Seeing the way that Lin Fan looked at him, Mo Ze Chen revealed a bitter smile and said, "I might have lost a bit of weight, but I don't look that different."
There was a beautiful girl that came forward to take his hand and placed a kiss on his cheek before saying, "I think you're as handsome as you've always been."
Lin Fan turned to look at this girl with a strange look, but he found that he recognized her with a single glance.
It was Lulu.
Unlike Mo Ze Chen who had completely turned into a different person, Lulu still looked the same as before.
This was a relief to Lin Fan since the shock of Mo Ze Chen's change was just too much for him. If Lulu had also greatly changed on top of that, he really didn't know how he would have been able to react.
Seeing her like this was like a breath of fresh air that completely restored him, so Lin Fan patted Mo Ze Chen on the shoulder and said, "It's good that you lost a bit of weight. You were just too heavy before."
Mo Ze Chen's smile turned even more bitter when he heard this, but there was nothing that he could say to refute this.
After all, Lin Fan was right about that.
In the past, there was no one for him to worry about, so he hadn't cared about his weight.
But now that there was a woman in his life, he had no choice but to care.
Not to mention…Lulu might have seemed like a calm and elegant beauty now, but Mo Ze Chen knew how terrifying she could be.
It could even be said that she was the main driving force behind him losing all this weight in the first place.
Before any of them could say anything else, there was a cry that came from the back of the store.
The moment that Lin Fan's group heard this, all of them raised their guard and were about to charge back.
But before they could, Mo Ze Chen quickly came forward to stop them.
Lin Fan and the others looked at Mo Ze Chen who was waving his arm and saying, "Wait, wait, it's not what you think!"
They all raised one brow to look at Mo Ze Chen before putting away their weapons and waiting for him to explain.
Seeing this, Mo Ze Chen let out a sigh of relief before nodding to Lulu.
Lulu nodded back before heading into the back to settle that noise.
Now that they had calmed down to listen to this voice closely, they found that it sounded like…a child crying.
But why would there be a child here?
A few seconds after Lulu disappeared, that crying voice stopped.
Then a few minutes later, Lulu walked out with what seemed to be a bundle in her hand that she was carefully cradling. At the same time, there was some kind of stench that drifted out from the back.
Mo Ze Chen quickly came over and asked, "Did we wake her up?"
Lulu shook head with a smile before saying, "No, she just woke up from her nap a bit early because she had a situation with her diaper."
Mo Ze Chen nodded before saying, "Do you want me to take care of her for the rest of the night so you can rest?"
Lulu shook her head again with the same smile as she said, "Big brother Lin is finally back. You should go and spend some time with him. I'll stay home and take care of her."
Mo Ze Chen gave her a loving look before patting her on the head and saying, "Thank you."
Lulu just revealed a happy smile as she enjoyed this, but the bundle in her arms started crying again.
Mo Ze Chen immediately pulled away while Lulu started rocking that bundle.
On the other side, Lin Fan's group had been too shocked to do anything.
They weren't fools, they could already guess what was in that bundle based on context and how they acted. However, that was why it was such a big shock to them.
Lin Fan pointed at the bundle in Lulu's arms and asked, "Ze Chen, are you looking after a relative's child?"
Mo Ze Chen turned around with a confused look and said, "She's clearly mine. Don't you think that she looks like me?"
The moment that he said this, they couldn't hold back anymore.
Angela, Yuki, and Zi Ling pushed Mo Ze Chen aside and gathered around Lulu to get a better look at the little girl in Lulu's hands.
Mo Ze Chen had a bitter smile on his face when this happened, but he moved aside properly.
The way that he did it almost seemed like he was very used to this, almost as if he had been trained for this…Lin Fan had caught this with his sharp eyes and could guess what kind of things that Mo Ze Chen had suffered through before.
So he felt a bit sympathetic towards him.
But at the same time, he found it hard to believe that someone like Mo Ze Chen already had a daughter when he didn't even have one…
He could also feel the pressure that was now coming from Zi Ling and Angela as they were gushing over the little girl.
Lin Fan shook his head with a bitter smile before asking Mo Ze Chen, "What's her name?"
Mo Ze Chen said, "Marie, isn't it beautiful?"
Lin Fan couldn't help revealing a surprised look when he heard this since this was a western name instead of an eastern name like in this cultivation world.
Seeing the look on Lin Fan's face, Mo Ze Chen explained, "Lulu named her. She was named after Lulu's mother."
Lin Fan gave a nod of understanding and he didn't ask anything else since he was certain that this would be a personal matter.
Mo Ze Chen then suddenly added, "It would be a problem if her godfather didn't know her name."
Lin Fan didn't react right away, but then he suddenly turned to look at Mo Ze Chen as he said, "Godfather, you're saying that I'm the godfather?"
Mo Ze Chen gave a nod before saying, "Are you saying that you're too good to be my child's godfather?"
Lin Fan quickly shook his head before saying, "I was just caught off guard by the fact that you decided to make me the godfather. You never gave me a sign, I didn't even know that she existed until now."
Mo Ze Chen poured his lips at this before saying, "We sent letters, but you never responded once in the past five years. Even Angela stopped replying around a year ago. How were we supposed to know if you received it or not?"
When Lin Fan heard this, there was another bitter smile that appeared on his face.
After all, in the end, it was all his fault that he didn't know a thing.
They had been keeping up contact with him, but it was just that he never received anything that they sent since he had been trapped in that realm.
There was no excuse that he could make since it was all his fault.
Mo Ze Chen turned back to the girls surrounding Lulu and asked in a confused voice, "Why are they surprised anyway? We already told them about Marie in our letters a year ago, so they should already know about her."
Lin Fan's bitter smile became even more bitter when he heard this since he could guess what had happened.
During this time, Angela had been busy dealing with the invasion of the Beast Race, so there were things that fell through the cracks.
At the same time, with the invasion of the Beast Race, it would be hard for people to send letters to the Lin Astral Empire in the first place.
So she either never received the letters or she had received them and had been too busy to read them.
Either way, it all came back to him since he should have been there to do what she had been doing…
So Lin Fan couldn't blame anyone but himself for all of this.
After being silent for a bit, he said, "Everyone has their own circumstances, so let's just leave it at that."
Mo Ze Chen was confused when he heard this, but he just gave a nod and left this matter alone.
After the girls had finished gushing over Marie, it was finally Lin Fan's turn to see her.
He had to admit that she was a very beautiful little girl, so much so that he couldn't believe that she came from Mo Ze Chen…No, with how much Mo Ze Chen had changed, he could believe that she came from him.
Especially those eyes…she had inherited his eyes from him.
But still, the fact that Mo Ze Chen and Lulu had a child now really was a surreal feeling.
It really hit him hard how long he had been gone…
Five years, it was enough for a child to be born.
Though for a cultivator, this wasn't considered that long of a time.
As his cultivation grew, he realized that he was slowly losing his sense of time and that things were becoming much more different compared to before.
In no time at all, this child would grow up and she would become the new generation, replacing his generation.
But that was only on the minor realms and not in the upper realms where generations were much longer.
This feeling…really was a surreal one.
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