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

Chang'an. Taiji Hall.

The night breeze squeezed in through the cracks in the window that wasn't closed tightly.

The wind stirred the tassels of several electronic gauze lanterns inside the hall.

Li Shimin did not sleep.

He leaned back on the soft couch, holding a pure gold walnut in his hand, fiddling with it back and forth.

The golden walnuts made a dull cracking sound when rubbed together.

But his gaze wasn't even on that thing.

He stared intently at the semi-transparent holographic terminal screen in front of him.

The screen background is a quiet, deep blue.

A row of green numbers hangs in the very center.

That was the 5 billion Datang physical credit points that had just arrived in his account today.

The old man had been staring at that string of numbers for two hours.

The more I look at it, the more it itches inside me.

During the day, he spent lavishly, buying five thousand tractor-mounted vehicles for the disaster victims.

They also packed half a Pacific Ocean of lobsters for their rebellious son in Hawaii.

He had thought that the exhilarating feeling of spending money like water would allow him to sleep soundly.

When the accounts were settled...

They didn't even spend a fraction of that amount.

Having too much money is also a problem.

Li Shimin muttered something.

He tossed the golden walnut onto the low table, causing the teacup lid to bounce.

He walked barefoot on the thick Persian carpet.

The carpet fibers brushed against the soles of my feet, feeling a bit prickly.

He walked to the window and pushed it open.

A sudden chill swept in, carrying with it the faint smell of coal smoke from Chang'an West Market.

Li Shimin took a deep breath and looked up at the sky.

There are no clouds tonight.

A huge, bright moon hangs in the night sky.

The moonlight was so bright that it made the dilapidated glazed tiles of the Daming Palace appear frosty.

Li Shimin gazed at the moon, which resembled a white jade plate.

Something in my head suddenly went wrong.

There's really nothing left to buy on this lousy Earth.

The Roman Senate has already signed a contract of servitude; all the ports in the Mediterranean belong to him.

The Persian tycoon jumped off a building, and the superconducting mineral vein became the backyard of the Tang Dynasty.

Li Lao Er was bewildered by what he saw on the ground; he had already drawn his sword and looked around.

"Since the earth cannot contain my wealth..."

Li Shimin squinted and made a circle with his hand in the air towards the moon.

"Shouldn't we also do some groundwork in the sky?"

The moment the idea popped into his head, it grew wildly in his mind like weeds.

The Supreme Chairman's ambitions have grown to an extreme.

With 5 billion in physical capital, we can develop a real estate project on the moon and build a royal villa complex.

Wouldn't that elevate the style completely?

"Wang De!"

Li Shimin turned around and shouted so loudly his voice cracked.

The old eunuch, who had been dozing off outside the door, almost collapsed.

He scrambled in through the door, half of the whisk's feathers gone.

"This old servant is here! What are your orders, Your Majesty?"

"Go! Bring Wu Meiniang to me!"

Li Shimin was so excited that he kept rubbing his hands together.

"Hurry! Tell her to bring the abacus and the blueprints!"

Half an hour later.

The door to the side hall was pushed open.

Wu Zetian walked in with two huge dark circles under her eyes.

She didn't even have time to put on her official robes properly.

He had haphazardly draped a gray fox fur coat over his clothes, but underneath he was still wearing his plain-colored undergarment, which he wore to sleep in.

Her hair was casually tied back with a wooden hairpin.

I just finished cleaning up the mess left by the aristocratic family after several sleepless nights.

She thought she could finally get a good night's sleep tonight.

I had just closed my eyes when I was startled awake by the sound of banging on the door.

"His Majesty……"

Wu Meiniang rubbed her sore eyes, her voice filled with resentment.

"In the middle of the night, has the Turkic people attacked again? Or has a blast furnace in the West Market exploded?"

"That's way more exciting!"

Li Shimin paid no attention to the female steward's resentment.

Like a naive young boy who had discovered a new continent, he grabbed Wu Zetian's sleeve.

He pulled her to the window.

"Meiniang, look what's that?" Li Shimin pointed to the sky.

Wu Meiniang suppressed the urge to yawn and looked in the direction he was pointing.

"The moon."

She thought the emperor might have been too traumatized during the day and was a little out of his mind.

"It's quite bright. Tomorrow should be a good day, suitable for disaster victims to go to the fields for spring plowing."

"What's the point of spring plowing!"

Li Shimin impatiently slapped the windowsill.

"I'm showing you the land above!"

Wu Zetian was stunned.

The last vestiges of sleepiness were instantly scared away by those four words.

"Land?"

"right!"

Li Shimin returned to his desk and picked up a writing brush.

He haphazardly drew a large circle on the rice paper, and then drew several squares in the middle.

"The Earth is too small now, not worthy of my five billion-strong vision."

The old man pointed to the drawing that looked like scribbles.

"I'm thinking, since the moon is basically enjoying the Tang Dynasty's night sky for free every night..."

"Then it should be the history of the Tang Dynasty!"

Wu Zetian felt her blood pressure starting to spike.

"I have made my decision."

Li Shimin slammed his fist on the paper, spitting everywhere.

"We're going to build a massive interstellar project on this!"

"Let's call it... The First Phase Royal Villa Real Estate Development Project of the Great Tang Guanghan Palace!"

The side hall was deathly silent.

Wu Meiniang stared at Li Shimin with her mouth agape, as if she were looking at a madwoman.

She took two deep breaths.

Trying to use reason to pull this runaway horse back.

"Your Majesty, have you been drinking counterfeit alcohol?"

She's almost forgotten how to use honorifics.

"That's the moon! It's 380,000 kilometers away from us!"

"That's where Chang'e lived in mythology—it's a vacuum! There's no air!"

"Stop spouting those feudal superstitions at me!"

Li Shimin interrupted her without any politeness.

"That brat Chengqian just gave me a lesson during the day!"

"What gods and monsters? They're all just a few lines of broken code!"

The old man got more and more excited as he talked.

"Chang'e is nothing! If Chang'e really existed, I'd have her serve tea and wash clothes for the miners of the Tang Dynasty!"

"That big, dumb geezer Wu Gang, who's always chopping down trees, should be reassigned to the assembly line to tighten screws!"

He pointed at the bright moon outside the window and laughed wildly.

"I want all the osmanthus trees up there cut down!"

"Replace it with our Tang Dynasty's most advanced superconducting steelmaking furnace!"

"I also want to build a panoramic glass villa with a view of the Milky Way!"

Wu Meiniang pressed her throbbing temples.

She felt that it was pointless to talk about science with this old man.

"His Majesty."

Wu Zetian lowered her voice and posed the most crucial question.

"Even if you have money, our Great Tang's rocket technology is still in the early stages of development."

"To build a villa on the moon, we would need to lay extremely high-strength carbon nanotubes and create anti-gravity tunnels."

"This falls under the category of interstellar infrastructure."

She paused, then spoke slowly and deliberately.

"This requires using the highest physical access level of the Tian Shu system."

Li Shimin waved his hand.

"Then go and apply for access! Aren't you the one who usually manages the Crown Prince's system?"

"I do not have that authority."

Wu Meiniang gave a bitter smile and spread her hands.

"In the entire Tang Dynasty, only His Highness the Crown Prince, who holds the chief planning authority, can unlock this module."

The air fell silent once more.

The fervor on Li Shimin's face froze.

He recalled the warning his rebellious son, who was far away in Hawaii, had given him during their video call earlier that day.

"He said... he needs to sunbathe this month, so you absolutely can't turn off his electricity."

Li Shimin scratched the back of his neck, which was a little itchy.

"Not only can't we turn off the power."

Wu Zetian delivered the finishing blow at the opportune moment.

"His Highness's exact words were, 'Whoever dares to disturb his vacation, he will hang them on the lightning rod of the Taiji Hall to dry in the wind.'"

The old man hesitated.

The image of Li Chengqian's furious expression when he smashed the Changsheng cabinet flashed through my mind.

But then I glanced at the long figure of five billion on the holographic screen.

I glanced again at the alluring white planet outside the window.

The nouveau riche's confidence ultimately overcame his fear of his rebellious son.

"What's there to be afraid of!"

Li Shimin gritted his teeth and slammed his hand on the table.

"I am the Supreme Chairman! He is my son!"

"I'm using my own dividends to invest in infrastructure; that's called stimulating domestic demand for heavy industry in the Tang Dynasty!"

He pointed at Wu Meiniang's nose.

"You, go and draft a project proposal now."

"Don't worry about whether he's asleep or not, just send it to him through the highest level of encryption!"

Wu Zetian sighed.

She knew there was no way to persuade him; once the old man got stubborn, not even ten oxen could stop him.

She walked helplessly to the control panel on the side.

Pull out the virtual keyboard.

The sound of typing on the keyboard was particularly crisp in the quiet side room.

An outrageous document titled "Application for Phase I Project of Datang Guanghan Palace Interstellar Real Estate and Lunar Blast Furnace Laying".

Rapid prototyping on a light screen.

Wu Zetian's finger hovered over the red send button.

There was a two-second pause.

She could almost see the magnitude 12 tsunami about to erupt on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

"Send it," Li Shimin urged from behind.

clack.

Press down with your finger.

The data packet is transformed into a high-frequency signal.

Following the deep-sea fiber optic cable, we sped towards Hawaii.

……

Across the Pacific Ocean.

On a private white sand beach in Hawaii.

The night was deep.

The sea breeze, carrying warmth and moisture, stirred the huge parasols.

Li Chengqian lay on a canvas chair.

He was already asleep.

His breathing was even, and his chest rose and fell steadily.

The floral shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a large expanse of skin.

Inside the red insulated box next to it.

The ice had melted into a puddle of warm water.

A leftover Boston lobster shell lay on the sand.

This attracted several small white crabs that crawled around the area.

There are no error messages in the code here, and no scandalous affairs of powerful families.

The only sound is the white noise of the ocean waves.

Everything was so quiet.

That perfectly fits a salted fish's definition of a holiday.

until--

drop------!!!

A piercing red alert, reserved for the highest level of interstellar physics infrastructure authorization.

Without any warning.

It exploded directly on the quiet beach.