When my daughter was five months old, it was the critical period of his campaign against the former dynasty.
Due to the chaos, he lost his wife and daughter, with no news ever since.
Bai Zhi'er nodded, "Alive, Mother is doing well, it was she who sent me to find you, Father."
"Then where is she? Why is she unwilling to appear?"
"Mother said she has important matters to attend to, and since Father needed a little clever ghost by his side, she sent me here."
Bai Xilie's eyes were filled with tears as he examined his daughter.
He rubbed her hands and found that her delicate little fingertips were all red from the cold.
The clothes she wore were not warm enough; she was the last to enter. How she endured it all was beyond him.
Bai Xilie looked at her right ear.
Outwardly, he claimed he couldn't remember whether it was her left or right ear with a red mole for fear someone might fake it.
The real answer, he knew in his heart.
From birth, behind his daughter's right earlobe, there was a small red mole.
Now reconfirming it, he sighed with sadness, "It's Father's fault, letting you and your mother suffer outside."
Bai Xilie picked up Bai Zhi'er and said to Master Wen, "Summon my imperial chariot and return the little princess to my Qianyuan Hall!"
"Yes, I will arrange it immediately," the official replied.
Bai Zhi'er blinked her large, watery eyes and softly asked, "Father, the little eunuch outside said you were not sincerely looking for Mother and me, only pretending—is that true?"
Bai Xilie's face darkened, and he held the little one tightly, sheltering her small body with his large cloak.
"False, in this world, Father loves no one more than your mother and you."
He took large strides out of the palace, glancing at the group of palace attendants kneeling outside, asking coldly, "Who told you such nonsense?"
Bai Zhi'er extended her small hand, pointing at the two eunuchs who had bullied her earlier.
Without hesitation, Bai Xilie instructed, "Drag those two away and execute them by waist cutting."
Arriving at the Qianyuan Hall, it was even more grand and majestic compared to the Chengqian Palace.
The interior was lavishly decorated, and even the seams in the floor seemed gilded, dazzlingly bright.
Bai Xilie arranged for six palace servants to bathe Bai Zhi'er.
During the process, he stood guard at the door, afraid that in a blink, his daughter would be gone again.
Once Bai Zhi'er was bathed, her skin appeared more tender and fair, as soft as silk.
Her cheeks blushed deeply, making her large eyes seem even more vivid and lively.
Bai Xilie personally took the smoke cage to tidy his daughter's long hair.
The little one was very obedient, occasionally looking up to Bai Xilie.
Bai Xilie smiled and asked, "What are you looking at?"
"I'm watching Father; you look exactly like how I dreamed!"
Because of her words, warmth filled Bai Xilie's heart.
He saw that although his daughter was not well-dressed, her small hands and feet were plump, indicating that his beloved wife had taken good care of the little one.
Bai Xilie asked, "These past two years, where have you and your mother been staying? Father sent people all over to search, yet found no trace of you."
He had searched extensively for his wife and daughter, even offering a reward of a thousand taels of gold and silver just to learn of their whereabouts.
If his dear wife wanted to reunite with him, she would have appeared by now.
Her prolonged absence surely meant she was avoiding him.
Bai Zhi'er blinked her long eyelashes, "We move and stay wherever we go. Mother said not to find Father yet, because it's not time for the reunion. If we found Father, you wouldn't think about managing the country, only about us returning home!"
Those words indeed sounded like something the woman would say.
Bai Xilie found himself at a loss, neither laughing nor crying, and he did not refute.
This was indeed his dream; when he first raised the banner of rebellion and led his army to flatten the corrupt former dynasty, it was all because of a word from his beloved wife.
"Then why was she willing to send you first?"