Sword drawn from the constellations, poison as its edge.

Chapter 264 Another younger sister?
Seeing Duan Yu and Abi at a loss, Wang Yuyan suddenly smiled and shook her head, saying, "Azi, you keep calling Zhong Ling a stupid girl, but in my opinion, you are the real stupid one. My grandmother is skilled in martial arts. If she really wanted to kill your mother, unless Brother Jiang made a move, who could stop her?"

Jiang Mingzhe nodded, thinking to himself that Wang Yuyan was indeed right; her words hit the nail on the head. With Li Qiushui's martial arts skills, killing Duan Zhengchun would be effortless, and she had dealt with him before.

Azi, however, was unconvinced and argued, "You say I'm stupid? I think you're even stupider than that stupid girl. Have you forgotten that your grandmother went to Leigu Mountain? I bet she caught up with my master and the two of them fought fiercely. Your grandmother was seriously injured. My father is also a skilled martial artist. He might be able to fight your seriously injured grandmother to a draw."

Wang Yuyan shook her head and said, "You don't understand my grandmother at all. If she is seriously injured, no matter how much my mother begs her, she will never come to help. She will definitely find a place to recover first."

Azi opened her mouth, blinked, and turned to look at Jiang Mingzhe: "Big Ginger, you say it for me!"

Jiang Mingzhe shook his head and said, "Uncle Duan can handle Sister Qingluo."

Azi chuckled: "That's right! Although Fatty's mother was only my philandering father's sixth favorite woman, my father was most likely her number one favorite man. Oh dear, I guessed wrong..."

She looked at the corpses on the ground, but then heard Abi sob, "Sister Azi, there's no need to guess anymore. The one who came here to wreak havoc is most likely your master."

Azi asked in surprise, "How did you know?"

Abi wiped away her tears and whispered, "I'll tell you all about it in a bit. Right now, I need to bury my two uncles first, oh, and this Uncle Chu too."

Duan Yu quickly replied, "Yes, yes, let's first lay our uncles to rest in peace, then we can talk about everything else slowly."

They each wanted to do their best and refused any help. They went behind the house to find a hoe, dug a pit in the bamboo forest, cut down a lot of bamboo, and tied it into three bamboo coffins. They found a mat in the house, wrapped the three bodies in it, and buried them.

While the two were busy, Jiang Mingzhe accompanied Azi into the room. The furniture in the room was all crooked and mostly damaged, obviously indicating that a fierce fight had taken place. Only a banner on the wall was intact, with a few lines of cursive script on it, the handwriting was smooth and elegant.

Jiang Mingzhe looked up and saw that it was a poem written on it:

Shyly leaning against the wall, drunk, she cannot sing; her slender hands cover her fragrant silk. Nestled among the flowers, illuminated by candlelight, she steals secret messages, her thoughts, like wine, flowing across her rippling eyes. Seeing red as green, her heart is bewildered; her gaze is tender, her brows furrowed. Meetings are rare, separations far more frequent. Spring is ending again; what can she do about her sorrow?

Seeing him looking at it, Azi also stared at it for a few moments and asked curiously, "Is this the poem my father wrote for my mother?"

Jiang Mingzhe pointed to the signature and said, "Look, 'A poem titled 'A Young Man's Journey, written by Zhu Mei to mend the wall. Starry eyes and a bamboo waist accompany him, oblivious to the passing of time. Written by Duan Er of Dali after a drunken spree.' This poem is called 'A Young Man's Journey,' haha, Uncle Duan must have been quite the dashing young man back then."

Azi curled her lips in disdain and shook her head, saying, "My mother is so easy to fool. This lousy poem isn't even a tenth as talented as the one you wrote for me, 'Guan Guan Jujiu'."

Jiang Mingzhe was unaware that the author of this poem was actually still alive, Zhang Lei, one of the Four Scholars of Su Shi, a great talent, and he only believed that it was written by Duan Zhengchun himself.

He looked at it carefully twice and asked curiously, "Look at this sentence, 'Seeing red as green, the heart is confused.' Hey, 'Seeing red as green,' if we follow this sentence, your sister is called A Zhu, so you should be called A Bi instead. Why are you called A Zi?"

Azi disagreed, saying smugly, "Azi sounds so nice! My name is Azi, so I love wearing purple clothes. If my name were Abi, and I wore all green, wouldn't I become a bamboo? Does my mother's name be Ruan Xingzhu, so I have to be a bamboo? Haha, don't tell Abi that!" Jiang Mingzhe smiled wryly, not thinking too much about it for the moment. He accompanied Azi, helping to right all the overturned furniture in the room. He put the less damaged pieces back in their places and threw the badly damaged ones out.

As Azi tidied up, she sighed, "Sigh, I wonder if my mother is alright."

Jiang Mingzhe comforted him, "If it really is our master who comes, I know your father's temperament. He would rather die than let your mother die. Yu Yan's mother also can't bear to see your father die. So, Yu Yan's maternal grandmother will definitely protect your father. She is our master's unforgettable old flame. Therefore, your parents will definitely be safe and sound."

Azi sighed and said, "That would be better, but the three people who died outside have not even had their bodies cleaned up, which shows that the situation must have been very dangerous at the time."

Seeing that she understood, Jiang Mingzhe didn't know how to comfort her, so he could only say, "Don't worry, good people will be blessed."

After the two finished cleaning up, Duan Yu had also finished his work. Abi slowly walked out of the bamboo forest, and Azi hurriedly said, "Abi, tell me quickly why you are sure it was Old Monster Ding who did it!"

Abi was silent for a moment, then said in a low voice, "Sister Azi, please don't laugh at me for telling you this. Actually, I have a master, Kang Guangling, one of the Eight Friends of Hangu. Ever since I can remember, he would go to Suzhou every year to teach me martial arts and musical instruments."

The crowd remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

Then Abi slowly said, "I once asked him who my parents were and why they sent me to the Murong family."

“He said that my parents were his good friends and had died long ago. Before they died, they entrusted him to take care of me. He originally wanted to raise me himself, but he had a very powerful enemy. One year, that enemy came to the Zhongzhou area and found his home. Fortunately, he took me out that day. When he returned home, he realized something was wrong and immediately ran away.”

"But that enemy was very powerful. He heard the commotion and chased after them. During the chase, they happened to meet several martial arts practitioners who were also carrying a little girl. Their horses were knocked down by the enemy, and a dispute broke out between them. My master took the opportunity to carry me away."

"The next day, he returned to inquire and learned that the people he had met the day before had all been ruthlessly killed by his enemy. The little girl was not going to survive either, but fortunately, a master passed by and exchanged three blows with the enemy, scaring him away and saving the little girl."

"My master said that his enemy's martial arts were astonishing. That master was able to exchange three blows with him without dying, and even frightened the opponent away. He must be very powerful. After inquiring carefully, I found out that he was a big figure from the Murong family of Gusu."

“My master was afraid that his enemy would come looking for him again and bring trouble upon me, so he sent me to Suzhou from afar and begged the Murong family to take me in.”

At this point, Abi suddenly smiled and looked at everyone: "You guessed it, didn't you? The girl who was rescued earlier was Sister Azhu. She's three months older than me! We're both from Zhongzhou, but we both ended up in Jiangnan and became maids of the Murong family. Isn't that fate?"

He then added, "Later I gradually learned that Azhu's mother gave birth to her alone and was unable to raise her, so she gave her away to someone else. However, I never expected that the family would be implicated by us and die at the hands of my master's enemy before they could bring her back home."

"Actually, my background is very similar to Sister Azhu's... Please don't laugh at me. Once, my master got drunk and unintentionally said that I was actually born to his junior sister. But his junior sister refused to say who the man was. My master is the eldest brother, and he was afraid that his junior sister would be unable to face others, so he took me in as his disciple..."

At this point, Jiang Mingzhe was suddenly startled, thinking, "No way, could it be that Zhu Chengbi's words actually came to pass here?"

(End of this chapter)