Huai Yu cast him a sidelong glance, “You don’t understand this. There are dozens or hundreds of large families as vassals under any Divine Clan’s name. Naturally, the Divine Clans will not go out themselves but will send subordinate officials to monitor the lower realms for them. In order to have checks and balances, a small realm will be monitored by at least two vassal families under different Divine Clans. When these vassals reach the lower realms, they have to abide by the rules agreed upon between Divine Clans, so they can’t walk outside freely. This continued for a long time, and these monitoring families became the so-called reclusive families.”

　　Yan Tianhen showed an expression of epiphany.

　　“It turns out that reclusive families are like this. I thought they originated from the Five Continents. But they just had longer family legacies and were stronger and more mysterious. Unexpectedly, they don’t belong here at all.” Yan Tianhen mused.

　　Huai Yu patted his head, “We can’t rule out that possibility either. But in my opinion, the Jian and Liu families should have been sent by the Upper Realm, for sure. However, I don’t know whether there are other reclusive families in the Five Continents.”

　　Because even if many reclusive families had already existed for a hundred years in certain small realms, people still wouldn’t necessarily become aware of their existence.

　　Reclusive families hidden from the world; the word “hidden” held the true essence of these families.

　　Instead, ones like Jian Yunxi and Liu Zhaoyue, who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and walked around outside under the name of reclusive families, were the abnormal ones.

　　People who didn’t know the truth might simply find them mysterious and would be curious to know exactly how these families differed from the other large families. But only people in the know would be able to perceive the unusual atmosphere.

　　Yan Tianhen scratched his head and asked, “Master, what’re their goals for surveillance?

　　Huai Yu answered, “There are many objectives. There are two most important objectives. One is to see if these people in the lower realms are well-behaved and honest enough and whether there are any major events that can affect the Nine Lands. The second objective is that the reclusive families will secretly observe whether there are any geniuses in these smaller realms that can be used by the Divine Clans. If they detect such geniuses, the reclusive families will try every means to bring them to the Nine Lands.”

　　Yan Tianhen asked, “What if those geniuses don’t want to?”

　　Huai Yu smiled, “So what if they don’t want to? Do you think those people care about what the geniuses think? At the end of the day, no matter how amazing the geniuses are, in the Divine Clans’ eyes, they’re just lower class people with a little bit more talent than most people. You don’t know about Divine Clans, so you don’t know that Divine Clans attach the highest importance to social rankings and family backgrounds. For tens of thousands of years, the nine Divine Clans had always been those same nine families, because there are no other families that enter their eyes.”

　　Yan Tianhen frowned, “That’s too shameless. They’re forcing people to make dealings through coercion!”

　　Huai Yu nodded. “Well said. Precisely; they’re especially shameless and especially unreasonable. They really annoy me.”

　　Yan Tianhen blinked and looked suspiciously at Esteemed Huai Yu. “Master, you actually know them so well. Have you been to the Nine Lands before?”

　　Laozi came down from the Ninth Lands, to begin with, Esteemed Huai Yu thought that while he replied, “I don’t condescend to go to places like that, but my Senior Martial Brother, which is your Martial Uncle, has been there before. He told me all this.”

　　Telling blatant lies with his eyes wide open had always been Demon Venerable You Ming’s specialty. The reason why his credibility was so low, that any truth he says will not be believed while any lies he says will not be doubted was because he had always been mixing up truths and lies whenever he casually opened his mouth.

　　He didn’t mean to deceive Yan Tianhen, it’s just that he was fully aware that the more he said, the more mistakes he’d make. He didn’t want Yan Tianhen to have any doubt about his identity, so he held up this big flag called “Esteemed Lan Yue” instead.

　　Yan Tianhen did not doubt him and even asked excitedly, “Martial Uncle Lan Yue has been to the Nine Lands? Then has he met my dad in the Nine Lands before?”

　　Yan Tianhen’s words made Huai Yu pause. He nearly blurted out that of course he had seen them and he was even martial brothers with them, but he refrained.

　　But then he heard Yan Tianhen continue, “Back when my dad hadn’t given birth to my Dage yet, he and Uncle Su Mo had already traveled to Nine Lands together. My dad told me a lot about the customs of Nine Lands and he also said that he’d made many friends with the same aspirations.”

　　Esteemed Huai Yu, “….”

　　Esteemed Huai Yu asked, “The dad you’re referring to, is it Lin Zhan?

　　Yan Tianhen responded, “Of course, who else could it be?”

　　Esteemed Huai Yu, “…” Damn it my heart feels like it’s being stabbed.

　　Heart suddenly hurts so much. My son actually called other people “dad” in front of me, critical damage.

　　In fact, it’s no wonder Yan Tianhen did not recognize his dad. After all, he had no impression of You Ming at all, and he’d lived with Lin Zhan for seven to eight years. It went without saying that he was close to Lin Zhan.

　　Esteemed Huai Yu fought back his heart full of jealousy, “Didn’t he tell you anything about the Divine Clans?”

　　Yan Tianhen shook his head, “My dad never mentioned these families, and he didn’t even mention the Purple Emperor’s Heavenly Capital that much either.”

　　Esteemed Huai Yu snorted, “He doesn’t even know these things. It must be because he didn’t do very well in the Nine Lands and didn’t come into contact with these Divine Clans.”

　　Yan Tianhen did not mind, but nodded, “This is also possible. However, Uncle Su Mo must have come into contact with those powerful figures. Otherwise, he would not have made friends with Demon Venerable You Ming. Oh right, you should have heard of Demon Venerable You Ming?  The one who was married to Yan Zhonghua.”

　　You Ming himself, “….”

　　You Ming himself sat up straight, his fingers trembling slightly, his voice carrying a slightly imperceptible quiver; he pretended to be indifferent as he answered, “I’ve heard of him. Such a famous legend, how could I have not heard of him?”

　　Yan Tianhen blinked and asked somewhat excitedly, “Really? Do you really know him?”

　　Huai Yu nodded, “Yeah, I know him.”

　　“Then Master, can you tell me something about him?”

　　Huai Yu was instantly stunned.

　　“You…do you care about him?” Huai Yu stuttered slightly.

　　“Of course I care.” Yan Tianhen spoke as though it was natural.

　　Huai Yu’s heart suddenly heated up. Thump thump thump thump. It seemed about to jump out of his throat. He suddenly had an urge to tell Yan Tianhen that he was Demon Venerable You Ming.

　　“Why do you care about him?” Huai Yu fixed Yan Tianhen with burning eyes.

　　“Because I’m curious.” Yan Tianhen responded, “I heard that he’s a Divine Devil. I want to know what exactly the difference between Divine Devils and humans is.”

　　Huai Yu paused, “The reason you care about him is because you want to know these things?”

　　“If not that, then what?” Yan Tianhen looked at him, “It’s not like I can care about how he and Yan Zhonghua met, how they got together, and how their relationship is now, can I?”

　　Huai Yu, “….”

　　Actually, you can care a little about that.

　　Yan Tianhen touched his nose, “In fact, I’m not sure whether you know my true identity or not, but I think you do, so I’ll acquiesce that you do. The only things I care about most in this world are my Dage and my dad. As for other people, it doesn’t matter what their relationship to me is, because I don’t know them. So naturally, I won’t hate them or like them.”

　　Huai Yu couldn’t help being silent.

　　In reality, Su Mo had already told Esteemed Lan Yue that Yan Tianhen already knew about his own identity, and Esteemed Lan Yue then told him about it.

　　When Huai Yu heard about this matter, he was apprehensive, excited, and scared. The excitement was because his son finally knew who his dad was! Fear because he was extremely afraid that Yan Tianhen hated his own evil identity or hated this biological dad of his.

　　However, at this time, Yan Tianhen made Huai Yu thoroughly understand one matter.

　　He didn’t care who his biological dad was, because You Ming was just a stranger to him, and Yan Tianhen did indeed regard You Ming as an unfamiliar existence that had nothing to do with himself.

　　Huai Yu felt like he wanted to cry but had no tears.

　　This made him feel even worse than if Yan Tianhen had simply hated him or resented him. It was as if he’d stifled a ball of flames in his heart but couldn’t ignite it. It felt extremely uncomfortable.

　　When Esteemed Huai Yu wasn’t feeling good, he didn’t want other people to feel good either.

　　Therefore, Huai Yu put on a grim expression, “You Ming isn’t anything good. Not only does he deceive other people’s feelings, but he also eats children. Tossing aside husbands, discarding sons, burning, killing, and plundering; there’s no evil that he didn’t do. A Divine Devil’s nature is just like this. Cold-hearted and merciless without any trace of sympathy. They’d feel unhappy if they went one day without eating children.”

　　Yan Tianhen was stunned and looked like he was frightened.

　　Burning, killing, and plundering; those kinds of evils he could understand, but what the hell was eating children?

　　Yan Tianhen moved his throat with difficulty. At the same time, he fell into a great sense of identity crisis, “Then what about a half Divine Devil?”

　　“As for half Divine Devils,” Esteemed Huai Yu looked at him coldly, “nothing more than a preference for eating meat.”

　　Yan Tianhen breathed a sigh of relief.

　　“I don’t feel like dealing with you.”

　　Yan Tianhen thought for a moment and felt that, for the time being, his little heart was not suited for knowing too much about Divine Devils. “Master, we had better talk more about reclusive families.”

　　Esteemed Huai Yu, “…”

　　Sinking Sword Peak’s summit, inside the inner gate, Catching Star Pavilion.

　　“Most of the reclusive families wander around the various smaller realms for these two purposes.” Hai Kuanglang curled his lips up and looked at Lin Xuanzhi with profound meaning. “However, you can take a guess on whether the two young rabbits who cried and raised a ruckus about wanting to find Master as soon as they arrived are here for the first reason or the second.”

　　Lin Xuanzhi pondered for a moment, “The first possibility is greater. Both of them are descendants of reclusive families, and they’re even from the younger generation. I think that if reclusive families took a fancy to someone and wanted to draw that person into their camp, they shouldn’t send out two juniors to test or win the person over. Master has a noble identity; he’s currently the world’s most famous prophet. I think the reclusive families should have discovered some abnormalities and wanted to send younger generations over to ask Master about heaven’s secrets.”

　　Hai Kuanglang nodded, “I think so too. Those two little ones must have come for our Master.”

　　Wan Yitong blinked and looked at the sky mirror. “Aiya, they will come up soon.”

　　Wan Yitong winked at Lin Xuanzhi, “Little Martial Brother, do you want to know what they’ll say to Master?”

　　Lin Xuanzhi looked at Wan Yitong with slightly suspicious eyes.

　　Wan Yitong snapped his fingers, walked over, and tugged on Lin Xuanzhi’s arm. “Come on, let’s go ahead and hide in Master’s room. This way, we’ll be able to hear what they’re saying in a moment. I’m sure Master will meet them at the Cleansing Inkstone Pavilion.”

　　And right now, Esteemed Lan Yue was on the divination platform.

　　Lin Xuan’s face darkened, “No way.”

　　He had never done something like eavesdropping in either lifetime.

　　Sarah (yeah, I’m still here): MY HEART HURTS FOR HY but at the same time, I get what YTH said. I mean, HY made the choice to not raise him so now YTH doesn’t have any feelings for him ;w;