Chapter 131: The Golden Dagger

Luo Gan led the way with Yan Shan and Xiao Zhi trailing behind, the three of them riding with carefree abandon.

"Guild Master!" Yan Shan called out. "Are you not worried that we might take the wrong path? Our journey here was full of twists and turns, and we only stumbled upon Dingxiang City by pure luck."

Cross-provincial travel in this era, which would take mere hours by high-speed rail in the modern age, was a miserable experience here. With no proper landmarks and a desolate, uninhabited landscape—compounded by heavy snow and harassment from the Hu people—a trip of only a few hundred kilometers had turned into a grueling, multi-day ordeal.

"Follow me and you won't go wrong," Luo Gan replied. "I might not have been somewhere before, but once I have, I will never get lost again."

This was no lie. Since following Luo Gan, Yan Shan and Xiao Zhi had never once suffered the frustration of being lost. In their eyes, Luo Gan was a living map. A leader with such a commanding presence and obvious talent easily earned the admiration of his subordinates. Naturally, Luo Gan would never tell them about his system map; he simply rode ahead, maintaining his cool, dashing image.

Suddenly, an old woman appeared in their path, shuffling along step by step. The group halted to see what was the matter. The old woman turned around and pulled out two axes.

"Young heroes," she said, "I have been troubled by a question for many years. Here is a golden axe, and here is a silver one. Which one would you choose?"

Luo Gan’s heart skipped a beat. He recognized this scene—it was a classic folktale. He knew that if one chose neither, the woman would produce an ordinary axe, and if one claimed that one, she would reward the chooser with both the gold and silver axes.

Sensing a golden opportunity, Luo Gan thought this must be a benefit granted by the system, and he was determined to make the most of it. "I want neither," he declared.

Beside him, Yan Shan and Xiao Zhi exchanged a knowing look.

"Brother Xiao Zhi," Yan Shan said, "you are my senior, so I shall take the silver axe."

"Very well," Xiao Zhi replied, "then I will take the gold one."

They quietly took the axes from the old woman, leaving Luo Gan stunned.

"The silver axe is thirty guan," the old woman stated. "The golden one is sixty."

"That is far too expensive," Xiao Zhi protested. "How could anyone sell them at that price?"

"It is a family business passed down for generations," she snapped. "Take it or leave it."

When Xiao Zhi and Yan Shan tried to return the axes, realizing they could not afford them, the old woman suddenly collapsed to the ground, feigning injury. "Oh! To think there are people who act so unreasonably! They snatched my gold and silver axes and refuse to pay! Pity a poor old woman like me!"

Xiao Zhi, for some reason, blurted out, "You’re in the middle of nowhere; even if you scream yourself hoarse, no one will hear you."

Suddenly, a pair of thick, muscular hands grabbed him from behind. A burly man glared at him with a fierce, imposing gaze. "Bullying an old woman? That is intolerable!"

It was a classic "immortal trap." Several more men, all looking nearly identical, appeared and surrounded the trio.

Luo Gan quickly took the axes from his companions and returned them to the woman. "Mother, there must have been a misunderstanding. We do not want either of these; here, we are returning them to you. Is that acceptable?"

The old woman shook her head repeatedly. "That won't do. The deed is done, and now that you have left your rust on them, they are effectively used."

They were relying on their numbers to extort them, dropping all pretenses to get their money.

"We didn't even use them," Luo Gan argued. "They are just as they were. Gold and silver are precious metals; they don't tarnish that easily."

"Oh," the woman said, "so these aren't real gold and silver then?"

"Then they shouldn't be that expensive, should they?" Xiao Zhi added.

The burly men looked confused, feeling they were in the wrong, but the old woman remained calm. "You haven't considered that even if these aren't real gold and silver, they are of great significance to me. They are heirlooms from my great-great-great-great-grandfather. They are not to be touched by outsiders, and now that you have touched them, shouldn't you pay?"

Luo Gan remained confident. "I think not. While they may be important to you, that doesn't change their intrinsic value. If they were truly precious, I believe you would keep them safely at home like treasures, protected from the wind and sun, and certainly not somewhere they could be accidentally touched by strangers like us."

The old woman, at a loss for words, decided to leave, sensing she had gained nothing. "You are a sharp-tongued young man," she muttered. "I hope this helps you."

With a flash of golden light, a golden dagger appeared at Luo Gan’s waist. It was barely twenty centimeters long, yet it shimmered with a cold, piercing sharpness.

Intrigued, Yan Shan and Xiao Zhi asked to see it. Luo Gan unbuckled it and handed it over, but neither of them could hold it; it fell straight to the ground, far too heavy for either to lift.

"This makes no sense," Yan Shan exclaimed. "How can such a small dagger be so heavy? Guild Master, do you possess divine strength?"

"There are too many strange happenings today," Xiao Zhi noted. "That whole gang vanished like smoke, leaving only this dagger."

Luo Gan felt a mix of joy and concern, which puzzled his companions.

"This dagger is fine for self-defense," Luo Gan explained. "It is indeed made of gold, but the problem is that very few in the Tang Empire can afford to own gold. Wouldn't carrying such a dagger be too conspicuous?"

While the group pondered the dilemma, they thought of the rewards of a hundred gold pieces they had seen before, which were always clearly marked with their origin—where they were mined, which official authorized them, and why they were given. Even when the Emperor rewarded his subordinates with gold, they rarely dared to spend it, as the honor far outweighed its monetary value. Now that such an item was in his hands, Luo Gan had good reason to be worried.

Suddenly, spotting a muddy swamp where the snow had melted, Luo Gan had an idea. He coated the dagger in black muck, masking the golden luster.

After traveling for a few more days, they estimated they would reach Chang'an in two. Luo Gan pondered how to establish himself there. He and the Duke of Song were in a strategic partnership; having helped the Duke with a major task, the man would surely look after his junior partner.

Just as Luo Gan and his party were making their way back, a secret letter arrived at the residence of the Duke of Liang. Fang Xuanling opened it and was overcome with joy.

He had not expected that while Xiao Yu might have been calculating, fate had intervened; the messenger had delivered the Duke of Song’s letter to him by mistake. Even better, the letter contained communications between the Duke of Song and Empress Xiao, providing conclusive, ironclad evidence of treason.

Before long, the letter sat on Li Shimin’s desk. When the wise Emperor read it, the Duke of Song’s downfall was all but sealed.