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

The four words "Xu Xiao" carried a chilling aura that seemed to emanate from a grave, instantly freezing the last vestige of hope in the air of the square.

"To cut the weeds...and to pull them out at the root?"

Lu Zhaolin trembled all over, as if his spine had been removed, and collapsed into the mud.

But he quickly sprang up from the ground like a mad dog whose tail had been stepped on, his hair disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, pointing at Li Chengqian on horseback, and letting out a hysterical roar.

"You can't kill us!"

"Li Chengqian! You are cutting yourself off from the world!"

"Our five surnames and seven clans have a thousand-year-old heritage, with disciples and former officials spread throughout the court and the countryside! We are the ones who hold up half of the Tang Dynasty! If you kill us, who will govern the country for the Li family? Who will govern the people for the court?"

Lu Zhaolin became more and more agitated as he spoke, seemingly trying to dispel the fear that was spreading deep within his heart with his deafening roar.

"The law does not apply to high-ranking officials! This is an ancestral law! A rule established by the sages!"

"We are the gentry! We are scholars! We are the backbone of this world!"

"If you dare to resort to private punishment and slaughter scholars, you will be infamous for eternity! The historians will portray you as a tyrannical ruler even more cruel than Jie and Zhou!"

These words, though they sounded like the ravings of a dying man, did indeed ignite the last spark of hope in the hearts of the others.

Yes.

They were from aristocratic families.

For the past thousand years, this identity has been a get-out-of-jail-free card.

No matter how dynasties changed or who the emperor was, no one ever dared to put a knife to the throats of aristocratic families and wipe them out completely.

"Yes! We are an aristocratic family!"

"We want to see His Majesty! We want to go to the Taiji Hall to seek justice!"

"The Crown Prince is tyrannical! He has indiscriminately killed innocent people!"

A group of "respectable people" who were just trembling with fear now seemed to have found their backbone. They stood tall and tried to use their so-called "ancestral rules" and "regulations" to overpower the eight-year-old boy in front of them.

Li Chengqian, mounted on his horse, looked down at the chaotic clowns dancing wildly.

He didn't speak.

Even the expression on his face didn't change at all.

He just watched quietly, his gaze as if he were looking at a group of pigs wallowing in the mud—both laughable and pathetic.

"Are you done arguing?"

After a long while, Li Chengqian picked at his ear and asked a question casually.

The sound wasn't loud, but it had a strange penetrating power, instantly drowning out all the noise in the square.

He gently squeezed the horse's belly.

The Jade Lion beneath him snorted and moved forward slowly with elegant steps.

"Da, da, da."

The crisp sound of hooves was like a countdown to death, each step landing on everyone's hearts.

Lu Zhaolin and his men, who had been shouting, instinctively retreated the moment the warhorses approached. Their bravado collapsed instantly in the face of absolute violence.

Li Chengqian stopped three steps away from them.

He leaned forward slightly, toying with the unsharpened, yet blood-stained, horizontal sword in his hand, a playful smile curving his lips.

"Master Lu, if I remember correctly..."

"Just now, Shen Lian found five hundred sets of finely crafted iron armor and a handwritten letter to the Left Wise King of the Turks in your carriage."

"The letter says that as soon as the Turks break through the pass, you should hand over the map of the Lu family's granaries in Guanzhong."

Li Chengqian tilted his head and asked like a curious child:

"Is this also... the way of our ancestors?"

"Is this also... a rule set by the sages?"

"Is this... the backbone of the world?"

"I..." Lu Zhaolin's face turned deathly pale, and he stammered, "That...that is..."

"That's treason."

Li Chengqian interrupted him, his voice suddenly turning cold, like ice in the twelfth lunar month.

"It's treason."

"You are using the lives of the people of the Tang Dynasty as bargaining chips to exchange for your own wealth and glory."

He straightened up, his gaze sweeping over everyone present, his eyes filled with undisguised disgust.

"You keep saying that you are from the gentry and scholars."

"But in my eyes, even the butchers who slaughter pigs in the East Market are cleaner than you."

"Butchers kill pigs to feed their families, while you kill people to satisfy your insatiable greed."

"You...you're talking nonsense!"

An elderly man from the Wang family stepped forward shakily, trying to bolster his voice by tapping the ground with his cane. "Even if... even if some people have done wrong, that's an individual act! The law doesn't punish the masses! You can't kill us all!"

"Our Wang family still has members serving as officials in the imperial court! And others as local officials! If you make a move, aren't you afraid of causing chaos throughout the land?"

"chaos?"

Li Chengqian seemed to have heard a joke and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

He pointed behind him.

That's the direction of Chang'an.

"Old man, are you still half asleep?"

"Open your dog eyes and look around! Is Chang'an in chaos now?"

"Do you think you're so important? Do you think the Tang Dynasty can't function without you?"

Li Chengqian shook his head, his face full of pity.

"I have some bad news for you."

"Just now, my bookstore's business improved again, and a long line formed at the Royal Academy's registration desk. Those poor students were overjoyed as if it were New Year's Day when they heard that you were going to fail."

"As for those of you in the court..."

Li Chengqian scoffed.

"My father is busy counting money right now, his hands are cramping from it all, he has no time to care about the lives of you stray dogs!"

"In his eyes, your current value is not as real as those piles of gold and silver treasures."

These words shattered everyone's last illusions.

Their prized network of relationships and the political influence upon which they depend for survival are utterly fragile in the face of absolute power and interests.

"No...it's impossible..."

Lu Zhaolin slumped to the ground, his eyes vacant, muttering to himself, "We are a noble family...we are a high-ranking family..."

"noble?"

Li Chengqian's smile vanished, and his expression turned colder than ever before.

He raised his sword, pointed it at the group of ashen-faced so-called "nobles," and said, word by word:

"In my view, there are only two kinds of people."

One type is people.

One type is garbage.

"And you..."

Li Chengqian glanced at them with disdain, as if he were looking at a pile of dog poop on the side of the road.

"Aristocratic families? Noble families?"

"Stop patting yourself on the back."

"In my eyes, you are not even as good as the coal slag left over from my blast furnace."

"Coal ash can be used to pave roads and benefit the people."

"you?"

"Living wastes air, dying wastes land."

"Besides becoming fertilizer, I can't think of any other value you have."