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

A side hall of the Taiji Hall.

Li Shimin waved his hand, signaling the eunuchs and palace maids serving him to step back.

Close the door as well.

The old eunuch Wang De quietly closed the door.

Only the embers in the stove remained in the side hall, emitting a faint crackling sound.

Li Shimin got up and walked to the holographic terminal covered with yellow silk.

He did not ask Wu Meiniang to do it for him.

Instead, he clumsily typed in that long string of password.

Fingerprints and retina were verified.

The screen lights up.

After a few beeps, the call was connected.

Images of underground safe houses in Hawaii popped up.

Li Chengqian was sitting in the main control chair.

Holding a screwdriver, he was disassembling an old graphics card.

He was wearing anti-static gloves.

My bangs were messy and looked a bit greasy from staying up late.

I saw Li Shimin appear on the screen.

Li Chengqian did not launch into a tirade as he usually did.

He only glanced up once, but didn't stop what he was doing.

"What's up?"

His voice was calm, without the rage he displayed when he smashed the stock and pulled the power switch.

Li Shimin did not get angry.

Having experienced the ordeal at the Lishan Underground Palace.

Looking at his rebellious son, who was now far away across the ocean, he felt an indescribable mix of emotions.

He pulled up a chair and sat down.

The old man wasn't wearing formal attire today; his casual clothes were a bit wrinkled.

He didn't put on airs like an emperor.

Like an ordinary old man next door who has experienced the pain of losing a friend.

"Chengqian."

Li Shimin's voice was somewhat hoarse.

"I have just seen Fu Ji's body and am preparing for his encoffining."

"The imperial physician said that his organs were rapidly failing due to the backlash from the high-voltage current."

Li Shimin swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

"When he died... his face was completely contorted."

"He looked like he aged ten years in an instant."

"Such a shrewd person, just turned into a pile of rotten flesh."

Li Chengqian threw the removed graphics card onto the table with a crisp clang.

"He brought it on himself."

"Physical death is irreversible."

"He insisted on using such violent methods to burn his brain, so his gruesome death was inevitable."

Li Shimin looked at his son's young and calm face on the screen.

He instinctively gripped the chair armrests with both hands.

The wooden handrail creaked as it was squeezed.

"I know it's fake."

"I know that there is no immortality in that box, only the Trojan Horse deception of the Gongshu family."

Li Shimin's voice began to tremble.

It carried a deep, unshakeable fear.

"But...I am not reconciled."

The old man stared intently at the screen, his eyes reddening.

"I conquered this impregnable empire and created the Great Tang Dynasty."

"In the end, am I destined to be nothing more than an auxiliary machine?"

"With a kick of the legs, he turns into a skeleton in the mud?"

He took a deep breath.

He finally asked the ultimate question that had been weighing on his mind.

"Chengqian, tell me."

"If you say that consciousness cannot be separated from the body, then there is no soul in code."

"Where exactly is immortality?"

Inside the underground safe house.

Li Chengqian took off his anti-static gloves.

He casually tossed it on the table.

He turned his chair around to face the screen directly.

He didn't mock the old man as a feudal bumpkin, as he usually did.

He didn't roll his eyes either.

Because he knew.

This is the physical law that every carbon-based life form faces when confronting death and time, the ultimate law of nature.

The despairing questions that arise in everyone.

"Immortality?"

Li Chengqian leaned back in his chair.

He reached out and pressed a button on the main control panel.

The holographic screen was split in two.

On the left is Li Shimin's old face, etched with fear.

On the right, the screen switched to the synchronous monitoring screen of Datang's near-Earth orbit.

In the picture.

The massive "Great Tang Great Wall" space station, constructed from titanium alloys and carbon fiber.

It hovers silently in the dark depths of space.

Hundreds of heavy industrial mining ships spewed blue plasma tail flames.

Like industrious worker ants.

Traveling between lunar mines and space stations.

On the Earth's surface, twelve supercomputing towers, each thousands of feet tall, radiate dazzling light.

It supports that cyber world called Tian Shu.

Li Chengqian pointed to the image on the screen.

His voice was deep, yet carried a cold, metallic quality.

"Li Lao Er, take a look at these."

"You feel like you're having your brainwaves etched into a piece of code and looping in the background like an idiot."

"Is that called immortality?"

You're wrong.

"In the cyber age, that kind of thing is not even worth garbage."

Li Shimin looked at the magnificent steel creations on the screen.

stunned.

"Then... what is it?"

"The continuation of civilization and the inheritance of technology."

Li Chengqian spoke slowly and deliberately.

There are no lofty sermons, only hardcore physical logic.

"The flesh will die; this is a law of death established by the second law of thermodynamics."

"Even if you poured all of the Tang Dynasty's national treasury into it, you still couldn't change the result of entropy increase."

"but."

Li Chengqian pointed to the huge space station in the picture.

"The heavy-duty blast furnace you ordered to be built."

"The Virtual Reality Security Law you issued."

"The foundation of the Tang Dynasty's heavy industry was built with the sweat of thirty million refugees."

"These things are real."

"As long as those twelve supercomputers are still running."

"As long as the mechs of the Great Tang are still mining in the Western Regions."

"As long as the Tian Shu system continues to maintain order in this world."

Li Chengqian looked at the old man's somewhat dazed eyes.

"Then, even a thousand or ten thousand years from now."

"Everyone knows about these underlying physical and digital rules."

"It was a feudal old man named Li Shimin who forcibly created it."

"This is the only cyber immortality in this universe."

In the side hall.

Li Shimin stared blankly at the screen.

Looking at those heavy industrial spaceships belching out plumes of flame.

The string in my mind is always on edge.

That string that was stretched to its limit by the extreme fear of death.

Suddenly I felt relieved.

He recalled the hand that Changsun Wuji had used to grab his sleeve before he died.

I recall the muddy feet of refugees in the farmland outside the city.

I recalled the molten iron that had just spewed out again in Wang Bancheng's workshop.

Yes.

Those cold, hard numbers are worthless.

This is real land beneath my feet, and these are roaring mechs.

That is the true legacy that Li Shimin left to the Tang Dynasty.

"Hahaha……"

Li Shimin suddenly laughed.

The laughter changed from a low, muffled thud to a boisterous roar.

I laughed until I cried.

"Excellent! What a wonderful continuation of civilization!"

He suddenly stood up.

A slap landed on the casing of the holographic terminal.

"I've lived a worthwhile life!"

He felt that the stone that had been pressing on his chest for so many days had finally shattered completely.

The old man felt relieved.

He was going to say something nice to his son and praise him.

Just then.

The laughter hadn't stopped.

The main screen of the Hawaiian safe house.

On the terminal in the Taiji Hall.

At the same time, a huge red warning box popped up.

The piercing alarm instantly shattered this rare moment of warmth.

[WARNING: Abnormal vibrations detected deep within the plate]

[Location: 300 kilometers underground of Chang'an City, mantle fault]

[Energy Level: Exceeds the safety threshold of the Tian Shu system]

Li Chengqian's expression changed instantly.

He lunged at the keyboard.

But the alert did not originate from the cyber network.

Instead, it comes from the most authentic physical geological radar.