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

The deafening noise outside the Cyberspace Administration of China was filtered into a muffled low-frequency hum by the thick physical wave shield of the Taiji Hall.

In the real world...

Li Shimin, inside a side hall of the Daming Palace, was wearing a custom-made, golden holographic helmet.

He was in a state of near-obsessive excitement.

He was excitedly running wildly through the streets of the virtual Chang'an.

The old man's wide, bright yellow dragon robe was already completely soaked with sweat.

It clung tightly to my chubby back.

He bent over, half-lying on the sandalwood dragon table, completely lacking any decorum.

Two feet clad in black dragon boots were kicking wildly on the white marble floor tiles.

He kicked the precious Persian carpet, a tribute from the Western Regions, until it was covered in messy wrinkles.

The bio-monitoring indicator light on the edge of the helmet was flashing a ghostly green light, representing a soaring heart rate.

"It's falling! It's falling again! Keep smashing it down, damn it!"

Li Shimin slammed his hand heavily on the virtual control panel, letting out a loud, maniacal laugh.

In his retinal holographic projection.

The virtual Pingkangfang, once a prime piece of land where every inch of land was incredibly valuable, and the "No. 1" prime piece of land in Xishi.

The current price has plummeted dramatically.

Those golden characters representing asset value look as if they've been bled dry.

It plummeted to about 10% of its initial offering price.

In the emperor's eyes, this was hardly a crisis.

This was clearly a once-in-a-century gold ingot that had been smashed on his head by all the gods and Buddhas!

The false rumor that the Tian Shu system is about to be forcibly decoupled from real currency has been circulating widely in various black markets.

But can this bullshit rumor fool the poor peasants, let alone his father?

The cyber rules of the Tang Dynasty were all set by his own son, Li Chengqian, by typing on a keyboard in Hawaii.

As long as the Crown Prince doesn't speak.

How could the core land deeds in this virtual world possibly become a pile of useless scrap code?

"This is a golden opportunity bestowed upon me by heaven to buy at rock-bottom prices! These old dogs of the aristocratic families are all terrified!"

Li Shimin's eyes gleamed, and his hands frantically clawed at the air.

"Your Majesty! This old servant begs you! The Ministry of Works just submitted a memorial on spring plowing and irrigation; please at least take a look!"

The old eunuch Wang De knelt beside the cold dragon table.

Holding a thick stack of physical memorials high in his hands, he cried with snot and tears streaming down his face.

"There is a severe drought in Guanzhong, and the displaced people at the bottom of society are all waiting for the imperial court to open the granaries and allocate grain and seeds."

You're using all the national treasury's money to buy these invisible, intangible, glowing fake land plots! Don't you care about the very foundation of the Tang Dynasty?!

"How many copper coins can you earn from spring plowing? Get out of my way! Don't interfere with my efforts to stabilize the market!"

Li Shimin didn't even raise his head, and without any politeness, kicked Wang De, sending him rolling twice on the ground.

The old man's two hands created a dense trail of afterimages on the virtual keyboard.

"That's called capital operation! You rootless old dog, what do you know about bullshit!"

After tonight, half of this virtual Chang'an will have to be changed to the Li family!

"The profit I make will be enough to buy one million fully automated seeding mechs in Guanzhong!"

He not only personally stepped in to buy up all the properties he had acquired.

They even directly opened the military's highest-level top-secret communication channel.

A deafening voice pop-up window crashed directly into the inner courtyard of Duke Su and Duke E.

"Zhijie! Jingde! Stop fucking sleeping!"

Li Shimin roared loudly into the channel, spitting all over the holographic microphone's filter.

"Quickly bring me all the profits from your two arsenals for next year!"

Let's form a royal real estate speculation group tonight.

"By shifting funds from one hand to the other, I will completely devour the schemes thrown out by the Wang family of Taiyuan and the Cui family of Qinghe!"

On the other end of the channel, Cheng Yaojin was shirtless, eating a scallion pancake in the courtyard.

Upon hearing this, Lao Cheng was so frightened that his hand trembled violently.

Half a flatbread fell directly into the swill bucket next to it, splashing up a cloud of sour, smelly water.

"Your Majesty, I, Old Cheng, am just a rough man who only knows how to chop people up, but I also know His Highness the Crown Prince's temper—he can flip tables!"

Cheng Yaojin's voice trembled noticeably, and in the background, the sounds of Madam Cheng smashing pots and bowls could be heard.

"What if His Highness actually physically unplugs the internet cable in Hawaii?"

All the real money we've poured in will just turn into mosaics in the void.

My husband is determined to take my titanium breastplate apart and sell it for scrap metal!

Yuchi Gong echoed in the channel, expressing his desire to use the money to buy physical blast furnace steel.

"Drain my ass! The Tian Shu system is the lifeblood of the Crown Prince's palace. Would Chengqian really want to remove it?"

Li Shimin sternly interrupted his old comrades' attempts to back down, leaving no room for doubt.

He's in a state like a madman who's gone berserk at the gambling table.

"Buy with all your funds! If anything goes wrong, I'll give you the property rights to the Taiji Hall of the Daming Palace! Send me the money now!"

Under such an unassailable and arbitrary system of authority.

Millions of dollars of royal savings and huge dividends from the military were transformed into a massive buying frenzy.

With an overwhelming momentum, it crashed into the market halfway up the mountain.

Li Shimin looked at the rapidly increasing number of virtual land deeds in his account and hummed the tune of "The King of Qin Breaks the Enemy's Formation" with delight.

However, Wu Zetian released a top-secret false message backstage.

Its destructive power completely shattered everyone's psychological defenses.

At this moment, the market's collective panic evolved into a completely irrational cyber avalanche.

The entire collapse, in Li Shimin's retina, was slowed down into a three-second period of desperate torment.

The first second.

Dozens of wealthy merchants from the Western Market collapsed simultaneously, dumping all their leveraged positions.

That green support candlestick chart that was originally holding on tightly.

It emitted a crisp, physical click, like a bowstring snapping.

The green light suddenly dimmed.

They were instantly overwhelmed by a massive stream of red sell orders.

Individual players on the virtual streets began screaming wildly, and some even lined up to jump off buildings in the holographic world.

The second second.

Dozens of long-established aristocratic families, such as the Cui family of Qinghe and the Wang family of Taiyuan.

With a desperate determination to destroy everything, they began a brutal and unscrupulous sell-off.

They didn't even look at the price tag; they simply pressed the physical enter key to clear out the stock at market price.

The entire Tian Shu system's trading center emitted a piercing overload scream.

The temperature warning lights on the motherboard turned a blood red.

The numbers on the screen started jumping wildly.

Those rows of characters representing endless wealth twisted and deformed in a fraction of a millisecond.

Finally, it transformed into a blood-red waterfall cascading vertically downwards, washing over the optic nerves of every gambler.

The market is completely out of control.

The third second.

Land prices plummeted below the rock-bottom price that Li Shimin was so proud of.

There is no support level, and no technical rebound.

That glaring red line was like a heavy iron weight that had fallen into a bottomless abyss.

With a suffocating sense of deathly stillness, it plummeted madly towards the abyss of nothingness.

"This...how is this possible? Raise it back up! Raise it now!"

Li Shimin's pupils suddenly contracted to the size of pinpoints.

His once rosy and plump face lost all color in an instant.

It was as pale as an old sheet of Xuan paper that had been soaked in rain.

He frantically waved his hands, trying to grab the vertically falling holographic red line.

However, no matter how he swiped his finger...

All that remained on the holographic panel were a series of high-frequency flashing red error pop-ups.

"Warning! Your account margin is critically low, triggering the Tian Shu forced liquidation safety net!"

The cold, emotionless mechanical voice of the system echoed mercilessly in the side hall of the Taiji Hall.

Li Shimin watched helplessly as he bought the "Number One in the Heavenly Realm" plot of land, which cost him millions of dollars.

Within a microsecond, the system ruthlessly forced the liquidation of the position.

His total assets amounted to an enormous astronomical figure.

It shrank by more than half in an instant.

Then even their last remaining possessions were trapped, stuck in a dead end where they simply couldn't be sold.

He was firmly trapped halfway up the mountain.

"My money! My personal stash of money!"

Li Shimin let out a shrill scream, like that of a wounded wild beast.

He ripped off the holographic helmet that was burning hot and smoking from his head.

He raised both hands above his head, filled with rage, and slammed them hard onto the hard ground.

A crisp, loud cracking sound of physical shattering.

The priceless custom-made equipment shattered on the white marble floor tiles.

Intricate micro-motherboards and shards of cold, luminous glass flew everywhere, hitting the carpet with dull thuds.

The old man suddenly jumped up from the dragon throne.

He paced back and forth in the side hall like a caged beast that had lost its mind.

The dragon boots trampled the exquisite carpet to shreds.

His chest heaved violently, and each breath he took sounded like a bellows being pulled out of its throes.

His bloodshot dragon eyes were fixed on the shards scattered on the ground.

His eyes were filled with terrifying, fine, spiderweb-like blood vessels.

Changsun Wuji and Fang Xuanling had just arrived from outside.

Upon entering, they were greeted by the emperor's terrifyingly furious state.

The two high-ranking officials, who were used to seeing all kinds of storms, were so frightened that they didn't dare to breathe loudly.

With two thuds, she knelt straight down in the cold draft by the door.

At this moment, the cyber emperor of the Tang Dynasty fully experienced the humiliation of being mercilessly rubbed into the ground by the capital market.

"Investigate! Immediately mobilize the Great Snow Dragon Riders to investigate for me!"

Li Shimin's face turned red, and he kicked over the pure gold incense burner next to him.

Scalding hot ashes were scattered all over the floor, causing the carpet to emit plumes of white smoke.

"Find out which ignorant beast is spreading these rumors, and I will have him skinned alive!"

"We'll throw his entire clan into the blast furnace and boil them into molten steel!"

"Your Majesty, please calm down! Old Cheng was just crying on the channel, saying that his family's breastplate has been smashed to pieces and sold for scrap metal by the Madam..."

Wang De lay on the ground, mustering his courage, and reported in a trembling voice.

"Get him out of my sight! I'm almost bankrupt on the very base of my throne, who's going to compensate me for my hard-earned money?!"

Li Shimin was furious. He turned around abruptly, his beard trembling violently in mid-air.

He now has only one thought on his mind.

No matter who is pulling the strings behind the scenes, he will use his imperial power to physically smash their forehead.

"This old servant will immediately issue the decree to close the city gates!"

Wang De scrambled and crawled away.

Just as Li Shimin was about to unleash a torrent of curses, a forced pop-up window from Hawaii suddenly appeared on his holographic terminal.