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

Buzz—Boom!

It was 3:45 AM at midnight.

On Suzaku Avenue, which should have been completely silent.

Suddenly, a deafening, violent engine roar erupted.

The sound was unlike the deep electromagnetic hum of a regular levitation shuttle in the Tian Shu system.

It had a rough metallic scraping sound and the popping sound of unburned black oil.

Like a steel beast suffering from asthma running wildly through the streets.

The vibrations caused the wooden windows of the shops on both sides to rattle loudly.

The rear palace of Taiji Hall.

Li Shimin was lying on the large dragon bed.

In his dream, he was inspecting the farming mechs that he had bought with his own dividends, which were now majestically clearing land on the Guanzhong Plain.

I was suddenly startled awake by the thunderous roar.

The old man sat up abruptly, his head hitting the bedpost, and he gasped in pain.

"Wang De! What's going on outside? Is there a fire or have the Turks attacked?"

Li Shimin pulled a bright yellow outer robe over his shoulders and jumped off the bed barefoot.

Wang De stumbled in, carrying a lantern.

"Your Majesty... there's no fire, it seems... there are people racing cars in the street."

"Racing?"

Li Shimin's eyes widened.

There is an underground black market for hover shuttle racing in the Tang Dynasty, but this sound definitely doesn't belong to a light vehicle.

He strode into the side hall and slammed his hand on the holographic control panel.

"Get me the surveillance footage from Suzaku Avenue!"

The screen lights up.

In night vision mode, the wide bluestone pavement of Zhuque Avenue is clearly visible.

In the picture.

Three oddly shaped heavy tracked vehicles are speeding recklessly down the street.

It was so fast that it left afterimages.

The first vehicle jerked its steering wheel sharply while cornering, its heavy metal tracks scraping against the bluestone slabs.

It sparked a large patch of dazzling orange-red sparks.

The screeching sound of drifting tires pierced through the screen.

Li Shimin leaned closer to the screen and took a closer look.

His old face instantly turned a deep liver color.

Those three tracked vehicles speeding around were not racing cars at all.

Instead, it was the latest agricultural farming mech that he had just commissioned from Shaolin Temple a few days ago at a huge cost!

The rear compartment, originally used to hang plows and harrows, was brutally cut off.

The anti-skid tires used to grip the muddy ground were replaced with bare track tracks.

The most outrageous.

Two massive, abandoned military jet engines were welded onto the rear of the vehicle.

It was spewing out a long blue tail flame.

"This...this is my tractor?"

Li Shimin's finger was trembling as he pointed at the screen.

"The farming mechs that I bought for ten million each, the paint isn't even dry yet."

"These unruly commoners took the plows and harrows off my back and are now racing cars in the streets?!"

The old man was so distressed that he trembled.

He's doing charity work, he's helping the poor!

As a result, these ordinary people got the mechs and immediately sent them to an underground repair shop.

They started this kind of cyberpunk-style modified black market.

In the surveillance footage.

Inside the cockpit of the lead modified mecha sat a young, unassuming man with dyed green hair.

He was holding the steering wheel with one hand and sticking the other hand out of the window.

He made a cocky gesture at the roadside surveillance camera.

"They've rebelled! They've all fucking rebelled!"

Enraged, Li Shimin kicked over the pure gold incense burner next to him.

"These good-for-nothings! They're just wasting their time!"

"Wang De! Convey my imperial edict to the Court of Judicial Review!"

"Citywide manhunt! Shut down all underground cybernetic implant and mecha modification shops!"

"If you catch these little brats who've tampered with my tractor, break all their legs and send them to Lingnan to grow sugarcane!"

On Suzaku Avenue.

The green-haired young man had no idea that he had been warmly greeted by the Supreme Chairman of the Tang Dynasty in front of the screen.

He floored the accelerator.

The roar of the engine was almost deafening.

He was enjoying the ultimate thrill of transforming the government's cumbersome farm tools into street beasts.

However, this overclocking module, which was forcibly cracked by the hacker Lao Wai using an abacus, is itself full of underlying logical conflicts.

It stripped away the speed-limiting protection umbrella of the Tian Shu system.

It was entirely due to the driver's physical skill in maintaining the balance.

"Cool!"

The young man shouted excitedly.

Just then, there was a sharp 90-degree turn ahead.

Turn around and you'll see the moat of the imperial city.

He jerked the steering wheel and simultaneously pulled the physical handbrake, which was made from a piece of wire.

Click!

A crisp metallic snapping sound rang out in the cockpit.

The steering shaft that Lao Wai welded from secondhand scrap steel couldn't withstand such violent centrifugal force.

It broke off completely.

The mecha instantly lost control.

Like a runaway bull, it charged straight toward the stone bridge railing of the moat.

"Old Wai! The brakes have failed!"

The young man was terrified and screamed wildly into the communicator.

In the underground secret room of Chang'an West Market.

Old Wai was sitting in front of that huge rosewood abacus, monitoring the mecha's operational data.

Hearing the screams over the walkie-talkie, cold sweat instantly broke out on his forehead.

"Don't panic! I'll remotely cut off the engine output!"

Old Wai slammed his hands down on the abacus.

His ten fingers frantically moved the abacus beads.

But he panicked so much that his hand trembled.

The thumb moved an extra bead on a calculation bar that represented the core of the underlying logic.

Snapped.

A faint sound of wood colliding.

For the underlying binary code.

The difference made by even a single bead can be enormous.

The data packet originally intended to cut off engine commands instantly turned into a string of illogical and fatal overclocking gibberish.

The string of gibberish followed the thin copper wires connecting the abacus.

They burrowed into the underground pipe network of Chang'an City.

It didn't speed towards the out-of-control tractor on Zhuque Street.

Instead, it follows an unattended underlying physical channel.

Unexpectedly, it sped straight towards the backbone network of the Datang Tian Shu system.