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

With Li Chengqian's order, several urgent telegrams were sent along the transatlantic copper cable, like sparks thrown into a hot oil pan, instantly igniting the entire overseas province of the Tang Dynasty.

Li Zhi, who was busy expanding the docks in London, even buttoned his shirt wrong and quickly boarded the fastest destroyer in the garrison. Meanwhile, Li Ke, who was overseeing gold mining in the deep mountains of South America, used two rudimentary biplanes in a relay to cross the rainforest in three days and land at Li Tai's heavy industry base.

At this time, the setting sun casts a blood-red glow over the Grand Canyon in Colorado, North America, carving the layers of reddish-brown rock into an altar of the gods.

To welcome his brothers, Li Tai mobilized over a thousand railway construction workers to clear a flat area the size of a football field on the edge of the cliff. He even used heavy cranes to erect a steel-structured viewing terrace on the edge of the Grand Canyon.

"Rat-a-tat-tat—!"

With a few muffled engine sounds, Li Tai personally drove the six-wheeled steam truck, carrying Li Chengqian and Empress Zhangsun, and brought it to a steady stop in the center of the camp.

"Big brother, look who's that!" Li Tai excitedly pointed to the armed train speeding towards them in the distance, billowing steam and smoke.

Before the car had even come to a complete stop, Li Ke, dressed in a black outfit, leaped off the carriage, carrying a heavy bag of golden ore. His originally refined face was tanned bronze by the South American sun, adding a touch of iron-bloodedness to his features.

"Big brother! Fourth brother! Mother!" Li Ke walked over quickly. Although he looked a little travel-worn due to the long journey, his clear eyes were full of joy at the reunion.

Before everyone could exchange a few pleasantries, a jeep painted with the Tang Dynasty dragon flag roared up from the direction of the makeshift airport on the other side. Li Zhi, dressed in a British-style modified Tang Dynasty military uniform, jumped out of the car in a flurry of activity.

"Luckily I made it in time. Those barbarians on the Thames River have been on strike lately, which took up half a day of my time. I almost missed my brother's drinking party." Li Zhi wiped the sweat from his forehead and smiled broadly.

At this moment, the most powerful princes of the Tang Dynasty, having traveled halfway around the world, finally gathered in the afterglow of the sunset over the Grand Canyon.

As night fell, a huge campfire, big enough to illuminate half the cliff, roared in the center of the camp.

Without the oppressive constraints of etiquette in the Taiji Hall of Chang'an, and without the tedious formalities nagging from the officials of the Court of State Ceremonies, the brothers sat around a thick leather cushion, with Li Tai's secret-recipe steamed steak and top-quality aged red wine brought by Li Zhi from Europe in the center.

"Third Brother, if your rubber production in South America doesn't increase soon, my shipyard will run out of seals," Li Chengqian teased Li Ke, taking a bite of juicy beef.

Li Ke tilted his head back and took a sip of the spicy mare's milk wine, chuckled, and pulled out a gleaming gold report from his pocket, slapping it in front of the fire.

"Brother, you can rest assured. Those South American natives are now willing to scrape the bark off their own trees to get our porcelain and sugar. Last year's rubber production tripled, but the rails you gave me aren't as good as the ones Fourth Brother made."

"Hey, Third Brother, I have to say something in my defense." Li Tai, with his big belly, was holding a wine bottle in his hand, his face ruddy with oil.

"The ore here in North America has a high iron content, and my blast furnace has been burning for 24 hours straight. Last year, my region ranked first in GDP growth among all the overseas fiefdoms of the Tang Dynasty, even surpassing Lao Jiu and his group of tailors."

Li Zhi rolled his eyes at Li Tai, slowly swirling the red liquid in his glass, and retorted, "Fourth Brother, you're just doing manual labor, I'm exporting culture. These days, European nobles can't even get into their own balls if they can't speak a few words of Guanzhong dialect. My silk commands a premium of more than ten times that of your steel. Who's really making money?"

The brothers were just like ordinary young people in the city, drinking and bragging to each other, comparing the development of their fiefdoms, and showing off the barbarians they had beaten. No one mentioned the dragon throne far away in Chang'an.

Empress Zhangsun sat on a soft couch to the side, looking at her spirited sons with eyes full of tenderness.

There was a time when she couldn't sleep a wink all night, fearing her brothers would fight amongst themselves. But now, with the world so vast and the territory so expansive, all ambitions and aspirations have found a place to flourish. That once ferocious desire to seize the throne has transformed into a competition to build civilization under this boundless starry sky.

After several rounds of drinks and several dishes, everyone was slightly tipsy.

Li Chengqian stood up unsteadily, raised the wine cup in his hand that was not yet empty, and looked towards the distant east, towards Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty.

"Brothers, even though we're having a blast here, eating steak and enjoying the breeze, let's not forget that old man in Chang'an."

Li Chengqian let out a drunken hiccup, a smug look of sympathy on his face.

"At this moment, I reckon Father is probably fretting over that mountain of telegrams piled up on the table. He's probably even cursing us unfilial sons for not getting back home yet."

Upon hearing this, all the brothers burst into unison a knowing, knowing laugh.

They knew their father, Li Shimin, all too well. As long as the Tang Dynasty was still in operation, he wouldn't be idle for a single minute. Now, with tens of thousands of kilometers of territory, he probably wished he could transform into a thousand-armed Guanyin and take over all the government affairs.

"A salute to our old, hardworking father!" Li Chengqian shouted.

"Respect to Father Emperor! Thank you for staying home to review memorials!" Li Zhi joined in the commotion.

"To His Majesty the Emperor! May he hold out for us for a few more years!" Li Tai and Li Ke also raised their glasses.

The brothers tilted their heads back and drank the wine in their glasses in one gulp. The wine went down their throats and left a series of joyful and absurd echoes in the huge reddish-brown canyon.

In this era that belonged to them, patriarchy was no longer a repressive shackle, but a solid foundation. Li Shimin carried the weight of the nation on his shoulders, while they expanded territories and unleashed their creativity across the world.

The campfire in the Grand Canyon never went out that night.

When the brothers got tired of chatting, they simply lay down on the cowhide rugs under the starry sky. Li Tai's snoring seemed to make the rocks next to him tremble. Li Zhi was talking nonsense while holding the wine bottle that Li Zhi had brought. Li Ke was still gesturing the famous mining posture in his dream.

At dawn, the first rays of sunlight pierced through the thin morning mist.

Li Chengqian was the first to wake up. He didn't disturb his still-sleeping brothers, but tiptoed to a cliff at the very edge of the Grand Canyon.

With excellent air quality and unobstructed vision, he watched as the blazing sun, as bright as fire and as golden as gold, leaped from below the horizon, instantly turning this desolate, wild, and vibrant North American land into a dazzling gold.

The wind whistled past my ears, carrying an ancient and profound aura.

Wu Meiniang appeared silently behind him, holding a black fox fur cloak, which she gently draped over his shoulders.

"Your Highness, you're up so early. Are you thinking of Father Emperor or Chang'an?" Wu Meiniang stood beside him, letting the morning breeze ruffle her hair.

Li Chengqian tightened his cloak, looking at the magnificent, bottomless crack beneath his feet, his gaze gradually clearing and sharpening from a dazed state.

"Neither." Li Chengqian pointed to the sun that had completely risen above the horizon, a faint smile on his lips that could outshine everything else.

"Meiniang, look at the sun. Before, in Chang'an, I felt it only shone on our small piece of land. But now, we've traveled half a circle from east to west, and it still shines on the banners of our Great Tang."

He turned his head and looked at his brothers who were gradually waking up, and at the steel chimneys built by Li Tai in the distance. An indescribable sense of pride welled up in his heart.

Wu Zetian's beautiful eyes gleamed with intelligence. She seemed to have grasped a pulse that transcended time in Li Chengqian's words, and softly replied:

"Does Your Highness believe that there is no longer any darkness in the world?"

Li Chengqian shook his head, then pointed to the fiefdoms on the map that had become a continuous expanse. His voice was not loud, but it carried a heavy sense of reshaping history.

"Darkness will surely come, but the light of the Tang Dynasty will never be extinguished."

"No matter how the earth rotates, no matter how day and night change, as long as the people of the Tang Dynasty continue to struggle, as long as the banner of our Li family continues to fly..."

Li Chengqian paused, then said slowly and deliberately, "On this planet, the sun will forever shine on the territory of the Tang Dynasty, and even the deepest trenches will bear the name 'Chang'an'."

Wu Meiniang smiled. At this moment, Li Chengqian, although still with that carefree and irreverent demeanor, had completely surpassed the old emperor in the Taiji Palace in terms of his commanding presence.

"Your Highness, what should this era be called?"

Li Chengqian gazed at the fully risen red sun, his eyes distant.

"The name doesn't matter. What matters is that we need to let the old man know as soon as possible that the world is much bigger than he imagines."

"Let's go have breakfast. After we finish, we should discuss how to lay the telegraph line to the deepest part of the seabed so that Father Emperor can hear the wind in the Grand Canyon even in Chang'an."

The wind howled through the canyon.

A "sun never sets" empire belonging to the Tang Dynasty and the Li family is issuing its deafening first cry to the world in the first rays of dawn.

"Old Xu! Go wake those lazybones! Anyone still wanting to sleep, send them to the locomotive to be used as coal!"

"Alright, Your Highness, just you wait and see!"