Ascension Platform

Seeing how calm and unruffled Lu Ren appeared, Shu Laibao, quick-witted though he was, knew how to read the room. How could he not understand that Lu Ren was only making light of it, while his mood was actually quite poor?

And that was indeed the case. From the time Lu Ren stepped onto the path of cultivation until now, many friends who had never embarked on that path had long since passed away, reduced to ashes.

Even Li Shu, once his neighbor, had lived a pampered life and kept herself well cared for. She had reached the limit of an ordinary person's lifespan, yet she had still died more than thirty years ago.

As for Xiao Chen, the old general had been over one hundred and fifty years old. During another incursion by evil gods from beyond the True Realm, he had driven the latest full Power Armor into the fray and died in the resulting explosion.

When Lu Ren had first learned of this, he had felt somewhat helpless, but even more than that, he had taken it in stride and faced it calmly.

After all, Hantu was not as peaceful as it appeared on the surface. When the Chinese human race had first emerged from Earth, even with Lu Ren holding the fort, their expansion across Hantu and their struggles with the Heavenly Palace and Spirit Mountain for every inch of land had only maintained a facade of overall peace and civility. Beneath the surface, however, undercurrents had surged, and countless wars, large and small, had broken out.

It was not that Lu Ren could not intervene. He simply chose not to stop it, deliberately allowing it to happen.

China could not remain a greenhouse flower beneath his wings forever. Only by enduring hardship and bloodshed could