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

Sunlight streamed down through the cracks in the clouds.

Li Shimin stood on the high jade steps of the Taiji Hall, carrying the chipped Tian Ce sword.

The cold wind blew the hem of his tattered casual clothes.

He ignored the blood and grime on his body and quietly looked down at the entire city of Chang'an.

The gaze passes over the towering red walls of the imperial city.

On Suzaku Street.

The terrifying black and red electromagnetic chains from last night are gone.

There were also no out-of-control or berserk security mechs.

Instead, there was a dense, swarming flow of people, like an ant colony.

Those were countless ordinary people and refugees who spontaneously took to the streets.

They were dressed in rough linen clothes and carried no weapons.

Some carried hoes, while others pushed wheelbarrows loaded with anthracite coal.

They poured out from all the wards and markets of Chang'an.

They converge into vibrant torrents.

Some people headed towards the vast fields outside the city, preparing to resume the interrupted spring plowing.

Many more people flocked to the vast heavy industrial area in the western part of the city.

The massive blast furnace chimneys began spewing out thick white smoke again.

The heavy forging hammer made a rhythmic clanging sound.

Those were workers adding coal into the furnace.

They are cleaning up the wreckage of the mechs destroyed last night and remelting the steel.

This sound wasn't as crisp and pleasant as the synthesized sound from the Tian Shu system.

It was even somewhat noisy and harsh.

But after experiencing that illusory dream of immortality that almost destroyed the entire Tang Dynasty.

To Li Shimin, the rough industrial noise was more pleasing than any celestial music in the world.

"His Majesty."

Heavy footsteps sounded behind me.

Cheng Yaojin, Yuchi Gong, and Niu Jinda.

These top veteran generals of the Tang Dynasty, having fought countless battles, helped each other out of the main hall.

They were wounded and panting heavily.

He was still clutching the hardwood rafter he had used in the hand-to-hand combat the night before, and the deformed bronze incense burner.

They looked like a group of old thugs who had just crawled out of a pile of corpses.

Cheng Yaojin walked to the edge of the jade steps.

He watched as the displaced people and migrants flocked from the city to the workshops and farmlands.

Looking at the billowing white smoke rising into the sky.

The old general was taken aback for a moment.

He touched his bald head, which was scratched by the laser, and winced in pain.

then.

He suddenly grinned and let out a rough, maniacal laugh.

"Hahahaha!"

Cheng Yaojin laughed so hard he almost fell over, causing his wounds to bleed again.

He threw the hardwood rafter he was using as a spear far away.

The wooden stick crashed into the plaza below the jade steps and broke in two.

"I thought the Tang Dynasty was doomed!"

He pointed at the men pushing coal carts and laughed until tears streamed down his face.

"Look at those peasants!"

"As long as these peasants are still blacksmithing and farming!"

"What kind of gods and monsters are these? What kind of bullshit code are these?"

"It's all bullshit!"

Yuchi Gong also smiled.

He threw the heavy, gilded incense burner on the ground.

A muffled "bang" was heard.

A piece of white marble floor tile was shattered by the impact.

"Old Cheng is right!"

Yuchi Heizi took deep breaths of the air, which smelled of coal smoke.

"What's the point of killing someone!"

"Seeing the blast furnaces of this great Tang Dynasty start smoking again is far more satisfying than cutting off the enemy's head!"

The veterans threw away their ridiculous makeshift weapons.

They were no longer on edge.

Looking at this vibrant industrial landscape.

These old men, who had spent their lives fighting amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, laughed like children.

Li Shimin stood at the very front.

Hearing the wild laughter of his old buddies behind him.

He glanced down at the Tian Ce sword in his hand.

This knife.

It represents the era of cold weapons, where warhorses and spears were used to conquer the world.

This represents his abundant martial virtue, which allowed him to ascend the throne at all costs, even by stepping over the corpses of his brothers.

But now.

The times have changed.

Regardless of those powerful families who attempt to achieve immortality through metaphysics and fake code.

It was still that same tyrannical founding emperor who was superstitious about force and almost got himself killed.

After experiencing this absurd and tragic cyber backlash.

Everyone should wake up.

No matter how dazzling the technology is.

No matter how perfect, quantum computing can never simulate a divine being's body.

The heel of the Tang Dynasty.

We must, and can only, tread upon the real sweat and mud of these migrant men.

Stepping on the molten iron and the roaring blast furnace.

It lacks physical support.

All the virtual prosperity, all the self-deceiving immortality.

They were all soap bubbles that would burst at the slightest touch.

"yes."

Li Shimin looked up at the clear blue sky after it had been washed.

A single, cloudy tear slid down the corner of her eye.

He smiled.

He laughed with complete relief.

Let bygones be bygones.

Li Shimin raised his hand.

Without hesitation, without lingering attachment.

He threw the Tian Ce sword, which had been with him for most of his life, heavily to the ground.

clang!

A crisp metallic clang.

The steel blade struck the hard white marble steps.

The already chipped blade could no longer withstand the final impact.

It was broken in two right in the middle.

A piece of knife tip tumbled down the steps and landed in the mud.

That crisp sound.

It's like a pause in an era.

The old era, where martial virtue was abundant and all problems were solved with swords.

At this moment.

It was thrown to the ground by the Emperor of Tang himself, and the chapter was turned over completely.

"Walk."

Li Shimin turned around without looking at the broken sword.

He looked at Wu Meiniang walking out of the palace, and Fang Xuanling holding the court hat.

His tone was firm and left no room for argument.

"Return to the palace and sign."

"Distribute all the mines and blast furnaces owned by the powerful families to the lower-level workers!"

"The Great Tang Dynasty has no need for those bloodsucking powerful clans!"

The Tang Dynasty officially declared its departure from barbarism.

The shadow of pure force and feudal superstition was completely swept away.

The heavy hammer of industry, and the cyber rule of law established by the Tian Shu system.

These two sets of enormous double gears.

On this early morning at the end of winter, they meshed completely.

It began to emit the most powerful and unstoppable roar in the entire history of the empire.