Chapter 145: The Forty-Nine Temples of Iga!

While Ye Tian was aimlessly rummaging through the room, an ornament on Mimiko’s nightstand caught his eye.

It was a vivid, lifelike black tortoise resting quietly atop a square base made of pure gold, fused together into a complete golden seal.

He picked it up to examine it. On the base, four neat characters were carved in the Han clerical script:

"Golden Seal of Emperor Guang!"

Ye Tian’s pupils constricted, his expression one of utter disbelief.

Legend had it that in the early years, when the Japanese delegation came to pay tribute, the Han Emperor Guang bestowed a golden seal as a token of their submission, which was later brought back to Japan by the Japanese king’s envoys.

And "Wa-goku" was the ancient name for what is now known as Japan.

This historical episode was once strong evidence that Japan had submitted to the Dragon Kingdom. Later, the Japanese Emperor—the Tenno—secretly threw the seal into the sea to erase this supposed history of humiliation.

Of course, these were all hearsay stories; the actual authenticity remained to be verified.

However, the golden seal before him was a genuine antique. It was undoubtedly the Golden Seal of Emperor Guang.

Yet, how could such a prestigious artifact end up in the hands of a mere Grandmaster? Even if the Emperor hadn’t ordered its destruction, it should have been hidden away in a vault.

After a moment of confusion, he tucked the seal away and turned to leave.

Just then, the phone on Mimiko’s nightstand rang.

He tapped it open to find a message on a social app, written in an intimate tone.

"Baby, how long has it been since you returned to the Forty-Nine Temples? Daddy misses you to death!"

*The Forty-Nine Temples?*

Ignoring the man’s nauseating words, Ye Tian noted a piece of vital information.

The Forty-Nine Temples were notorious as the training base for Japanese ninjas!

During the Northern Frontier War, the Forty-Nine Temples had provided thousands of ninjas to the Japanese, dealing a massive blow to Tang Zhenguo’s army.

That alone was proof enough of their strength.

Even Ito Junin had spent a long time studying there before eventually achieving the rank of Shadow Master.

In other words, that godforsaken place was essentially a workshop for manufacturing war machines!

After the war, the abbot of the Forty-Nine Temples had even brought back the ashes of one hundred Dragon Kingdom soldiers to the temple as war trophies.

Those ashes were still being kept there, occasionally brought out to be paraded on social media!

It made countless people of the Dragon Kingdom grit their teeth in fury.

Because of this, countless citizens hated them to the bone, wishing they could hold a bag of explosives and blow that temple to the sky.

Ye Tian frowned.

Since he was already in Japan, why not do something worthwhile on the side?

For instance, go to the Forty-Nine Temples and bring back the ashes of those one hundred soldiers.

With that thought, he picked up the phone, unlocked it using Mimiko’s fingerprint, and opened the chat app to look through the history with that man.

The first things that met his eyes were vulgar conversations and explicit photos.

The kind that made one want to wash their eyes.

However, the chat logs revealed a lot of key information.

For instance, the man chatting with Mimiko was named Goro Kudo, an overseer at the Forty-Nine Temples, and also Mimiko’s... lover.

Well, one could call him a lover.

However, it was clear that Mimiko feared this man; the other party seemed to enjoy treating her in a brutal manner.

Was this the reason she liked to abduct men to abuse them?

Ye Tian couldn't help but chuckle; it was a cycle of cause and effect after all.

Back to business, Ye Tian mimicked Mimiko’s tone and sent a message to the man, vaguely stating that she would be returning soon and hoped he would meet her at the gate.

The Forty-Nine Temples were heavily guarded; even the apprentices had to undergo strict identification checks whenever they entered or left, so sneaking in might be difficult.

If an overseer came to greet her personally, it would save a lot of trouble.

Kudo replied quickly:

"Mimiko, are you really coming back?"

"Yes, meet me outside tomorrow," Ye Tian replied.

The other side agreed quickly.

Seeing that his goal was achieved, Ye Tian deleted Mimiko’s fingerprint and registered his own.

In that plane crash, his own phone had been blown to pieces and fell into the sea with the wreckage, so he had no way to contact anyone back home.

Japanese phones could still dial numbers in the Dragon Kingdom if the area code was included.

However...

Ye Tian slapped his forehead. He hadn't memorized a single person’s phone number.

In this day and age, everyone just saved numbers in their contacts; who would be bored enough to memorize them?

Feeling a wave of annoyance, he kicked Mimiko’s corpse over and left the Black Tiger Society in a huff.

That night.

Ye Tian returned to Sachiko’s house, returned her beat-up car, took a piece of jade from his "Sleeve of Qiankun," and secretly left it by her bed.

Then, he departed in silence.

By the next day, he was already sitting in a tavern, the place Goro Kudo had agreed to meet.

"Hey handsome, can I get your LINE? You’re so cool."

The Japanese girls drinking in the tavern saw Ye Tian and couldn't help but let their eyes sparkle.

Japanese men could never have such heroic features, nor could they possess such a resolute temperament, so the moment he entered, he instantly attracted the attention of a large crowd.

"No," Ye Tian frowned, feeling nothing for this flock of chattering birds.

These drunken girls, however, had no sense of shame and continued to pester him, clamoring to "share a drink."

Just as Ye Tian was about to lose his temper, a furtive, balding man approached, glancing around constantly.

He was wearing a black jacket, but the hem of a monk’s robe could be seen underneath.

This was him.

"Get lost!"

Pushing aside a D-cup beauty who kept rubbing against him, Ye Tian strode toward Kudo.

The man was quite clever; seeing something was wrong, he shrank his neck and tried to bolt, but a blur of motion appeared before him, and his collar was grabbed firmly from behind.

"If you want to live, be honest!"

Ye Tian hissed, dragging Goro Kudo by the collar out of the tavern.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

In a deserted corner, Goro Kudo cowered, his fearful eyes revealing a streak of wretchedness.

"Why were you pretending to be Mimiko to get close to me?"

"You don't need to know." Ye Tian looked down at him coldly.

Although this man looked only forty or fifty, his actual age was that of a sixty or seventy-year-old man.

This was a result Ye Tian had determined by feeling his bone age.

The old bastard knew how to take care of himself.

"I am going to perform a technique on you now. If you don’t cooperate honestly, I can make you drop dead at any moment!"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

Goro Kudo had already been scared out of his wits and had no intention of resisting.

He was merely a common overseer at the temple, his cultivation still some distance away from becoming a High Ninja; facing Ye Tian’s absolute martial superiority, he was less than a chick.

It was clear that this man was quite cowardly and had a strong desire to live.

Seeing that the man offered no fierce resistance, Ye Tian immediately cast the "Seal of Subjugation" into his body.