Sword drawn from the constellations, poison as its edge.

Chapter 44 Drifting a Thousand Miles
Jiang Mingzhe was reminded by A Zi's words that he suddenly remembered watching a short video of feeding fish with centipedes in his previous life.

Centipedes wriggle their claws in the water and swim quite fast, but they cannot breathe and will inevitably drown if left unattended for too long.

He immediately had an idea: he tugged at the centipede's whiskers to drive it into the Zhaqu River.

However, his right hand was covered in countless cuts from the centipede's whiskers, and the slightest exertion caused him excruciating pain, causing him to glide past the riverbank twice in a row.

Azi saw through his plan and exclaimed happily, "Big Ginger, are you going to drown it? I'll help you!"

She quickly picked up the small ginger and bamboo tube, stuffed them into the inner layer of her basket, and used her light-footed skills to chase after him. When Jiang Mingzhe stepped on the giant centipede, she leaped on top of him and tightly hugged his waist with both hands.

The blow was quite forceful; Jiang Mingzhe shuddered in pain, his right hand loosened slightly, and a few drops of blood flew out, landing on Azi's face.

"Big ginger!" Only then did Azi notice that Jiang Mingzhe's hands were covered in blood. She immediately crawled under Jiang Mingzhe's armpit and grabbed the centipede's whiskers: "Let go of me!"

Jiang Mingzhe slowly released his grip, while A Zi continuously adjusted her strength. The two of them, with their two hands, quickly reached a tacit understanding and pulled together. The flying centipede king leaped up and fell into the surging river.

As the water surged, Jiang Mingzhe quickly grabbed Azi's shoulder, and Azi also tightly embraced his waist. The two of them each wore a glove and each held a centipede's antennae. They inhaled at the same time, preparing to abandon the centipede and escape as soon as it sank.

Unexpectedly, this giant centipede had a wide and flat body, and its dozens of long legs moved in unison, creating an astonishingly strong buoyancy. With two people on its back, it still floated on the water and sped southward with the current.

In the blink of an eye, they had left Centipede Mountain far behind.

The two were now in a dilemma. The giant centipede walked on water as if it were flat ground, so how could they dare to let it go free?
Jiang Mingzhe said with a wry smile, "This is it. We're just going to drift along with the current. I don't know when we'll be able to get ashore. I'm afraid we'll have to walk until our legs break before we can go back."

Ah Zi, however, was quite optimistic and said with a smile, "What's there to be afraid of? I was planning to come out and play for ten days or half a month anyway. Hehe, what could be more fun than riding this centipede boat? I'm just afraid that we'll run out of food before we get ashore, then that would be terrible."

After saying that, he tugged at the centipede's whiskers, and the centipede swayed its body, startling a large fish that landed right on the centipede's back.

Azi, quick-witted and agile, stepped on it and said happily, "Thank you, God of Heaven! Thank you, Water God! You heard we were afraid of being hungry and sent us food! Big ginger, quickly press it down for me!"

The centipede floated on the water, but it didn't thrash around wildly like it did on the shore. The two of them slowly squatted down, and Jiang Mingzhe reached out to catch the fish. When Azi saw that his hands were covered with wounds, she couldn't bear it and grabbed his hand, saying, "Wait a minute, let me bandage your hands first!"

He then took out a clean change of clothes from the basket on his back, bit down on it with his teeth, tore off a long strip, and then took out some medicine powder and sprinkled it evenly on the wound. He used both his hands and mouth to wrap the wound in circles.

The two then worked together. Jiang Mingzhe held down the fish's head, while Azi stepped on the fish's tail, held a short knife in her left hand, cut off the spine, scraped off the scales, sliced ​​off thin pieces of fish, and handed them to Jiang Mingzhe's mouth: "We're lucky, it's actually a spotted fish. This fish doesn't have much of a fishy smell, so it's perfect for eating raw."

The so-called flower fish is actually a perch, with a slender body and black spots all over its body.

Jiang Mingzhe was initially worried about the parasite problem, but then he thought that since he had already inhaled the centipede venom, even if there were parasites, they would probably be poisoned to death by his internal energy.

I opened my mouth to catch it, and with a gentle chew, I found the meat to be firm and delicious. Even without any seasoning, it was still quite tasty.

Seeing him eating with relish, Azi smiled and fed him several pieces before starting to taste it herself. In this way, they ate one bite at a time, and soon most of the large fish, which weighed four or five pounds, was gone.

Azi sheathed her knife, picked up the fish skeleton, and placed it near the giant centipede's mouth. The giant centipede, whose long whiskers were being pulled, lost its senses, but it could still distinguish the food that was brought to its mouth. It opened and closed its mouthparts and ate it clean with a crunching sound.

Jiang Mingzhe exclaimed in surprise, "I wish it would starve to death right now, how could you still feed it?"

Ah Zi said with a grin, "Why let it starve to death? This centipede boat is so much fun. Let's see where it can take us."

He added, "Furthermore, this Flying Centipede King is ten times rarer than the Six-Winged Iron Centipede. Once you've neutralized its poison, who will be your match?"

Jiang Mingzhe looked at the centipede's enormous mouthparts and sighed, "If it takes one bite from those two big teeth, I'll lose my hand. How am I supposed to neutralize the poison?" Azi frowned and thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up and she said smugly, "You don't need to worry about it now. I'll find a way to neutralize the poison for you later."

After drifting for a long time, the sky gradually darkened, and the mountains on both sides and the waves around us gradually disappeared into the night.

When the sky turned as black as ink, the stars lit up, as if they were hanging right above the two of them, making them feel no distance at all.

The starlight reflected on the river surface, creating shimmering, flickering, and disappearing with the ripples, like a dream, indistinguishable from reality.

Azi looked up at the sky one moment and down at the water the next, and said softly, "Big Ginger, have we already floated up to the sky with the river? Will we float to the moon? If we float to the moon, that would be terrible."

Her words were so childlike that they softened Jiang Mingzhe's heart. He said gently, "What's wrong with going to the moon?"

In the darkness, Azi seemed to shake her head and whispered, "Master said there is a fairy named Chang'e on the moon. Didn't you want to seek immortality? So you stayed and refused to leave. What will become of me, all alone?"

Jiang Mingzhe smiled slightly, about to comfort her, when he heard Azi say again: "If she were a mortal woman, I could either poison her or disfigure her face. I have plenty of ways to make you dislike her. But Chang'e is a fairy, Jiang Mingzhe. Let me tell you, I can't deal with her. I'm afraid I can only poison you."

She spoke softly about her ruthless thoughts, and Jiang Mingzhe was startled. He forced a smile and said, "Oh dear, then I'm in big trouble."

Then Azi said softly, "You don't need to be afraid. If I poison you to death, I will also poison myself. Otherwise, when you get to the underworld, who will protect you and stand up for you if those little devils bully you?"

Jiang Mingzhe fell silent.

Perhaps even Azi herself didn't realize the deep affection hidden in these seemingly cruel words.

But how could Jiang Mingzhe not understand?
He recalled A Zi's background. She was brought to the Xingxiu Sect by Ding Chunqiu as soon as she was out of her swaddling clothes. She probably had never been truly respected, cared for, or loved, and she had never had the slightest sense of security.

Perhaps that's why, when we feel kindness and warmth, we want to seize it at all costs, throwing all our passion and expectations into it.

However, how can a little girl who has never been loved know how to love?
Even when Ah Zi likes someone, she will only use her own methods—poisoning and killing—to relieve the unspeakable unease in her heart.

Ugh……

Jiang Mingzhe sighed silently and ruffled the girl's hair: "Don't overthink it. The Qingbai Twin Demons have roamed the Kunlun Mountains for 30,000 miles, and now they don't know where they're going to go. They have such a wonderful life to live. I must be crazy to stay on this damn moon. If I don't stay, I'll go wherever you go. That's how loyal we Qingbai Twin Demons are."

"It's the White and Green Twin Demons!" Azi was overjoyed, but didn't forget to correct him, and then asked, "What if Chang'e insists on keeping you here?"

Jiang Mingzhe laughed and said, "Just watch whether I get rid of her or not. Who does Chang'e think she is? She swallowed the elixir that Hou Yi obtained for herself. She's not a good woman. Only a blockhead like Zhu Bajie would like her."

"Huh? What do you mean by hoarding the elixir? Who is Hou Yi? Who is Zhu Bajie?"

Azi immediately forgot her earlier worries and couldn't wait to ask.

Jiang Mingzhe thought to himself that this Star Immortal wasn't even taking good care of a child, having already told him the whole story. He looked up at the starry sky and said casually, "Well, that's a very, very long story..."

Amidst the starlight filling the sky and river, a hapless flying centipede king, listlessly swaying its long legs, drifted southward.

As Jiang Mingzhe recounted his story, A Zi's constant exclamations gradually faded into inaudibility.

(End of this chapter)