I was born a god, the son of the Demon Lord.

Shen Xizhou pursed his lips.

Wei Shenglan, who was walking at the front, heard the children behind him whispering. He turned around and saw Lin Qingyue and the three children looking worried about entering the temple. He patted his chest and assured them.

"Don't worry! I, Wei Shenglan, have a very good relationship with the Sea God! Today we'll definitely enter through the main gate in a proper and respectable manner, there won't be any problems!"

As soon as he finished speaking, four pairs of eyes turned to look at him.

Lin Qingyue said expressionlessly, "How close could a royal guard like you be to Lord Sea God?"

Hailey frowned: "Even I, the heir to the Sea God, can't always use the main entrance. Father, can you?"

Xu Nanyi and Shen Xizhou exchanged a glance and said in unison, "We don't believe it."

Wei Shenglan felt all four distrustful gazes pierce her, and her silvery-white tail stood on end in anger: "You just wait!"

After saying this, he swam forward with long strides, his long, silvery-white hair whipping in the seawater in an arc.

The other four followed behind him, looking at each other, none of them taking his words seriously.

Until the Dreamland Temple came into view.

It was a huge palace built entirely of deep-sea white jade and glass coral, with its dome soaring into the dark blue sea. In front of the palace gate stood two huge statues of sea gods, with human bodies and fish tails, holding tridents, and their eyes looking down as if looking down on all living beings.

The temple doors were tightly shut, and the wave patterns on the doors shimmered with a faint divine light, indicating that this was not a place that ordinary people could enter at will.

Wei Shenglan strode to the palace gate.

Then, with a "thump," he slid to his knees, leaving a half-meter mark on the white jade floor, and prostrated himself on the ground in front of the palace door, his forehead touching the ground, his voice loud and sincere!

"Godfather, open the door! Your son is back!"

Lin Qingyue almost dropped the spear in her hand.

Xu Nanyi opened her small mouth and stared wide-eyed.

Shen Xizhou's dragon tail froze, hanging motionless in mid-air.

Hailey covered her face, her tail tip awkwardly twisted into a pretzel shape.

There was a moment of silence inside the palace gates.

Then the wave pattern on the door suddenly lit up, and a roar came from inside the hall.

"Wei Shenglan, you bastard! Last time you came, you tricked me out of three jars of ten-thousand-year-old sea treasures. The time before that, you stole twelve moonflower fruits from my backyard. And the time before that, you kidnapped my eight-hundred-year-old spirit tortoise and took it for a three-day walk—"

"What are you planning to do this time?!"

Wei Shenglan froze on the spot.

He didn't expect his godfather to be so clueless. Didn't he see that he brought so many people back with him?

Without saying a word, she spilled all his old embarrassing secrets! How is he supposed to face his daughter now?!

He quickly scrambled to his feet, cleared his throat, and tried to save face: "Godfather! I've brought your granddaughter back to see you this time!"

The door suddenly swung open.

A deep blue phantom darted out from the crack in the door, moving as fast as an underwater current.

The figure was clearly a mermaid, much taller than ordinary merfolk, with a long and powerful fish tail, and its entire body was formed from semi-transparent deep blue divine light, but it had no facial features.

The illusory figure floated in front of Wei Shenglan, poking his forehead with its finger: "Pah! This old man doesn't believe you! With your pathetic flirting skills, even a six-year-old girl wouldn't fall for it!"

Wei Shenglan's lips twitched: "Godfather..."

Don't give me that crap!

The phantom of the sea god stood with his hands on his hips, his deep blue fish tail splashing the water behind him in dissatisfaction.

"Don't I know you? You've liked that little girl Zhaoyue since you were six, and you're sixteen now, and you haven't even held her hand! You're a disgrace to the Sea God! Where did you get a daughter? Did you kidnap her from somewhere?"

Wei Shenglan's ears turned bright red instantly, and she frantically tugged at the other person's sleeve: "Godfather! Godfather! There are people here!"

The phantom of the sea god then snorted, shook off his hand, and finally turned to look at the people following behind him.

Lin Qingyue looked like she didn't know this shameful thing. Behind her, three children stood in a row.

The sea god slowly swam over, circled the group once, and his deep blue divine light lingered in front of each person for a moment.

Then he suddenly moved closer to Xu Nanyi, his face without features only a fist's distance away from hers, his voice carrying a hint of suspicion.

"You guys...don't I feel like I've seen you somewhere before?"

Xu Nanyi's heart skipped a beat. She tried her best to make her expression look innocent and naive, widening her dark eyes and fluttering her long eyelashes.

"Grandpa Sea God, what are you talking about? We've never seen him before."

The phantom of the sea god tilted its "head" and thoughtfully stroked its chin.

"Really? I have a feeling you guys stole things from me before."

He then turned to Hailey beside him, his voice carrying a clear scrutiny: "Especially you, I have a feeling you've stolen from me many times."

When he pointed at her like that, Hailey's little mouth twitched, her blue eyes instantly filled with tears, her eyes reddened, she looked at him with a wronged expression and then lowered her head.

When Wei Shenglan saw her daughter's expression, she couldn't sit still any longer and rushed over to stand in front of Hailey.

"Godfather! Don't look so fierce, you're scaring my daughter to tears!"

The phantom of the sea god, blocked by him, trembled with anger: "I haven't even mentioned you yet! You're the one who steals the most!"

He poked Wei Shenglan's forehead again.

"From age six to sixteen, how many good things have you taken from me? Others raise children to provide for them in old age, but you stole from your father to get rich! You've almost emptied my Sea God Temple of all its treasures!"

While protecting Hailey, Wei Shenglan took two steps back and said repeatedly, "Oh, Godfather, why are you saying all this now? We're family. Let's go inside! Let's go inside and have a seat!"

After he finished speaking, he turned around and slipped into the palace gate, still holding Hailey's small hand in one hand, and gave Xu Nanyi and Shen Xizhou a wink that said "Hurry up and follow."

The three children followed behind him and darted through the crack in the door.

The phantom of the sea god floated in place, watching the backs of the group as they slipped in with guilty consciences. His face, devoid of features, was filled with speechlessness.

He sighed inwardly, wondering why he had ever picked up this troublesome little mermaid from the beach in the first place.

That evening, he was taking a walk on the beach when he saw a tiny mermaid, no bigger than the palm of his hand, lying on a rock, crying uncontrollably. She was covered in wounds, and her tail was tangled with a fishing net.

He was momentarily soft-hearted, thinking that "saving a mermaid's life is better than building a seven-story pagoda," so he took him back to the Sea God's Temple to raise him, just to find him a companion to relieve his boredom.

And what happened? They ended up with a dud.

We've been losing money every year.

As he was painfully calculating that the things Wei Shenglan had taken over the past ten years could buy almost half of the Dream Sea, half a silver-white head suddenly peeked out from the crack in the door.

Wei Shenglan made a big heart shape with both hands above her head, "Godfather! I love you!"

Phantom of the Sea God: "...Get lost!"