Deposed? I couldn't be happier! I wouldn't even be a dog to the crown prince.

The afternoon sun lazily streamed into the East Palace Study.

Li Chengqian sank deep into the soft leather sofa, his eyes, which had just finished gazing at the dazzling starry sky, finally closing. Last night, he had personally shut down the system's alluring interstellar technology tree from the observatory, deciding to let the old man play a few more years of real-life "Age of Empires" on this Earth stained red by the Tang Dynasty.

After all, you have to eat one bite at a time, and you have to eat salted fish one day at a time.

Just as he was about to drift into a sweet dream.

"Hahaha! Big brother! I'm back!"

A burst of rough, even savage laughter, like a bolt from the blue, resounded directly in the outer courtyard of the East Palace.

Immediately following were heavy, disorderly footsteps and the slightly flustered attempts of the Imperial Guards at the gate to stop them.

"His Highness is taking a midday rest! Unauthorized personnel... His Highness the Prince of Shu?!"

Shen Lian's voice cracked, clearly he was quite frightened by the appearance of the newcomer.

Li Chengqian impatiently lifted the silk handkerchief covering his face.

He rubbed his throbbing temples and sighed helplessly.

Without a doubt, the only person who could shout and yell so recklessly in the capital of the Tang Dynasty, with such a loud voice, was none other than Li Ke, the "King of the Western Regions" who had been tricked into going to the other side of the ocean to be a pioneer foreman.

"Let him in," Li Chengqian called out weakly.

With a loud bang, the two mahogany doors of the study were violently kicked open.

A mixed breeze, carrying a strong smell of the sea, earth, and unknown plants, instantly swept into the room.

Li Chengqian squinted, looking at the figure standing against the light at the door.

"The third son?"

He paused for a full three seconds before calling out the name with some uncertainty.

The person standing before me was no longer the prince who, though warlike, was also handsome and dashing.

Li Ke was shirtless, wearing only a rough linen vest. His once fair skin had been tanned a deep charcoal black by the harsh American sun, making him look even darker than a Kunlun slave!

He had a full beard and his hair was a mess, like a bird's nest. If you threw him into the slave market in the West Market, even the Persian merchants would probably shake their heads in disgust.

But his eyes shone like two searchlights, radiating a primal, excited, and fanatical light.

"Big brother! I've missed you so much!"

Li Ke pounced like a black bear, forgetting even to bow, and plopped down on the table opposite Li Chengqian.

"You...swam back from Dongshengzhou (the Americas)?" Li Chengqian moved further back on the sofa with disgust, covering his nose. "Why are you acting like this? Didn't I have Zheng He reserve five treasure ships for you?"

"Hey! Don't even mention it."

Li Ke picked up the expensive glass teapot on the table, and without even using a cup, tilted his head back and gulped down a large mouthful.

"The sun over there is too scorching! And those indigenous people, what are they called, Indians, are always running around in the forest naked. I'm leading the Shenji Battalion to do infrastructure for them in the jungle, and wearing armor is just torture, so I might as well do as the locals do."

He casually wiped his mouth, but a bright, smug smile spread across his face.

"Big brother, I've completed all the tasks you assigned me perfectly!"

Li Ke suddenly jumped off the table and shouted excitedly towards the door.

"Move all your things in!"

At his command, a dozen or so Tang Dynasty sailors, also tanned dark by the sun, trudged in carrying several heavy wooden crates.

"Bang!"

The box was roughly placed on the ground.

Li Ke used his strong finger bones to pry open one of the box lids.

"Big brother, look! These are the 'potatoes' and 'corn' you were talking about!"

He proudly presented several dusty tubers and golden cocoons.

"The Shenji Battalion soldiers we brought have forcibly seized hundreds of thousands of acres of land on that continent, forcing the natives to cultivate it day and night. Now the plains of Dongsheng Prefecture are covered with these things!"

"This time I returned not only with ten boatloads of gold, but also with a full 500,000 shi (a unit of dry measure) of this high-yield, superior seed!"

Li Chengqian looked at the seeds that, despite having been stored at sea for a long time, remained intact due to preservation treatment, and a hint of admiration flashed in his eyes.

The third brother, a highly skilled worker, certainly has impeccable execution ability.

With these things, even if the population of the Tang Dynasty increased tenfold in the next few centuries, there would never be a famine again. This was the true magic weapon for consolidating the foundation of the empire.

"Well done." Li Chengqian nodded casually. "But you came all this way just to bring me a few pounds of potatoes? You haven't gone to show off to the old man yet, have you?"

"Of course we have to find our eldest brother first!"

Li Ke fawned and moved closer.

"If Father sees all this gold, he'll probably go crazy again. I've come back this time with a rare treasure that I must let my elder brother take a look at first."

As he spoke, he mysteriously walked to several other large, tightly sealed wooden barrels.

"Brother, there's a strange tree in the forests of Dongsheng Prefecture. If you cut open the bark with a knife, a white, milky sap will flow out."

As Li Ke spoke, he used his rough, large hands to lift the lid of the wooden bucket.

"If this sap is left for a long time, it will solidify into this kind of elastic yet tough black jelly. I figured I'd never seen this stuff in the Central Plains before, and maybe it would be useful for you, so I had two whole shiploads of it collected."

Li Chengqian initially had a somewhat nonchalant expression.

Upon seeing the pungent, grayish-black, lumpy solids in the wooden barrel...

His pupils suddenly contracted.

He jumped up from the sofa in disbelief, and without even putting on his silk slippers, rushed barefoot to the wooden tub.

He grabbed a piece of tree sap with force, his fingers trembling slightly with excitement.

That familiar elastic feel, that pungent smell of sulfur compounds.

You can't go wrong!

This is definitely not ordinary tree sap.

This is natural rubber!

It is the "blood of industry" that ranks alongside steel, coal, and oil as one of the four major industrial raw materials in the modern industrial system!

In an era when the steel behemoths of the Tang Dynasty still used cumbersome, bumpy solid iron wheels, the appearance of this thing was far more valuable than the ten ships of gold that Li Ke brought back!

"Third brother, oh third brother..."

Li Chengqian, unusually, did not hide his ecstatic joy.

He suddenly turned around, slapped Li Ke hard on his sweaty shoulder, and laughed wildly and unrestrainedly.

"You've done an absolutely incredible job this time!"

Li Chengqian held the piece of rubber, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying light of technological revolution.

"We've got this thing."

He narrowed his eyes slyly, as if he could already see the vehicles of the Tang Dynasty speeding by.

"I alone can make the wheels of our Great Tang Dynasty..."

"Fly wildly!"