Chapter 186 : Good Little Brother Itadori
Because of Okkotsu Yuta's phone notification about matters related to Itadori Yuji, Jiang Lai and Gojo Satoru planned to return directly to Tokyo Jujutsu High.
Jiang Lai switched back to Little Sheep Jiang Lai's youthful appearance.
On one hand, it was to avoid unnecessary personnel noticing him traveling with Gojo Satoru in his true form. On the other hand, it was because he had gone abroad using the Little Sheep identity, so he had to return to Japan using this identity too.
Besides that, there was another small reason: it was to facilitate Gojo Satoru carrying him for teleportation.
A middle school student's weight was lighter than an adult's after all.
However, regarding this, Gojo Satoru rested one hand on his chin and said: "Oh well, actually for me, carrying humans feels about the same. They're all light and easy~"
"What's your maximum arm strength?" Jiang Lai casually asked.
"Hmm, I actually haven't specifically tested the limit." Gojo Satoru thought for a moment with a leisurely expression. "But with cursed energy assistance, it should be in the tons~"
Jiang Lai: "......"
Good grief, calculating in tons! No wonder in the original work he could easily lift Amanai Riko and Itadori Yuji with one hand!
With such arm strength, for him, carrying an adult or a minor indeed made little difference.
The nameless island where they were located was in the tropics, quite a distance from Tokyo, Japan.
Gojo Satoru's teleportation ability compressed two spatial coordinates and required advance planning to ensure no obstacles in the route, otherwise it would crash and kill everything in the path like a high-speed train.
So in this unfamiliar area, Gojo Satoru only used his skill in open areas, bringing Little Sheep Jiang Lai away from the nameless island in a few moments, teleporting across the empty sea to reach land.
After landing, Gojo Satoru used his money power to charter an express yacht and, together with brown-haired teenage Jiang Lai, embarked on the return journey.
"Want to eat something, Little Weilai?" Sitting on the boat, Gojo Satoru's voice rose at the end as he teased: "This boat has a dedicated chef who can make any dish. But if you want formula milk, there probably isn't any."
Jiang Lai knew Gojo Satoru was deliberately exaggerating as a joke. He originally wanted to say "whatever's most expensive," but then remembered the other was a super tycoon who didn't care about small money, so he simply picked up his phone and pretended not to hear.
"What's wrong, Weilai-kun?" Having probably not teased students for a long time, Gojo Satoru was in high spirits, laughing as he pursued: "Could it be because you didn't finish your homework and have no appetite? How pitiful."
"Who's your teacher? If you can't finish homework, that's fine too. Give me the teacher's phone number and I'll help you self-report."
Little Sheep Jiang Lai paused for a second, looked up with his dark eyes blinking: "It's not homework."
He pitched his voice with intonation, rising and falling: "I'm not talking because↑ I'm afraid→ of the strongest↑ cursed↓ user—"
The smile on Gojo Satoru's face disappeared for a moment, shuddering like a poked big white cat.
He was silent for a moment, then deliberately spoke in a deep tone: "You know, if you keep using memes this intensively, I'll develop immunity."
Jiang Lai smiled with squinted eyes, his brown-haired teenage form appearing even more mischievously cunning:
"Isn't that great? One less weakness."
Gojo Satoru hummed and leaned back against the soft leather seat, then suddenly sat up straight as if thinking of something, his lips curving:
"Oh, I suddenly thought of a good idea."
"What?"
"Embarrassing history memes don't disappear, they just transfer." Gojo Satoru crossed his hands. "So I've decided to save this surprise for Suguru."
After the two boarded the boat, Jiang Lai had set up spatial barriers around their cabin, sufficient to block all eavesdropping and surveillance. Therefore they could chat freely.
"......Suguru?" Jiang Lai tilted his head, not reacting for a moment.
"I've decided to trick Suguru." Gojo Satoru lifted one side of his eye mask, his crystal blue eyes appearing deep under the dark light and shadow. "I'll tell him I've had enough of those rotten oranges, can't tolerate them for another moment, and don't want to continue taking missions."
"Since the students have grown enough to protect themselves, I'll directly defect from the jujutsu world and become an unrestrained strongest cursed user."
"This way, I can also gather with Lai who's taken the amnesia cursed spirit script. Maybe we can go further and infiltrate the Supervisory Committee, directly find that culprit, and have a satisfying final showdown."
"So I want to tell Suguru that the title of [Most Evil Cursed User of the Current Era] that the jujutsu higher-ups gave him is about to be lost."
Jiang Lai: "......"
Jiang Lai: "You're joking, right?"
How come this whole string sounds somewhat serious!
"Of course~~" Gojo Satoru's sky-blue pupils changed with the light, his expression shifting accordingly as he smiled: "I just want to use this to scare Suguru. Just thinking about his expression feels very interesting. I can even make it into an emoji to send to Shoko."
"Just right, after this immersive experience in the virtual world, my acting can reach its peak. I guarantee Suguru won't see through any falsehood."
"How about it? Playing with the strongest cursed user meme this way is more interesting, right?"
Jiang Lai: Geto Suguru immediately sends out a (Are you okay.jpg) emoji.
"How should I put it," after thinking, Jiang Lai said seriously: "I think using this to scare the higher-ups might have better comedic effect."
The rotten oranges would discover that their greatest fortune was that Gojo Satoru stood on the jujutsu world's side.
After simple teasing and joking, Gojo Satoru put his black eye mask back on and began resting with closed eyes, preparing to handle various troublesome matters after returning to Tokyo.
Jiang Lai opened his phone, planning to check recently updated [Crossroads] Tower manga plot for any additional god's-eye view content.
Most of the manga plot was similar to what he experienced. The god's-eye view additionally showed part of Gojo Satoru's reasons for going to Kyoto.
In the [Crossroads] Tower, Gojo Satoru had never given up exploring over all these years.
Eventually he noticed unusual cursed energy fluctuations from the Big Three Families at certain times, guessing there were Supervisory Committee 'secret formations' on their side, which was why he decided to annihilate Kyoto.
Reading this, Jiang Lai paused slightly, pondering in his heart.
This part of the plot intelligence might not only apply to the [Crossroads] Tower world.
That illusory world was constructed based on Gojo Satoru's memories. Since the Gojo there had locked onto Kyoto, it meant he had subconsciously suspected the Big Three Families of something.
Or put another way, the [Crossroads] Tower was originally arranged by Kenjaku to calculate against the exploring Gojo Satoru, but unexpectedly was used in reverse by Gojo Satoru through intuition, excavating and organizing the doubts about the Big Three Families' layout deep in his memory.
Gojo Satoru after waking hadn't mentioned these things, probably because he wanted to quickly clear his mind and adapt to reality, placing those virtual world memories elsewhere to first handle outside matters.
When they reached Japan and discussed related topics again, Gojo Satoru would probably remember this point from the [Crossroads] Tower.
Later, the manga cut back to Tokyo Jujutsu High, focusing on Itadori Yuji and the others.
At that time, Itadori Yuji, Fushiguro Megumi, and Kugisaki Nobara took on a cursed spirit exorcism mission. When they arrived at the scene and were fighting, they suddenly found one of Ryomen Sukuna's fingers in the offering table of a nearby village shrine.
Jiang Lai: Enshrining everything will only harm you.jpg
This village put the finger in the shrine's offering table. No wonder it attracted cursed spirits.
That cursed spirit immediately swallowed the finger, its cursed energy surging dramatically, instantly turning what was an easy situation into a nightmare.
Because the distance was very close, Itadori Yuji on the front line had no time to withdraw from the attack range.
Just then, a sudden piercing blood attack knocked away that cursed spirit, and at the critical moment Choso stepped forward to protect Itadori!
As a special-grade cursed spirit, Choso's strength was considerable. He later cooperated with the Itafushi-Kugi squad to exorcise this cursed spirit and retrieved the finger.
This supplemented the details about Choso that Okkotsu Yuta had mentioned in his phone call. After reading this part, Jiang Lai understood why Okkotsu Yuta would believe Choso's big brother theory.
This rescue was too timely and too real!
He lowered his eyelids, looking at these few pages of fighting in the manga, thinking: It looks like Choso has recovered well. The negative effects from leaving the Supervisory Committee have been cleared.
In the next chapter, the camera was also divided into two parts. One part described the removal of the [Crossroads] Tower, and one part described the carrier of the [Correct and Reverse] Tower, Itadori Yuji.
The manga ended with Choso and Itadori Yuji.
Choso with twin tails, nominally a special-grade cursed spirit controlled by Okkotsu Yuta, was staying in a room covered with talismans.
Across a wall, he chatted with Itadori Yuji who was crouching outside.
"Is that black-haired young man with brown eyes also your big brother?"
Hearing Choso's question, Itadori Yuji was stunned for a second. After brief bewilderment, he understood who the other was referring to.
In the thought bubble behind him appeared Jiang Lai's figure—a person whose true identity he didn't know, couldn't distinguish as friend or foe. His identity seemed to be a former friend of Gojo-sensei.
That person's aura was that of a cursed spirit, but didn't have the usual murderous intent of ordinary cursed spirits.
Their few brief encounters had inexplicably given him some strange sense of familiarity.
However, why would Choso know about the other and suddenly ask if he was his big brother?
Itadori Yuji originally wanted to deny this, but when he opened his mouth, it seemed some strange force made him stop his moving tongue tip, unable to speak.
What he finally uttered was just a string of ellipses.
The cherry-pink haired youth sat on the ground with both hands loosely resting on his knees, his head lowered.
After a blank panel, there was the next dialogue box.
"I...... I don't remember."
The manga update ended here.
Reading this, Jiang Lai was slightly stunned, somewhat surprised by Itadori Yuji's final response, then his heart gently relaxed.
......What a good little brother.
A thousand years ago, they had met once.
At that time, Itadori Yuji was in a controlled half-piece of good [Death] divine status state, with only hazy self-awareness, but still affectionately nuzzled Jiang Lai's palm before parting.
It was also then that Jiang Lai left a space-time reversal mark that belonged uniquely to Itadori Yuji.
This time returning to Tokyo, he was going to use this mark left a thousand years ago to reverse the [Correct and Reverse] Tower carved on Itadori.
He wondered if Itadori Yuji at that time would recall events from a thousand years ago. Jiang Lai's eyelids drooped lightly, his thoughts wandering.
Perhaps the other would remember, remember that under a beautiful domain, there had been such warm hands that gently caressed him, leaving familial love and blessings.