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

The piercing buzzing sound was like a red-hot blade, instantly silencing the noisy crowd.

Under the watchful, bewildered gazes of hundreds within the hall, the holographic projector at the very center of the hall, symbolizing supreme authority, suddenly trembled. The originally orderly, deep blue beam of light exploded, transforming into a random, even somewhat cynical, stream of multicolored light. The light mist twisted and reformed wildly in mid-air, and in the blink of an eye, a figure that made Li Shimin's temples throb slowly appeared.

That was Li Chengqian, who was supposedly "bedridden and occasionally caught a cold."

However, the images projected had absolutely nothing to do with the words "seriously ill".

The backdrop wasn't the bitter-smelling Eastern Palace, but a sunny, azure Hawaiian beach. Li Chengqian was comfortably sprawled on a large beach chair, his flamboyant palm-leaf shirt unbuttoned, and a pair of shiny black aviator sunglasses perched on his face.

He was holding a large coconut in his right hand, with two straws inserted inside, crossed over each other. As the projection took shape, the audience could even hear the crisp sound of waves crashing on the shore in the background. This extreme sense of relaxation contrasted sharply with the tense and oppressive atmosphere on the scene, which was so palpable that it felt like everyone was ready to flip the table.

Li Shimin's fingers, which were already resting on the hilt of his sword, froze. He looked at his unfilial son, who was slurping coconut juice, and felt a tightness in his chest. The pent-up anger and frustration made him want to crawl along the cable and strangle the wretched child.

"Gentlemen, you seem to be having a lively conversation?"

Li Chengqian raised his hand and pushed up his sunglasses, his tone as languid as a cat that had just woken up. He glanced sideways at the dense array of holographic light pillars around him, finally fixing his gaze on Li Shimin, who was on the verge of going berserk, and even gave a serious-looking yawn.

"I was sound asleep on the island when I heard this commotion in the Tai Chi Hall, which scared away all my pet tuna. What, do you all have a lot of opinions about that Labor Law?"

"Your Highness! What do you mean by this!"

A representative of a prominent family in the European province could no longer contain himself. His holographic image stepped forward and roared at Li Chengqian.

"We're at the front expanding the Tang Dynasty's territory and managing mines, while you're here indulging in pleasure, and you even want to cut off our livelihoods with that bullshit law! What we want is fairness! We want commercial autonomy! Not to have our hands and feet tied by a young girl and some inexplicable piece of paper!"

"Livelihood? Fairness?"

Li Chengqian chuckled, not bothering to refute those outdated political demands. He casually tossed the half-empty coconut aside and lightly pressed down on the armrest of the beach chair with his right hand.

"Buzz—"

In that instant, the air above the Taiji Hall seemed to be distorted by some powerful magnetic field.

The previously scattered, multicolored light instantly converged, transforming into a massive, three-dimensional Earth model radiating a cold, eerie blue light. The model slowly rotated, with each continent, each core factory, and each transoceanic railway precisely marked by fine, thread-like golden dots of light.

Countless dense networks of neurons intertwine on the surface of the sphere, connecting the entire global map into a living whole.

This is the core subroutine of the Tang Dynasty Empire—the "Tang Tian Shu" global resource dynamic allocation algorithm.

"What is this..." Changsun Wuji murmured to himself, a genuine fear appearing in his eyes, which had seen countless people. He could sense that this digital Earth contained an absolute logic that transcended imperial power, capital, and even divine authority.

Li Chengqian leaned back in his beach chair, flicking his fingertips lightly in the air, and the digital globe began to rotate.

"Gentlemen, I am lazy and have no interest in listening to your bickering, nor do I care to distinguish who is telling the truth. Therefore, I have written all of the Tang Dynasty's energy quotas, transportation capacity, and even the cross-border trade authorizations of each province into an algorithm."

Although Li Chengqian's tone was calm, every word he uttered conveyed a chilling cruelty.

"This algorithm currently only recognizes two values: 'employee satisfaction' and 'labor law compliance rate.' As long as these two values ​​are within the normal range, the system will automatically issue the profits and privileges you request. However..."

At this point, a sinister glint flashed behind Li Chengqian's sunglasses.

"Let me show you all. Fourth brother, what's the current compliance rate for the third North American factory you manage?"

The holographic image flashed.

Everyone watched in disbelief as a sector in North America on the blue Earth model suddenly turned from blue to yellow, then to a blinding blood red. Li Chengqian slowly tapped that red patch with his slender finger.

For that one second, it was as if the camera had a teleportation function.

The factory, which was originally brightly lit, fell into dead silence in a fraction of a second.

"Click!"

With a click of an electronic lock, North America's energy transmission links were physically severed by the TianShu algorithm. The mecha production line in the scene instantly came to a halt, the water supply pipes stopped circulating, and even the quantum network signals in the factory owners' offices were stripped of their permissions and instantly turned into gray disconnection indicators.

The whole process was swift and efficient, leaving no room for negotiation.

The algorithm doesn't care whether you're a king or a general, or which ancient clan stands behind you. It only looks at the data. If the data doesn't meet the standards, the nourishment of Tang Dynasty civilization will be instantly stripped away from that region, like cutting the umbilical cord.

"Did you see that?"

Li Chengqian took another sip of coconut juice, his voice sounding unusually loud in the deathly silent hall.

"Anyone who dares to outwardly comply but inwardly defy will have their area automatically classified as 'gangrene' by the system, and all their civilization's supplies will be cut off within 0.1 seconds. This kind of computing power hegemony doesn't need the Ministry of Justice, nor does it require the Great Snow Dragon Riders. If I want, I can send your so-called territory back to the primitive age of eating raw meat and drinking blood in three seconds at any time."

The dignitaries in the room stared at that cold, precise digital globe, devoid of any human emotion, and cold sweat poured down their foreheads like waterfalls. Their once-proud private armies, their decades-long accumulation of capital, seemed, at this moment, as fragile as a jumble of garbled characters.

A representative of a prominent family in Jiangnan Province was so terrified that he swayed and lost his balance.

The color drained from his old face, which was etched with calculation. In horror, he trembled as he raised his right hand, his fingertips pointing intently at Li Chengqian's arrogant projection.

"You're insane...you're absolutely insane!"

The voice, excessively hoarse and shrill, echoed throughout the hall.

"Your Highness! You're entrusting our lives to this soulless machine! We are shareholders; you can't be so dictatorial!"