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

Hawaiian mornings should be filled with the sound of ocean waves.

But now the only sound in the basement is a buzzing noise that could drive anyone crazy.

Li Chengqian's head had been touching the pillow for less than ten seconds.

The piercing, highest-level air defense siren went straight into his brain through the bone conduction headphones.

He sprang out of bed like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

Suddenly, a huge expanse of golden stars appeared before my eyes.

He kicked the metal bed leg with his left foot.

"hiss--"

He hugged his toe and hopped on one leg twice, wincing in pain.

"Damn it..."

Li Chengqian casually grabbed a pair of black-rimmed anti-radiation goggles from the table and put them on.

To cover up his dark circles that could outlive a panda.

He limped to the control panel.

The entire wall of screens was covered with scarlet warning pop-ups.

13.5 billion Datang Credit Points.

This huge sum of money is like a fat maggot that's had too much to eat, crawling into the system's back door.

The metal panel of the main control panel flashed with a crackling sound.

Wu Zetian's holographic projection was forcibly accessed.

She wasn't wearing her signature blue business suit today.

He was wearing a thick men's woolen overcoat, and his hair was somewhat disheveled.

"Your Highness."

Wu Zetian's voice was accompanied by severe electromagnetic interference.

She opened her mouth to report, but first let out a loud sneeze.

"Achoo... Sorry."

She rubbed her reddened nose.

Several snowflake-like stripes flashed across the edge of the projection.

Li Chengqian pulled over a swivel chair and sat down in an annoyed manner.

"explain."

"I'll give you one minute. After you finish speaking, I'm going to unplug the network cable."

Wu Zetian quickly pushed a stack of holographic reports to the center of the screen.

"The system wasn't hacked."

"It's the Western Regions."

She spoke very quickly, and even bit her tongue once.

"The trade route outside the Anxi Protectorate... is cut off."

Li Chengqian frowned.

He slid the swivel chair forward half a meter, his chest pressed against the control panel.

"If the trade routes are cut off, go find Xu Xiao! Are the Great Snow Dragon Riders' mechs just for show?"

"Go and chop those robbers up with a micro-particle knife!"

"You can't cut the solid part."

Wu Zetian gave a wry smile and pulled up a border map.

The border between the Tang Dynasty and Persia on the map was marked with a glaring black mark.

"They are Persian tycoons, and several large oligarchs from Rome."

"They've joined forces."

"They have built a 'data black wall' around the border."

Li Chengqian reached out and touched the black spot.

A slight damping sensation, simulated by a holographic projection, was felt at my fingertips.

Speak like a human.

"They used ultra-high frequency electromagnetic interference combined with local area network hijacking."

Wu Meiniang took a deep breath.

"Lock up all the navigation protocols for the Tang Dynasty's heavy-duty caravans in the Western Regions."

"Without the Tian Shu system's positioning, caravans entering the sandstorm zone are simply waiting to die."

Li Chengqian chewed away the last bit of sweetness from the cola in his mouth.

"What are they after?"

"Superconducting graphite".

Wu Zetian pulled up a list of the Tang Dynasty's industrial reserves.

The numbers on the list are falling at a visible rate.

The fall was alarming.

The Tang Dynasty has just promulgated the "Virtual Reality Security Law".

It is explicitly stipulated that all virtual economies must be backed by real heavy industries.

To maintain its computing power, the TianShu system requires a massive amount of superconducting graphite to create a cooling coating.

This stuff wasn't produced locally in the Tang Dynasty.

Everything was imported from the Western Regions.

"The Persians had correctly predicted that we had just experienced a brainwave riot."

Wu Meiniang wiped the cold sweat from her face.

"The computing power consumption of the Tian Shu system is too high, and there is an urgent need to replenish the physical ore reserves."

"They cut off the physical supply chain."

Li Chengqian leaned back, and the swivel chair made a soft creaking sound.

He got it.

This is a combo move.

A pure, dimensional reduction short-selling technique.

Those vampires from Rome and Persia have been envious of the enormous profits of the Great Tang Dynasty's Yuan Universe for a long time.

Normally, they are wary of the TianShu system's firewall and dare not confront it directly online.

Now, taking advantage of the fact that the internal strife in the Tang Dynasty has just been quelled.

Weaning can be done physically offline.

"Without superconducting graphite, Chang'an's twelve secondary computing towers would overheat and crash in less than three days."

Wu Zetian continued to deliver bad news.

"The Emperor Emeritus was so anxious just now that he smashed the jade bowl he was drinking tea from."

"So what's the deal with these billions of dollars in speculative capital?"

Li Chengqian pointed to the red numbers that were still scrolling at the top of the screen.

"Because of panic."

Wu Zetian's voice began to tremble.

"Within half an hour of the Black Wall being built, news of the depletion of imported superconducting ore in Datang spread on the underground dark web."

"Overseas capital believes that Datang's digital reserves have become worthless."

"These billions of dollars are all short contracts on the black market for Datang Credit Points."

Li Chengqian remained silent.

The only sound in the basement was the humming of the exhaust fan.

He pulled down the radiation protection goggles that were perched on the bridge of his nose.

The lens slipped down to the tip of his nose.

His eyes were bloodshot.

He suddenly gave a dry laugh.

The laughter sounded somewhat eerie in the empty room.

"interesting."

"I thought these feudal barbarians only knew how to ride camels and shoot arrows."

Li Chengqian reached out and rubbed his numb cheeks.

"They've actually figured out how to use a run on physical resources to wage a trade war."

"Trying to halt my massive digital economy through physical blockades?"

He ripped off his goggles and threw them onto the keyboard.

"My hands are about to break from typing so much."

"They came here to pick up the pieces already?"

Wu Meiniang looked at the Crown Prince, whose face was gloomy, on the screen.

The floral shirt on the screen now looks like a battle robe.

"Your Highness, the market is still falling, and the court's current foreign exchange reserves cannot withstand this scale of market crash."

"Should we order a forced market closure?"

"Shut up."

Li Chengqian suddenly stood up, and in his haste, he kicked over the trash can at his feet.

Empty Coke cans rolled all over the floor, making a clinking noise.

He didn't even look down.

"Closing the market now is telling the world that the Tang Dynasty is out of money."

He braced his hands on the table, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"13.5 billion."

"Since they dared to pour money in through the copper smuggling route."

"Then you can forget about getting this money out of here."

Wu Zetian was stunned for a moment.

"Are you planning to take this dead money?"

"Without the backing of physical mineral resources, when these billions of dollars in short contracts are fulfilled, they will drain the central bank dry!"

"Who says I don't have tangible backing?"

An unpleasant smile tugged at the corners of Li Chengqian's mouth.

"They built a data black wall to block caravans."

"Do they really think that desert in the Western Regions is their backyard?"

He quickly tapped a few times on the control panel.

Retrieve a file package that is normally locked in the highest encryption zone.

The file package name is garbled.

"Tell Li Lao Er."

Li Chengqian's voice was chillingly cold.

"Have him unlock all the reserve energy depots of the Great Snow Dragon Riders outside Chang'an City."

"I'm going to teach the Persians what a true dimensional reduction attack is."

Wu Zetian wanted to ask more questions.

Communication was unilaterally cut off by Li Chengqian.

The holographic light screen went out instantly, and the basement fell into darkness again.

Only the string of short-selling figures in the billions is still flashing red.

at the same time.

On the edge of the vast desert in the Western Regions, thousands of miles away.

The wind whipped up yellow sand, which rustled against the rough rock face.

There were no stars in the sky.

This is an absolutely physical dead zone.

There were no camel bells from the Tang Dynasty caravans, nor the roar of mechs.

But on the leeward side of the dunes.

More than a dozen giant metal towers, each hundreds of meters tall, are embedded in the black rock strata like nails.

These towers are covered with ancient Persian script and intricate energy conduits.

Click.

A dull thud as a mechanical gate closed echoed through the desert.

Followed by.

A deep, rumbling sound of turbines emanated from inside the tallest main tower.

The sound traveled upwards from underground.

The large heat dissipation pipes on the outside of the tower spew out murky, high-temperature exhaust gas.

The top of the first tower lit up with a dark golden light.

It's like a single eye opening in the darkness.

Then came the second and the third.

More than a dozen Persian supercomputing towers have been revived one after another amidst the raging sands.

The dark golden data stream stretched eastward along the thick underground cable.

Every physical passage leading to the Anxi Protectorate was completely locked down.