A Favor

"The most important thing is, Tony, what I use the armor I build for is my business. It has nothing to do with you!"

At this point, Chen Mu was rather blunt, but what he said was the truth.

How he handled his own armor was indeed Chen Mu's decision. As an outsider, Tony Stark had no right to interfere.

"But I still think that the more powerful a weapon is, the less it should be handed over to the military, because the threat would simply be too great."

At the end of the day, Tony Stark was still someone stubbornly set in his ways. Though Chen Mu had left him speechless, he still clung to his own view.

Even though he knew Chen Mu was telling the truth.

"There are too many people in the military, and all sorts of people among them. There will inevitably be warmongers. If the armor falls into the hands of people like that, it will certainly bring about a terrible disaster."

If the armor fell into the hands of warmongers, it would definitely spark a war!

And war would inevitably leave countless innocent people with shattered families.

That was something Tony Stark, "Iron Man," did not want to see.

"Heh."

Chen Mu sneered again.

Although Tony Stark's words made sense, that depended on who he was talking about.

The military Tony Stark had in mind was probably the military of the United States of America.

To be honest, the American military in any world seemed to be just like that: extremely aggressive, stirring up disputes all over the globe.

They styled themselves as the world's police and created wars everywhere across the planet.

In the more than two hundred years since America was founded, it had spent two hundred of them at war. For such a warlike country, the culture of its military was obvious enough.

Precisely because he understood the American military so well, Tony Stark had made up his mind never to hand his Iron Armor over to them.

"That is your country's military."

Chen Mu said without mercy, "China has always been a peace-loving country. Since New China was founded, it has never initiated a single war. The few wars it has fought were all for the sake of protecting its country and its people!"

Whether it was the Korean War, the Sino-Indian War, or the Self-Defensive Counterattack Against Vietnam, those wars had all been reluctant decisions made to protect the country's interests from being violated.

If those wars had not been forced upon them and their enemies had succeeded, no one knew how much China would have been carved up by now.

"..."

Tony had nothing to say. Although he had not been the one making the decisions behind those wars, he knew perfectly well that most of them really had been started by America.

"China has always been a peace-loving country. We have always believed that peaceful development is humanity's future. Even now, when China possesses all kinds of advanced weapons, it would never seek to provoke conflict, much less invade other countries under the banner of freedom."

Chen Mu did not want to continue this topic with Tony Stark.

Those who followed different paths could not make plans together.

At this point, Tony Stark still identified himself as an American. Before Earth faced an alien invasion, even after becoming Iron Man, he was still only America's Iron Man, not Earth's Iron Man.

So while he disliked the American military, Tony still wanted to fight for the interests of his own country.

That was only human nature, and Chen Mu would not interfere.

But Chen Mu also knew that in a few years, once the Avengers storyline began, the Chitauri army would invade Earth.

Only after learning that Earth would face an alien threat would Tony truly set his mindset straight and become a real Iron Man.

He would fight for Earth, rather than merely fighting for America.

"Let's not talk about that anymore, Tony. You can't change my decision." Chen Mu waved a hand and looked calmly at Tony Stark as he continued, "If I'm not mistaken, your Arc Reactor seems to use some kind of heavy metal element as its reaction material. Heavy metal elements are extremely harmful to the human body. Wearing your armor for prolonged periods will definitely damage your health."

"To be honest, there are not many people in this world who impress me, and you count as one of them. I don't want to lose you as a rival. After all, my current goal is to defeat Stark Industries. If you die young, I think I'd lose a lot of the fun."

Chen Mu's words were not pleasant, but they were meant to provoke Tony. It was a simple bit of reverse psychology.

Tony had always been arrogant and conceited. How could he stand being provoked by Chen Mu? With his armor now lagging behind Chen Mu's, he would definitely develop even more advanced armor.

He absolutely could not lose to a man even younger than himself!

And that was exactly what Chen Mu wanted. He also hoped Tony could develop more armor and create more cutting-edge technology.

That way, Chen Mu could obtain those technologies in the future and take them even further!

In Chen Mu's eyes, Tony Stark was basically a perfect tool.

"Hongmeng, send the information on the new element to Jarvis."

Ignoring Tony's expression, Chen Mu directly took out his Xiao Mu Phone and gave an order to the AI assistant inside it.

The system on Chen Mu's phone was an operating system developed from the Hongmeng System. The Hongmeng ai program loaded onto it was even more powerful than Jarvis and could easily take control of Jarvis.

"Information sent."

Hongmeng's distinctive young female voice rang out. The information on the new element had already been sent to Jarvis through the phone. As for whether Tony used it or not, that was no concern of Chen Mu's.

Chen Mu had come to see Tony Stark this time not only to discuss the company's plans, but also to show off and put him in his place. At the same time, he wanted to hand the new element over to Tony Stark.

After all, Chen Mu knew that even if he did nothing, Tony would eventually obtain the information Howard Stark had left him through S.H.I.E.L.D. and develop the new element himself. Why not do him a favor?

By directly giving Tony the new element, Chen Mu could also earn a life-saving favor from him.

"So this was your goal? To make me owe you a favor?"

Tony was extremely intelligent and immediately saw through Chen Mu's plan. But he had no intention of refusing. It was only a favor, and he could afford to owe one.

At this moment, Tony Stark had been tortured by Palladium poisoning to the point where he could barely endure it. What Chen Mu had sent could solve his urgent problem and make his armor even stronger. He had no reason to refuse.

"That's right. What, is the famous Tony Stark afraid of owing an unknown nobody like me a favor?"

Chen Mu smiled indifferently and shrugged.

Tony would develop the new element sooner or later anyway. Chen Mu was merely going with the flow. Besides, there was another benefit: if Tony accepted Chen Mu's favor, it meant he acknowledged that Chen Mu had developed the new element.

Although neither of them cared much about intellectual property, that was still the truth.

Chen Mu had developed the new element, while Tony Stark was merely using it.

"Very well. You succeeded. I owe you a favor."

Tony Stark looked at Chen Mu with a serious expression.

At that moment, he truly regarded Chen Mu as a rival on equal footing with himself.

For the proud and arrogant Tony Stark, that was something unprecedented.