Sasori of the Red Sand was still stubborn.
However, from his rebuttal, one could hear that he no longer had that much confidence to insist that puppets were superior to humans in every aspect.
Regarding this, Rei Kaguya believed it was a rather huge improvement.
So, in order to make Sasori of the Red Sand more obedient in his later work, Rei Kaguya pretended not to care and stretched lazily.
Yawning, he said,
"Think whatever you want. Unless you have the ability to make the puppets you design possess intelligence close to or even higher than humans, and unless they can optimize, upgrade, and iterate themselves without relying on human participation, I will continue insisting on my opinion that puppets are merely tools in human hands."
"…Give me the Dragon Vein, and I will try to do it."
Facing Sasori of the Red Sand's completely shameless, utterly prisoner-unaware behavior of reaching out his hand for resources, Rei Kaguya was truly choked speechless.
After pounding his chest hard to stop himself from being knocked over by the bitterness of the medicinal tea, Rei Kaguya finally looked at Sasori's expressionless face and slowly said,
"Do you not think that, as a prisoner, your tone is a little too arrogant, Sasori?"
"Since you still kept my regeneration core after asking about the Root organization's intelligence, that means I am useful to you. I am a tool you will not casually discard."
Sasori of the Red Sand calmly looked into Rei Kaguya's eyes. His tone was as still as an ancient well.
"And an audacious ambitious man like you should not mind equipping a tool still under your control with the most suitable production tools.
"Just like how you provided Orochimaru with various Kekkei Genkai that fascinated him, and gave him the tools and opportunities to peer into the source of ninjutsu and Kekkei Genkai.
"Then for a puppet technique tool like me, the Dragon Vein's power is naturally the most suitable production tool…"
"…Damn it. On this trip to Konoha, I need to increase the pressure on Shisui a little and make him awaken Kotoamatsukami earlier. Otherwise, Sasori of the Red Sand, this tool, really will not be so easy to control."
Rei Kaguya looked at Sasori of the Red Sand, who wore an expression that seemed to say, "I hit the mark, didn't I?" and thought in irritation, his teeth aching.
…
Time returned to the present.
"Business? Business that cannot possibly leave me with any good impression? You are after the Dragon Vein?"
Queen Sara looked warily at the white snake on Shisui Uchiha's shoulder.
Her overly pale hand subconsciously reached beneath her pillow.
Hidden there was a chakra blade she had obtained from the hero who had saved the people of Loulan.
"How sharp, Queen Sara."
Rei Kaguya's voice carried undisguised praise.
"It seems you understand very well what Loulan's most valuable trump card is. Since that is the case, I can speak plainly."
He coughed softly a few times.
Then, with a meticulous attitude and tone, he said in a deep voice,
"I hope Kirigakure can reach an agreement with the Kingdom of Loulan.
"Kirigakure will provide knowledge and technology related to puppet techniques. Loulan will provide the Dragon Vein as production material. Together, we will rebuild the Kingdom of Loulan.
"On the foundation of the Dragon Vein, we will further research rechargeable puppet technology, allowing puppet techniques to break away from the attribute of combat tools and transform into a discipline mainly focused on production and construction…
"I wonder if Queen Sara is interested in discussing the various details of this business with me in greater depth?"
"Do I look like the sort of fool who, after already suffering a great loss from puppet techniques and a puppet master once, would still pretend not to know how dangerous they are!?"
The red-haired Sara bit her lip tightly.
She was so angry that her chest rose and fell dramatically, causing her already difficult breathing to become even heavier.
"But you should also understand very well that relying only on the power of your current people, rebuilding Loulan is nothing more than a fool's dream."
Rei Kaguya unconcernedly swayed the white snake's head and said unhurriedly,
"You have once seen the extraordinary sight of Loulan's thousand towers rising from the earth like a miracle. You also know that the Dragon Vein possesses inconceivable power.
"Do not tell me that you plan to guard that seal and Loulan's broken ruins, living forever with your Loulan citizens and all your descendants on this barren Gobi desert.
"Watching Loulan's glorious past slowly turn from memories in one generation's minds, into stories heard by the next generation, then into legends and myths in the eyes of the generation after that.
"And in the end, vanish completely alongside your people in the rolling current of history, with no one ever mentioning or remembering it again."
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