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

The sunset over Hawaii was breathtaking; the orange-red glow resembled an overturned palette, wildly painting the layers of clouds. A sea breeze rustled through the coconut palms. Li Chengqian held a half-eaten slice of chilled watermelon in his hand, the sweet taste still lingering on his tongue, a smug smile even playing on his lips.

It was a kind of complete emptiness, even a kind of detachment from everything, a kind of relaxation.

However, just as he was about to swallow the sweet fruit, the mechanical voice that had been dormant for years and almost forgotten by him as a hallucination suddenly rang out without warning.

[Ding! A logical collapse has been detected in the progress of Tang Dynasty civilization; the carrying capacity warning has reached the critical value.]

The voice was icy cold, devoid of any human emotion, yet it struck Li Chengqian's soul like a heavy hammer.

Li Chengqian's hand, which was about to bring the food to his lips, froze abruptly. His pupils contracted to pinpoints in that instant, and his heart felt as if it were being gripped tightly by an invisible hand. Due to the extreme shock, its normally steady beating stopped for a moment. Immediately afterward, a tingling sensation shot up his spine to the top of his head. He could clearly feel the hairs on his back standing on end, and the physiological tremor made him feel as if he were frozen in the wicker chair.

Watermelon juice dripped slowly through his fingers, leaving small, dark red craters on the fine white sand, but he was completely unaware.

"Your Highness?"

Sitting beside him, Wu Meiniang immediately noticed something amiss. From her perspective, Li Chengqian, who had been leisurely enjoying the sunset just a moment ago, seemed to have been suddenly bewitched, his entire body stiffening in an almost eerie way. She put down her fan, her intelligent and lively eyes filled with doubt and deep worry.

She reached out her soft hand, wanting to touch Li Chengqian's shoulder, only to find that this man, who was the absolute authority in the Tang Dynasty, was trembling slightly.

"Your Highness, what's wrong? Did you catch a chill from the sea breeze?"

Wu Meiniang's voice trembled slightly; she had never seen Li Chengqian show such an expression before. It was a mixture of horror, despair, and a sense of powerlessness as if fate had seized him by the throat.

Li Chengqian could not hear any sounds from the outside world. At this moment, his vision had already been forcibly altered by the system.

The stunning sunset over the island has vanished, replaced by a vast, shimmering blue map of the Tang Dynasty. On that intricate map, the green dots that once represented prosperity and order are rapidly fading.

The dense array of red lights, like festering sores, flashed wildly in Chang'an, Luoyang, Guangzhou, and even in North American heavy industry bases and South American farms.

[Warning: Due to the rapid pace of technological advancement far outpacing the social management system, a severe rift is emerging in Tang Dynasty society. Management logic is seriously lagging behind, and the civilization's carrying capacity is on the verge of collapse.]

[Penalty Mechanism: If the management system modernization upgrade is not initiated within 72 hours, all advanced technology blueprints will face physical damage penalties.]

On my retina, terrifying scenes flashed by like movie footage.

Li Chengqian saw that the high-speed train, which was originally speeding across the open field, derailed with a deafening metallic crash due to the logic lock of the management and dispatch system, and the steel dragon turned into fragments all over the sky.

He saw that the launch vehicles standing deep in the desert, due to the lack of high-dimensional system maintenance, had their precision parts rusted instantly, and the fairings twisted and cracked under the scorching sun, turning into a pile of scrap metal.

Even the power base stations in Chang'an City experienced a chain reaction of explosions due to the chaos at the management level, plunging the dazzling city into a deathly silence in that instant.

The sheer devastation of the physical destruction nearly suffocated Li Chengqian.

"I... I'll just go to hell!"

Li Chengqian inwardly unleashed a torrent of furious complaints. He had originally thought that by planting the technology tree and letting the old man water it, he could be a hands-off manager for life. Who would have thought this broken system would have this "going back to the old ways" logic?

What does it mean for a social management system to be outdated?

What does it mean when civilization's carrying capacity is insufficient?

I finally managed to push this Tang Dynasty to this level, and now you're telling me that if I don't upgrade the management team, all my precious parts will rust?

The extreme resentment born from the shattering of his dream of becoming a salted fish transformed into a raging fire of anger, churning within his chest. He had intended to lie here forever, to drink all the coconut water in the Pacific Ocean, but this damned system actually wanted to steal his life!

"This is practically forcing me to implement systemic reforms..."

Li Chengqian pursed his lips tightly, his lips turning a sickly pale from the force. He knew all too well the amount of work involved; it wasn't something that could be solved by drawing a few blueprints. It involved shaking the deeply ingrained imperial power management logic that had been in place for thousands of years in the Tang Dynasty.

He struggled to shift his body in the wicker chair, feeling as if someone who had just fallen into a deep sleep had been doused with a bucket of ice-cold water.

"Your Highness? Please say something!"

Wu Meiniang's voice rang out again, and this time she grasped Li Chengqian's hand directly. She noticed that his palms were covered in cold sweat and were alarmingly cold. She turned her head and shouted sharply at the guards standing not far away, "Quickly! Go and call Commander Xu! Bring all the doctors on the island here!"

"No need."

Li Chengqian finally found his voice, hoarse as if it had been sanded. He slowly lowered his head, looking at the soft hands holding his.

He turned his head, his pupils still reflecting the rows of flashing red warnings.

"Meiniang, something terrible has happened."

He gave a bitter twitch at the corner of his mouth, his original lazy demeanor completely vanishing, replaced by a resolute determination born of being forced into a corner.

"The situation in Chang'an... is probably already in complete chaos."

The image of Li Shimin's irritable face flashed through his mind. Although separated by vast distances, he could almost foresee how his father, who regarded the Tang Dynasty as his life, would react when he saw factories shut down and rockets rusting.

The old man will definitely go crazy.

And they'll definitely come through the internet cable and tear me apart.

In the center of the system panel, the blood-red countdown display (71:58:32) was imprinted in Li Chengqian's pupils, each ticking second feeling like a death knell. Those cold, mechanical numbers, bathed in the purplish-red afterglow, exuded a despairing sense of oppression.

Just as this tranquility, born of the system's malice, reached its peak, in the distant north, seemingly across the vast Pacific Ocean, following some kind of unseen perception...

From the distant direction of Chang'an, a desperate roar seemed to echo.