A Change in Mindset

In the dead of night, a slender crescent moon hung high in the sky, its hazy light blanketing the boundless wilderness.

Gu Sheng and Chu Xin sat on a thick tree branch. This was the Serpent Pool Gorge on the shaded side of Iron Arm Ape Mountain. Miasma swirled here all year round, and the Iron-Arm Apes hated coming here most of all.

"Phew~"

Gu Sheng glanced back with lingering fear and let out a long breath. "We finally shook off those damn monkeys that just wouldn't let up. We spent half the day fleeing around Iron Arm Ape Mountain, running from the sunny side to the shaded side."

"The Iron-Arm Apes don't know which way we fled, and they probably didn't see us either. The chances of them chasing us to Serpent Pool are very low. We should be safe now!"

The young Chu Xin also let out a long breath, finally relaxing completely.

Beside them, countless venomous snakes and giant pythons were coiled together into clusters. Serpent Pool lay on the shaded side of Iron Arm Ape Mountain. Blocked by the surrounding mountains, it received no sunlight year-round. It was cold and damp, filled with miasma and crawling with poisonous creatures. Its overlords were another Demon Beast group on Iron Arm Ape Mountain—the serpent clan.

In the wilderness, most successful groups were like the Iron-Arm Apes: Demon Beasts of the same family and genus gathered together, living communally to resist external enemies and grow stronger. A group like the serpent clan was quite rare. Rather than calling them a single clan, it would be more accurate to say they were a type of creature drawn together by the environment.

The greatest difference between the Iron-Arm Apes and the serpent clan lay in how they treated their companions. After an Iron-Arm Ape died, its kind would carry it back to their lair for burial. In other words, most intelligent Demon Beasts would not touch the corpses of their companions.

But the serpent clan was more like a community of enemies bound together by mutual benefit. Most snakes merely looked alike and could not truly be considered the same species. Devouring one another was their daily routine. Not only did snakes of different species attack one another—even snakes of the same species would turn on their own kin.

Of course, this only applied to ordinary venomous snakes and wild pythons, or Demon Beasts with low intelligence. Highly intelligent giant pythons, such as the Verdant Python, already had a concept of clan and were extremely united with one another.

"Gu Sheng, isn't what we're doing a little wrong?"

Chu Xin glanced toward Iron Arm Ape Mountain, where sounds could still be heard even in the middle of the night, then cautiously said to Gu Sheng, "We stole so much Vermillion Fruit Wine from the Iron-Arm Apes. Isn't that a bit too much?"

This little girl was quite amusing. Earlier, when Gu Sheng had plotted to kill the Iron-Arm Apes, blast open the mountain, and steal their Vermillion Fruit Wine, she had cooperated enthusiastically. She had even been excited and eager to take part. Now that everything was over and the thrill had passed, her "kindness" had begun overflowing.

"Xin'er!"

Gu Sheng reached out and stroked Chu Xin's head, pulling her in front of him. He said solemnly, "From the Iron-Arm Apes' perspective, what we did was more than wrong—we were utterly ruthless.

"But you have to understand how the Iron-Arm Apes got their Vermillion Fruit Wine. The Cinnabar Fruit was a divine gift from Heaven. The Iron-Arm Apes occupied it through force. We only stole part of it, while they occupied all of it.

"And now, to take back their Vermillion Fruit Wine, they're hunting everywhere across Iron Arm Ape Mountain and slaughtering indiscriminately. Tell me, among all the Demon Beasts on this mountain, who is truly the most ruthless?"

"Oh, is that how it is?"

Chu Xin nodded in a daze. Although something felt a little strange, she still instinctively trusted Gu Sheng's words and stopped dwelling on it.

What Gu Sheng had said was, in truth, merely a grand-sounding sophistry. The Iron-Arm Apes had occupied the Cinnabar Fruit through battle after battle, subduing every Demon Beast and paying the price of countless casualties among their own kind. What he had done by scheming and stealing was even more shameless than getting something for nothing. It was outright plunder.

Even so, Gu Sheng felt no guilt over his plunder, nor did he feel the slightest sympathy for the Iron-Arm Apes' plight.

The wilderness was not the Nine Provinces, a place governed by laws and rules. This was a lawless land where the strong preyed on the weak. Anyone who wandered here while rigidly following the rules of the Nine Provinces would become a Ferocious Beast's meal within a few days.

The wilderness had only one essential law: the strong preyed on the weak. One had to do everything possible to defeat one's enemies and survive. Chu Xin's earlier sympathy for the Iron-Arm Apes was, in truth, utterly laughable.

Any adult Iron-Arm Ape possessed enough strength to contend with a powerful fighter on the Nine Provinces' Earth Ranking. They stood above most Demon Beasts and wild beasts and occupied the top of Iron Arm Ape Mountain's food chain.

Chu Xin alone was not even as strong as a three- or four-zhang Verdant Python. Faced with an Iron-Arm Ape, she likely would not last long. Yet this weakling had tricked a stronger opponent and then felt sorry for it, believing it deserved sympathy and that what she had done was too cruel.

How laughable was that kind of thinking?

After advising Chu Xin, Gu Sheng felt somewhat conflicted. Some things, after decades of experience, had already been carved into his bones as rules to live by.

Living in modern-day China was different from living abroad, where reports of war, attacks, and terrorist activities were frequent. Although all kinds of unfairness existed in many places in China, the overall environment was still very safe.

Most people who grew up normally in such an environment were law-abiding and reasonable. Gu Sheng could deceive Chu Xin with his words, but he could not deceive himself. What he had done to the Iron-Arm Apes had indeed gone too far.

But he did not regret it. From the first day he entered Lord God Space, he had known that he would sooner or later become like this. He would change, transform, betray his conscience, and break the rules.

In a place like Lord God Space, no one could truly remain true to their original aspirations without ever changing.

A self-righteous saintly do-gooder who stood on the moral high ground and acted like a keyboard warrior, constantly demanding that others risk themselves to do this or that—if such a person came to Lord God Space and was not the protagonist, they would not survive ten chapters.

Because showing kindness recklessly when one had no choice was not only irresponsible toward oneself, but also irresponsible toward one's teammates. Such a person was most likely to turn evil after tragedy befell them, only to be killed in the end.

But that was getting off track. Gu Sheng was naturally not that kind of person. He did not think he would be lucky enough to become a protagonist favored by fate. He could only abandon that useless, mindless "saintly kindness" and become his true self: a selfish self, a self who lived and planned for his own sake.

And the first step was to temper his "heart of stone." This did not mean making himself heartless. It meant becoming accustomed to slaughter, treating slaughter with indifference, and remaining calm in the world of the Lord God.

Every change had begun when he had dealt the Iron-Arm Apes a merciless blow. Gu Sheng wanted to become calm and stop feeling pity for his enemies. To Gu Sheng, the Iron-Arm Apes' greatest crime was simply that they had blocked his path.

In Lord God Space, Gu Sheng had no other road to take. He could only keep moving forward. He did not want to die, so he had to clear away every stumbling block in his path.