It wasn’t just Xie Jie whose attention turned to Meng Hao. Xu Youdao and the gray-robed Cultivator also gave him deep, meaningful looks.
His expression was calm, but inwardly, his mind flashed with understanding. Now he knew why everyone had looked at him so strangely when they had entered the large Cauldron.
The Nine Great Names didn’t include Meng, so once he entered, they must all have reached the conclusion that he was using an assumed name.
Even he was a bit uncertain regarding this revelation. He looked through the sheets of lightning toward the nine massive statues. Sure enough, amongst them could be found faces similar to Xu Youdao, the gray-robed Cultivator, and even Xie Jie.
These statues depicted their ancestors. They had surnames which could be traced back to ancient times, Clans which some people called the Nine Great Families.
“Am I of the Nine Great Families…?” Meng Hao asked himself. Moments later, a smile appeared on his face, although it was a bit cold. He was sure that he was not of the Nine Great Families.
He had remembered how upon entering the enormous cauldron, the copper mirror had grown hot within the bag of the Cosmos. If that was all, it wouldn’t be enough evidence to prove anything. But Meng Hao had also suddenly recalled how the mirror had grown hot during the secret meeting, when Han Bei had produced the information regarding the first volume of the Classic of Time.
“Han Bei must have prepared for this day for a long time,” he thought, “and it wasn’t just one secret meeting she attended. The information she sent out was not restricted just to late Foundation Stage Cultivators, but more importantly, to only bloodline members of the Nine Great Families.” With all this scattered information, he came to the conclusion that it must have something to do with the copper mirror.
“Just what is this mirror exactly? It can agitate the auras of wild beasts to explode, it has an astonishing power of duplication, and apparently has helped me achieve my goals by using underhanded means. Even though I’m not of the Nine Great Families, I was still able to enter this place. All these various thoughts flashed through Meng Hao’s mind in quick succession. Only a moment or two passed between Xie Jie’s question and Meng Hao’s response.