Sword drawn from the constellations, poison as its edge.

Chapter 33 Robbery
The next day, apart from Ah Zi shamelessly coming over for two meals, the two spent the rest of the time practicing their internal energy.

While recuperating from his injuries, Jiang Mingzhe also opened four acupoints, all of which were of the metal element. In total, he opened twelve acupoints, surpassing Azi in the number of acupoints opened.

On the third day, before dawn, Jiang Mingzhe washed up, dressed, and quietly left the house.

This was agreed upon the day before. Since they were going to take Xiao Shengjiang on the road, they were afraid that if they encountered any disciples along the way, Xiao Shengjiang would give himself away. Therefore, they preferred to act in the dark.

Jiang Mingzhe modified the basket, adding two hemp ropes as carrying straps and creating a hidden compartment at the bottom. He lined the compartment with clothes and hid the small ginger inside. On top of that were flour, salt, water hyacinths, a hoe, a flint and steel, a tent, and so on. In case they encountered any wild beasts, he even brought a hunting fork.

Azi, carrying a bundle and a sharp sword on her back, was already waiting at the crossroads. She vaguely saw Jiang Mingzhe come out, blew on a tinderbox, drew a circle, and then Jiang Mingzhe saw her.

The two remained silent and did not meet up. Azi took the lead and left, while Jiang Mingzhe kept his distance and followed at a distance.

This was because Azi carried a six-winged iron centipede. According to Ding Chunqiu, Xiaoshengjiang would cry out within three zhang (approximately 10 meters), so the two dared not approach.

They walked for more than ten miles, one after the other, until dawn broke. The two finally met up. As expected, Little Ginger reacted strongly, crying out incessantly from the dark compartment of the basket.

Jiang Mingzhe tried to feed it a centipede, but the little Jiang ignored it and stretched out its little hand through the gap in the basket, reaching towards Azi.

Hearing its pitiful cries, Jiang Mingzhe felt sorry for it and asked Azi, "Why don't we feed that centipede to it? It's getting noisy and tired from all this crying."

Upon hearing this, Azi's eyes widened: "Do you know how rare this six-winged iron centipede is? Let me tell you, unless Master gives us the Divine Wood Cauldron, we'll probably never catch such a venomous creature in our entire lives! You, you, you actually want to feed it to the monkeys? You're so bad at planning, how are you going to live in the future?"

Jiang Mingzhe scratched his head. Among modern young people who rely on credit cards and Alipay to make ends meet, he was already considered very frugal because of his poor background. He never expected to be lectured by a little girl.

After scolding the big ginger, Azi started scolding the little ginger: "Little ginger, you're not learning any better! Do you think you can get food just by calling out? Take this!"

With a shout of "Watch out!", Little Ginger's cries immediately ceased.

Jiang Mingzhe was startled and quickly turned around: "What did you do to it?"

Ah Zi said smugly, "What? Are you afraid I'll kill it? How will you explain to your master if you kill it? Hmph, I used 'Immortal's Intoxication,' which would make even an immortal sleep for three days. Let it sleep for now."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Mingzhe knew it was something like an anesthetic and couldn't help but laugh, "Since Senior Sister has such methods, we can just knock it out and then go out. Why bother getting up so early like thieves?"

Azi blinked blankly, then punched Jiang Mingzhe: "It's all your fault, you big ginger, for not reminding me sooner!"

Jiang Mingzhe was too lazy to argue with her, and asked again, "Aren't we still counting on it to catch poisonous insects? How can it catch them while it's asleep?"

Azi sneered, "It smelled the six-foot iron centipede and wouldn't eat it even if it was offered to it. Do you still expect it to catch it? Now, while it's asleep, you should dissolve the poison of the six-winged iron centipede. As for the corpse, we'll see if Little Ginger will eat it when it wakes up."

Jiang Mingzhe nodded and was about to sit down cross-legged when Azi grabbed him and asked, "What are you doing?"

Jiang Mingzhe asked curiously, "Didn't you tell me to dissolve the poison?" Azi chuckled and said, "You want to let the centipede bite you directly and then dissolve the poison? Haha, the Tribulation Crossing Scripture only describes the method of dissolving poison into the body. If anyone were to dissolve poison directly like that, they would surely become an ugly monster. Master deliberately didn't write it clearly because he thought that if the manual were stolen, and someone tried to use the method, they would become an extremely ugly monster. If he saw that, he would know that the manual had been stolen by this person."

Jiang Mingzhe was surprised to hear this. He did not expect Ding Chunqiu to be so thoughtful. Then he thought of Yin Li practicing the Thousand Spider Poison Hand in The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber. Wasn't that just letting spiders bite his fingers directly? The deeper the skill, the uglier he became?
He had previously wondered why Mingzhuzi had also practiced the Thousand Spider Poison Hand. Although it was ugly, it was naturally ugly and obviously not acquired. He had thought it was because Mingzhuzi's skills were not deep enough. Now he realized that the Xingxiu Sect had another safe method to neutralize poison, but deliberately did not write it in the manual.

He then asked Azi, "What should I do?"

Azi looked around and saw that it was a vast, deserted place. She casually said, "What's the rush? Come with me."

She led Jiang Mingzhe southeastward, and in half a day they had traveled forty or fifty miles. After crossing a low hill, a road suddenly appeared in front of them, stretching from north to south. The road was flat and wide enough for a horse-drawn carriage to travel side by side.

Jiang Mingzhe felt a slight tremor in his heart as he recognized this as the Tang-Tibet Ancient Road, which started in Chang'an and ended in Lhasa (LS), the capital of Tibet, with a total length of 6,000 li. The later Qinghai-Tibet Central Line was adjacent to this ancient road.

When he first traveled to the source of the Yellow River, the tour guide pointed out the ancient road and introduced its history. Unexpectedly, things took an unexpected turn. Now, the ancient road is right in front of him, but the modern highway he once traveled on has vanished without a trace. All he can see are endless wild grasses and a vast, sweeping wind.

I couldn't help but think: The poem says, "People today cannot see the moon of ancient times, but the moon of today once shone on people of ancient times." I can see the moon of ancient times every night now, but in this life, I'm afraid I will never again be able to bask in the moonlight of today that should belong to me...

Overwhelmed by homesickness, her eyes involuntarily reddened.

Afraid that Azi would see him, he turned his head and pretended to look at the scenery, but then he saw a carriage slowly approaching from the north, with seven or eight people on horseback guarding the left and right sides. They were a group of lamas dressed in red robes and red hats.

Azi cheered, "Great! Heaven knew you wanted to dissolve the poison, so it sent you a living person!"

Jiang Mingzhe exclaimed in surprise, "What? Why do you need living people?"

Ah Zi had already dropped her baggage and dashed out. As she ran, she drew her sword and blocked the way, shouting incoherently, "This road is mine, this tree is mine, I'm robbing you! Don't run away, let me rob you!"

When the lamas heard about the robbery, they were initially startled, but upon closer inspection, they saw that it was just a young man and a young girl, and they couldn't help but burst into laughter.

One of them wore the tallest hat, with a pointed tip and two shawls hanging down on either side. He was clearly the leader of the group of lamas. He spoke a few words loudly in a strange tone, and it was unclear what language he was speaking.

Ah Zi shouted, "I don't understand! I don't understand! Leave one person behind and let the rest of you go!"

The leading lama spoke a few words to his companion, then switched to Mandarin and said, “Young lady, trying to rob people on the road, you’ll be beaten to death sooner or later. You’re quite pretty, why don’t you come home with me and become my son’s wife?”

His Mandarin was broken, but Azi understood him and immediately flew into a rage, saying, "I originally only wanted to keep one person, but now I've changed my mind, and I'm going to kill you all!"

The group burst into laughter. The leading lama whispered something, and a younger lama nodded, dismounted with a grin, took a long-handled axe from the saddle, swung it a few times, and said in a thick tongue, "Little girl, surrender, or I'll chop you up with one swing of my axe."

Seeing that the man's weapon was heavy and he wielded it with great force, Jiang Mingzhe was afraid that Azi would be no match for him. He quickly untied the basket, put it down, picked up the hunting fork, and ran over.

(End of this chapter)