He wouldn't have been surprised if the other man had questioned his words, but the term he used was for a more personal reason. 'Ancestor' is the closest he's coming to actually state that those men are his family. He knows that technically, he isn't a direct line to either man but because of his friendship with Zhou Zishu's master and everything they'd been through, it's close enough. Otherwise, their relationship was a work in progress.

"Don't we all," he remarks mildly. "This is how you know him though? Because he shared wine with you?" Wanyin must not be a very close to his descendants then.