Chapter 131 : The Sheep Instructor Who Masters Human Nature
Fushiguro Megumi, Kugisaki Nobara, and Itadori Yuji all detected certain suspicious points about the Supervisory Committee. They sat together, brainstorming, and found several more problematic areas. At this point, they had settled on their suspected real enemy.
Fushiguro Megumi took out the card with the iris flower logo from his wallet, and everyone's gaze focused on it.
Little Sheep Jiang Lai glanced over, still remembering it. At the very beginning, when he first arrived and met Fushiguro, Itadori, and Kugisaki at the sukiyaki restaurant, Fushiguro had taken this out at the counter.
Jiang Lai still remembered Gojo Satoru saying this card was a benefit issued under the Supervisory Committee's surface image construction, giving consumption welfare to some jujutsu sorcerers or people with special contributions to society.
Now, seeing Fushiguro take it out, he thought the other party was going to throw it away.
Jiang Lai was just thinking of a way to dissuade him, to prevent this sudden change from drawing the Supervisory Committee's attention, when he heard Fushiguro's next words.
"Let's use this card more often from now on." Fushiguro's voice was calm as he said, "Consuming the enemy's money is also a form of opposing them."
Kugisaki Nobara was first stunned, then clapped in agreement: "Exactly! Even if the amount we spend is nothing to them, just thinking about plucking their feathers makes me feel great."
Itadori Yuji blinked and raised his hand: "I agree. I happen to have a batch of DVDs I want to rent recently."
So everyone happily decided on this, reaching a consensus with Gojo Satoru's previous thinking in a certain sense.
Truly a teacher-student group! Jiang Lai silently sighed in his heart.
Fushiguro Megumi turned to Little Sheep Jiang Lai and added: "Watanabe-kun, if you have things you like in daily life, you can also use this card to shop. Just take it from me when the time comes."
"Good, I won't be polite with small money~" Little Sheep Jiang Lai nodded and readily agreed.
This conversation effectively lightened the atmosphere, easing the slightly tense mood they'd had after discovering the secret earlier.
Although the few of them had keenly detected the real enemy behind the scenes, they didn't have any further exploration plans for now.
Therefore, they first focused their goal on retrieving that half cursed tool from the Zenin family.
"So, what do we do?" Kugisaki Nobara propped her cheek with one hand while gesturing with the other, "Secretly infiltrating the Zenin family isn't realistic, and getting a mission to the Zenin family would take forever. It looks like we have to work through Watanabe."
The girl had a big sister attitude as she patted Little Sheep Jiang Lai's shoulder: "We're counting on you, little money-grubber."
The "little money-grubber" from Kugisaki Nobara's mouth had similar meaning to the [Money-grubbing Sheep] in Zenin Naoya's message box, but felt completely different.
Naoya's words were full of mockery and anger, while the girl's address was affectionate between friends.
Jiang Lai smiled broadly, then said: "How exactly is that cursed tool sealed? Let me think carefully about how to slaughter the pig... ah no, I mean how to friendly obtain the cursed tool through emotional exchange."
He blinked his dark eyes, using his shell's advantage to appear innocent and cute.
"If it can be taken directly, perhaps remotely persuading Naoya through words would work. If Fushiguro needs to operate it personally, then I'll think about how to contact Naoya and get him to let us into the Zenin family."
"Having something go through someone else's hands is always worrying. Even if Naoya retrieves it, we'd need to take it over secondhand."
Fushiguro Megumi crossed his hands together, thinking: "Moreover, having Zenin Naoya retrieve it would require the family head's token. Even as the legitimate son of the Zenin family, he can't casually touch this item."
"I think, if possible, it's better for us to go to the Zenin family in person." Fushiguro Megumi set the direction.
"But if we go to the Zenin family and they lose something, wouldn't they suspect us first?" Itadori Yuji asked somewhat hesitantly.
"I sealed it in the family head's private room back then. Logically, not many people would know about items in the family head's private room." Fushiguro said, "And no one should constantly monitor sealed items. If we're careful, we won't be discovered."
"It was your thing to begin with, and now after a thousand years, we're made to look like bandits." Kugisaki Nobara complained, then said spiritedly, "But it sounds pretty cool too. This young lady wants to be the first pirate queen!"
Itadori Yuji: "But we're not pirates."
"Hey hey, I'm just making references. Usually you're good at catching references." Kugisaki Nobara pouted and turned to look at Itadori Yuji, "What's wrong with you today? You've seemed absent-minded since history class."
"It's not as exaggerated as absent-minded." Itadori Yuji scratched his head, "It's just... I don't know why, but I'm still very concerned about the falling stars incident in Heian capital mentioned in the history book."
Fushiguro Megumi and Kugisaki Nobara exchanged glances from afar. They had both truly participated in this incident a thousand years ago, so naturally knew what the falling stars represented.
It was the fall of that indigo figure.
But why would Itadori care so much about this?
They didn't remember Itadori existing a thousand years ago. His keen obsession with this matter and feeling sad about it now, could it be because of Sukuna's influence inside him?
The moment his mind connected [Ryomen Sukuna] and [feeling sad about this matter], Fushiguro felt a bone-chilling cold throughout his body. He shook his head to dispel this absurd possibility.
Rather than believing the King of Curses would care about anyone other than himself, it would be more believable that Itadori had existed a thousand years ago too.
This thought unconsciously crossed Fushiguro's mind, and he focused on it.
Wait, maybe it really was possible? Perhaps Itadori had been there a thousand years ago too, but they hadn't recognized him then, and the current Itadori Yuji hadn't recovered his memories yet.
Regardless, from Itadori's intuitive attitude, Itadori and that black-haired young man should also be connected... If that person hadn't lost his memory, perhaps the mystery would have been solved long ago.
Fushiguro felt somewhat depressed but tried to adjust himself, not letting himself fall into emotional exhaustion.
Just then, a cheerful young voice came from beside him: "Hey, Naoya removed me from his blacklist!"
Everyone's attention immediately shifted to Little Sheep Jiang Lai.
"To test when Naoya would remove me from his blacklist, I set up a small program. When he let me out, I'd receive a notification."
Little Sheep Jiang Lai waved his phone, "Although improving the program further could prevent Naoya from ever blocking me, I thought about it and decided to give Naoya some free space."
Little Sheep Jiang Lai expressed that he was very considerate, giving Naoya a few days to self-generate and self-consume his anger.
"Oh, perfect. Recently [Me and Elves and New Routes] has a photo activity. The prizes are diamond-level collectibles, experience point gift packages, and special medals." Little Sheep Jiang Lai opened the game and browsed the activity section, "Perhaps we can use this to find an opportunity to go to the Zenin family."
"Photo activity?" Itadori Yuji thought for a moment, "Photos related to this game?"
"Exactly," Little Sheep Jiang Lai answered immediately, "The explanation states that photos can be freely created by players, with post-editing or cosplaying elves also acceptable."
"Huh??" Itadori Yuji widened his eyes slightly, "But I remember this game doesn't have many humanoid cursed spirits. Most are beast forms..."
"Humans can certainly play beasts. That's not a problem." Little Sheep Jiang Lai waved his hand, then coughed, "Besides, I wasn't planning to cosplay. For elves, without cosplaying, custom work, or post-editing and photo manipulation, don't I have ready-made ones?"
The brown-haired boy tilted his face slightly, his eyelashes fluttering as light from the window illuminated his cunning eyes.
Little Sheep Jiang Lai said: "My technique is Electronic Spirits. This is an advantage that should be used well."
"But Electronic Spirits are cursed spirit shikigami." Fushiguro Megumi kindly reminded, "Ordinary cameras can't capture them."
Little Sheep Jiang Lai inwardly complained that there was nothing Phone-kun couldn't do in this world (not really), but naturally didn't reply like that on the surface, only saying:
"Don't worry, I believe Naoya has specialized cursed tool cameras there."
That's right, under normal circumstances, cursed spirits couldn't be photographed, but there were specialized cursed tool cameras that could record images of cursed spirits.
Generally speaking, these cursed tools for photographing cursed spirits were used for jujutsu world file registration and archiving.
"Huh? So you plan to use this reason to enter the Zenin family?" Kugisaki Nobara was somewhat uncertain, "Is that okay? Just using a game as an excuse?"
"Trust Young Master Naoya's level of obsession with this game, and his influence in the Zenin family. Letting people in shouldn't be difficult for him."
Little Sheep Jiang Lai made a gesture. He had long seen Naoya's gaming addiction, "When the time comes, I'll say you're extras and photography assistants."
Fushiguro, Itadori, and Kugisaki: Extras and photography assistants... will this reason really work?!
Although it sounded somewhat ridiculous, this might have a chance of becoming a starting point.
So the few decided to first try using the game excuse to see if they could get tickets to the Zenin family.
Little Sheep Jiang Lai wasn't in a hurry to ask Zenin Naoya about his participation intentions for this activity. He planned to directly deliver a convincing and attractive visual impact, avoiding unnecessary chatter.
He and the three-person group of Fushiguro, Itadori, and Kugisaki applied for cursed tool cameras from the high school's cursed tool storage, found a place with good lighting inside the high school, and set up the camera.
Little Sheep Jiang Lai summoned the initial elves from this game: Leafy Beast, Lava Rabbit, and Water Slime, then also summoned his commonly used Moon Wheel Fairy Butterfly and Zenin Naoya's commonly used Silver Armored Dragon.
Since they didn't need to fight this time, just pure photography, he could summon several more. Little Sheep's shell cursed energy could completely handle it.
Although somewhat different from their game appearance, the summoned elf shikigami leaned more toward realistic cursed spirit art style, but you could still tell what they were.
The brown-haired boy leaned slightly against the Silver Armored Dragon, holding the Water Slime in his arms, with the Leafy Beast and Lava Rabbit on either side, and behind him an incredibly large, brilliant, and beautiful fairy butterfly with spread wings. The overall composition effect was absolutely stunning.
Jiang Lai looked with satisfaction at the photo taken by the Fushiguro, Itadori, and Kugisaki group. After importing the image from the cursed tool camera to his phone, he directly sent it to Zenin Naoya.
Little Sheep Jiang Lai: Just watch me charm you to death, you gaming addict (not really)!