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

Inside the Taiji Palace, Li Shimin was holding a gleaming golden holographic helmet, grinning like a cunning old fox who had just stolen a chicken. The anonymous buyer was none other than him.

Golden candlelight flickered gently on the fine red silk curtains.

The light made the old man's dignified, wrinkled face look like it had the mischievousness of a playful old man.

He lingered and touched the holographic shell in his arms.

The titanium alloy casing is emitting a faint warmth due to prolonged high-load operation.

Li Shimin chuckled foolishly as he pressed the offline disconnect button.

Recalling the extreme maneuver he had just performed in the metaverse, every capillary in his body expanded with excitement.

The exhilarating feeling of kicking those arrogant families to the ground with a huge sum of 50 million.

It brought back the overwhelming sense of pride he felt when he personally led the elite black-armored cavalry to annihilate Xue Rengao's 100,000-strong army in the Battle of Qianshuiyuan.

"That felt great! It really felt great!"

Li Shimin tugged at his bright red collar, stepped onto the exquisite Persian carpet with his right foot, and let out a low, satisfying growl.

In the real Tang Dynasty, he, as the father, had long been strangled by Li Chengqian's various new laws.

The Great Snow Dragon Rider's physical push button privileges have been taken away.

Every transaction in the national treasury must be subject to digital auditing by the central bank.

His former identity as an absolute cyber tyrant has become a mere figurehead of honor displayed on the table, constrained by the rules and regulations of the real economy.

He wanted to expand the physical hot spring pool at Huaqing Palace, but that old rascal Wei Zheng's spittle could drown him on the spot.

But it's different in the metaverse.

In this second Chang'an city, composed of zeros and ones, there are no constraints from the new laws of the Tang Dynasty, nor are there restrictions from labor laws.

He is the chairman of Datang, who has the highest independent settlement authority.

In this virtual world, he discovered that he could finally bypass the supervision of the Eastern Palace and rediscover the pure pleasure that a local tyrant should have.

"Your Majesty, you...you're using the nation's emergency credits to squander on nothing!"

The old eunuch Wang Dezheng knelt beside the imperial desk, holding a stack of dusty military memorials in his hands, his voice trembling and choked with sobs.

His wrinkled hands gripped the folds tightly.

He was so heartbroken that the two large veins on his neck bulged violently, and his face was as white as a sheet of paper under the light.

"This old servant has examined it. In reality, that piece of land is just a stinking ditch on the outskirts of the West Market. How could it be worth fifty million in the box?"

"Bullshit! Do you even know anything about how capital works, you old dog?"

Li Shimin slapped the armrest of the dragon throne, causing the pure gold openwork incense burner on it to emit a crisp metallic resonance.

He glared at Wang De with disdain and casually pulled over a miniature calculator.

"This is called transferring money from one pocket to the other. When I buy my own land, the credit points are simply transferred from the central bank's left pocket to its right pocket."

However, the price of this "number one" land was made an ironclad case by me!

If the Wang and Lu families want to build their ancestral halls in the Second Chang'an Lane, they'll have to give me 55 million to take over. It's like a game of musical chairs!

In order to completely snowball this virtual real estate market.

Li Shimin even announced the formation of the mysterious "Tang Dynasty Royal Real Estate Speculation Group" in his inner chamber.

Not only did he personally participate, but he also used an encrypted channel overnight to pull all the military leaders, including Cheng Yaojin and Yuchi Gong, who had some spare cash, into a secret channel.

These rough men had their wallets emptied by the factory owners' profit dividends in real life.

Upon hearing that land in the metaverse could double in value, they all turned red-eyed, looking like a pack of cyber wolves who had smelled blood.

"Yaojin, tomorrow night, sweep up all thirty of those 'top-tier' plots of land on the south side of the West Market!"

Li Shimin held a pure gold back scratcher in his hand, gesturing wildly on the virtual map.

His expression lacked the profoundness of the Tang emperor, but possessed a madness and mercenary nature unique to black market dealers.

"As long as our Royal Real Estate Speculation Group locks up all the prime locations, in a few days those foreign merchants and factory owners will realize what's happening. Even if we sell to them for ten times the price, they'll be begging for money!"

This absurd comedic effect, in the following days, turned into a farce that left people both laughing and crying in the inner chambers of the Taiji Palace.

Dozens of urgent memorials from all over the country piled up on the desk, all concerning water conservancy allocations for spring plowing in Guanzhong.

But Li Shimin didn't even glance at it.

He wears that bright blue holographic helmet every day.

He was sprawled out on the dragon table, his butt sticking out, his hands gesturing wildly in the air, haggling fiercely with several anonymous merchants in the game over a two-square-meter virtual shop space.

"Three points! If you're short even a penny, I'll permanently shut down your holographic shop!"

Li Shimin's roar echoed throughout the silent side hall, and cold sweat dripped from his forehead onto the pure gold control panel, splashing out tiny droplets of water.

Wei Zheng's voice requesting an audience outside the palace had been ringing out for a full three hours.

But the old man simply used the system's one-click blocking function.

All the physical sound waves from that Imperial Wei troll were treated as garbage data and isolated outside the Taiji Palace's outer wall wave shield.

Wang De was heartbroken to see his emperor scrimping and saving on the public internet for a few hundred virtual credits.

He wiped away his tears forcefully, muttering unconsciously in the darkness.

The emperor of the Tang Dynasty disregarded the stability of his empire in reality.

He had actually become a sub-landlord inside a glowing box. The absurdity of this technological leap was almost driving the old eunuch's ancient rationality to the brink of madness.

However, simply speculating on land is no longer enough to satisfy these enthusiasts who are addicted to the virtual world.

After the land frenzy of the past few days, the powerful families of Chang'an City...

The liquid funds in everyone's hands have begun to bottom out to varying degrees.

In order to inlay two virtual sapphires into his family's holographic gate, the patriarch of the Wang family has begun to sell off entire sections of his real-world warhorse feed workshop.

The overcapacity crisis has been temporarily alleviated at the financial level.

However, this simple data cable tinkering has reached a bottleneck and is showing signs of coming to a standstill.

Until one morning five days later.

On the holographic screen outside the Daming Palace, accompanied by a slight primordial electrical noise, a brand-new upgrade announcement from the Eastern Palace completely shattered the peace of the capital.

Li Chengqian sat under a Hawaiian parasol, watching the gradual slowdown in capital inflows into the stock market.

A wicked, cold smile curled up at the corner of his mouth once again.

That was a second-level destructive money-making tool that he specifically designed at the system's bottom layer to target the spiritual vanity of the wealthy in the Tang Dynasty.

[The first phase of the Tang Dynasty Universe: Cyber ​​Virtual Appearances, now available!]

The exquisite painting displayed in the announcement was precisely projected into the eye of every citizen of the Tang Dynasty within a microsecond via a quantum channel.

"Want your holographic projection to radiate supreme golden light in the Second Chang'an?"

Li Chengqian's languid voice slowly echoed on the public internet.

"Want your warhorse to leave a plasma spark trail as it runs?"

The "Radiant Armor of the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty" is a purely digital creation, with only 99 sets available online.

Officially going on sale tomorrow night at midnight. Wearing it, you'll be the coolest kid in the digital world.

The sheer power of this brand-new illuminated character shell instantly caused the entire royal real estate speculation group inside the Taiji Hall to stop pushing the levers in their hands.

Li Shimin took off his helmet and looked at the virtual appearance on the screen that was radiating colorful divine light and looked a hundred times more majestic than his own dragon robe.

His initial smugness from speculating on real estate was instantly shattered into dust by a new, intense desire born of boundless vanity.

His dragon eyes widened as he stared intently at the limited-edition flowing light armor, his heart pounding like a war drum for the entire minute.

However, simply speculating on land was no longer enough to satisfy these enthusiasts addicted to the virtual world. A few days later, Li Chengqian launched an even more lethal money-making tool—"cyber virtual appearances."