There they were, Zhang Dong’s children. While he had been thrown into another world they had been a lot smaller. The older child, Zhang Xiu was about a year and a half when he left. She had grown quite a bit and he was having a hard time recognizing her.

Then there was Zhang Jun, the younger of the two. When Zhang Dong left to fight the monster the boy wasn’t even a month old, he was a newborn child. Now he was five years old and didn’t look any close to what he remembered. He was the first one to enter the escape pod area and Zhang Xue was ecstatic to greet him.

“Master, It’s really you, I knew that you would return to us!”

She was quick to move before him while leaving the two children behind. All things considered, they weren’t all that young anymore. In his world children at the age of his daughter were already going to first grade in some countries.

While normally he would have done nothing more than to catch up with his disciples, he was a bit preoccupied with his own problems. It felt like there was a giant chasm between him and his own children. He was not sure how he should greet them thus he just froze in place while staring at the two kids in the back.

As he was trying to speak up, Liena his wife moved forward. The moment the two kids saw her they instantly jumped up from their seats.

“Mother!”

Xiu shouted while bolting towards her mother. Liena at this moment was clinging to Zhang Dong’s arm so she had to accept the tackle to her legs.

“Mommy!”

Jun the younger called out while approaching at a more reserved pace. He looked a bit more scared as his eyes were focused on the man that his mother was clinging to. Zhang Dong noticed this and tried smiling at the child. This caused an adverse reaction as the young boy started backing away while hiding behind Xue.

“What are you doing Jun?”

While he was a bit shaken by the fact that his own son was afraid of him, he heard a cute voice call out. This was his cute daughter Xiu that was now looking at her brother while clinging to her mother’s hips.

“B-but... “

“Stop acting like a little brat, you’re supposed to be a man!”

Liena started giggling somewhat as the girl started shaking her fist at her younger brother. It seemed that the older sibling was the one in charge. Jun on the other hand cowered even more as he hid behind Xue that wasn’t sure what she should do.

“That’s enough Xiu.”

The fight between siblings was halted rather fast as both of them jumped up the moment Liena lowered her voice in a more commanding way.

“Liu, Xue I must thank you for keeping my children safe, I’m sure you have many questions you’d like to ask my husband but for now please give us some privacy.”

Liena turned to Xue while Liu remained outside the room with Nuana. Xue just nodded while looking at the boy behind her. She placed her hand on Jun’s head while giving him a smile.

“Aunty needs to go now but your mother is with you now, so you don’t need to be scared.”

“Mother… where is everyone going?”

Asked little Xiu while everyone left the escape pod. This was not the best place to have a family reunion but it was better than having everyone from the sect stare at them outside.

“Xue, Liu, please pay respect to your father.”

“Father?”

After they were alone Liena stepped away from Zhang Dong. She pointed to him with her palm while wanting to have her children greet him. He on the other hand was trying to keep a somewhat friendly face but this just caused him to have an awkward smile.

In this world, men were still considered the leaders of the household. His position was above the mothers and the kids would normally be ought to respect both their elders and their father. It would also fall to him to discipline the kids if they ever did something wrong.

This position fell to the other men in the family when the father was gone. In this particular situation, it would fall either to Zhang Jin or Zhang Liu that had a closer relationship with the Patriarch.

Zhang Xiu looked up to her with her big eyes that looked like bright emeralds. Her hair was quite long and her facial features were somewhat similar to Liena’s younger sister. The child continued to look at Zhang Dong’s face for a moment with a frown on her face.

“Daddy!”

As if she recalled something this frown turned into a bright smile and he received a tackle to his own thigh.

“Y-yes it’s me, your daddy!”

Zhang Dong stuttered a bit as he uttered the words. It seemed that his daughter still somewhat remembered his face.

“D-daddy! Where were you! Xue waited and waited but you never came back”

While she was hugging his leg she started to cry. The sounds of her sobbing could even be heard by the three people waiting outside.

“It’s okay daddy's here.”

Without much reservation, he leaned down and picked his daughter up, and started hugging her against his chest. He could still remember the days of his strolling around the sect with her perched on his shoulder.

This almost made him shed a tear at this very moment. His child was crying her little heart out while being in his arms. Liena started to tear up as well as she watched the whole scene with a smile on her face. But as the pillar of this family, he had to hold it in at least for now.

“Let me take a good look at you.”

To change the mood he decided to hoist up his daughter with both his hands into the air. He looked at her with a big grin on his face and started laughing.

“You’ve sure have gotten big but aren’t those cheeks a bit too plump?”

“Xue’s cheeks aren’t plump!”

“Yes, they are.”

With a little poke to one of those cheeks, he caused Xue to pout a little bit but soon she started laughing loudly when he started to tickle her. The father-daughter reunion was then interrupted by a somewhat painful pinch to his thigh from the side.

There he saw Liena looking at him with a forced smile on her face. Soon he realized what the problem was as he glanced down to where his son was standing.

“Jun, why don’t you greet your father together with your sister?”

Zhang Dong placed the laughing Xiu down on the ground but was instantly tackled once more. It seemed that his daughter was energetic as always, she had gotten even more energetic with age. On the other hand, his son seemed the exact opposite of his older sister.

“Zhang Jun greets father…”

The greeting lacked any sort of emotion behind it. It was as if he was greeting an elder from the sect rather than his own father. While Xiu had some old memories with her father, Jun was far too young to remember him in any good light.

What the child was left with were stories from his other parent and from the people around him. While he didn’t think that anyone from them would badmouth him, there could have been other people that might have.

There was no way of him knowing what Jun was thinking. He was already at an age where he could understand many things. His children were also somewhat special in the way as they both came from a nascent soul master.

They were naturally smarter than a regular child and developed sooner. This he noticed by the way this son acted as if he had practiced interacting with elders and knew proper decorum.

“You don’t need to be so stiff.”

While this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary around this world, he didn’t really want to bring up his kids in such a way. All the respect and fear of the elder generation that was beaten into each generation here was something that he never liked. At least with his own close family members, he would like to have a less strenuous relationship.

Thus he placed his hand on the boy’s head and gave him a good fatherly pat.

“You are my son, when we are alone you can act as you wish, being a bit spoiled is also allowed, just look at your big sister.”

Zhang Jun looked to Xiu, who was obviously wanting to be picked up. While he set her back down due to Liena giving him the starte, he was forced to pick her back up as the child didn’t relent. He held her with one hand as she was still rather small, the moment Xiu's face brightened up but it also caused Liena to sigh out.

“You’re spoiling her too much….”

“It’s fine, it’s a father’s obligation to spoil their daughters!”

Liena frowned a bit but she didn’t reply to the answer. Xiu on the other hand realized with this little exchange that there was someone above her mother in the family hierarchy now. This realization would cause some friction between the mother and daughter combo but that was a story for another time.

“I… I’ll try father.”

Jun on the other hand was still somewhat reserved. This was fine as Zhang Dong knew that a relationship like this needed some time. This was something that the two could work on after they were safe. For now, Liena took Jun’s hand and the four walked out from the escape pod to meet up with the people outside.

“Master.”

“Master.”

“Big Brother!”

He was greeted by his disciples again, Nuana was also there and she gave him a big bright smile. It seemed as if she wanted something from him and that was probably related to the way Zhang Liu was glaring at her. She had knocked him out to get outside but that was not something that he wanted to get involved in.

“We will return to the sect, I’ll have to ask you to take care of the children for now.”

“No, daddy, stay!”

While he was talking, Xiu instantly cut him off and started crying.

“Uh… no, daddy just has to go talk to the elders, It won’t even take that long…”

“No, don’t leave Xiu, you can’t!”

While Jun didn’t seem affected by his father leaving, his older sister continued to cry. It was clear to him that the child was afraid that her father would disappear as he did before. Problematic as it was, he could not take the small child to the meeting with the elders. They would be discussing the future of the sect, not something fit for her ears.

‘This might be a problem…’

He turned to Liena for help but his wife instead of helping him out started to sob as well.

“Wait, not you too…”

“I’m sorry but It’s just been so long…”

It seemed that his wife had also not gotten over the fact that he had returned. Soon all three members of his family started to cry, Jun included.

‘Oh, jeez…’