Gongsun Li walked in carrying a basin of clear, warm water, her doe-like eyes widening in surprise as she stared at the little boy beside Wang Zhaojun. "Sister Zhaojun, who is this?" she gasped.
"Guess," Wang Zhaojun said, the corners of her lips curling into a mischievous arc, her eyes gleaming with playful amusement.
"Don't tell me this is Xiaobai!"
"Ahhhhh! So cute!" Gongsun Li put down the basin, unable to help herself as she ran over, reaching out with mischievous hands to pet his head.
Seeing Gongsun Li's paws reaching for him, Xiaobai abruptly darted behind Wang Zhaojun and grabbed tightly onto her sleeve.
"Stinky Xiaobai! If it weren't for me, Sister Zhaojun would have eaten you by now! Not only are you not thanking me, you're treating me like this. My heart is broken, I'm so sad, so wronged..."
Gongsun Li put on a wronged expression, which only made the smile at the corners of Wang Zhaojun's mouth deepen.
"Alright, A-Li, it's time for him to wash his face." Wang Zhaojun lifted her pretty eyes slightly and plucked Xiaobai out from behind her.
"Sister Zhaojun, I'm leaving then." Before her voice had even faded, Gongsun Li had already vanished without a trace.
Wang Zhaojun carried the washbasin over and set it in front of him, arching a delicate brow. "Wash up yourself."
He looked up at Wang Zhaojun with an utterly innocent expression, his eyes filled with complete helplessness. Clumsily, he reached a hand into the basin, but the moment his fingers touched the water, he jerked his hand back with a start. A shimmering tear gathered at the corner of his eye as he aggrievedly bit his finger, which had turned red from the hot water.
Wang Zhaojun made no effort to hide her disdain, leaving her speechless as she muttered, "How can you be so clumsy?"
He lowered his head like a child who had done something wrong, his handsome thin lips pressed tightly together while his two hands kept twisting around each other. No matter how one looked at it, it seemed as though Wang Zhaojun was bullying him.
"Fine, I'll wash you." Resigned, Wang Zhaojun reached out to take the towel, only for him to dodge it.
He lifted his jade-carved face, his eyes sparkling with an innocent and carefree light, his voice as soft as a mosquito's buzz. "No need, I can do it myself. Sister, please don't abandon me."
He was terrified that Wang Zhaojun would find him too clumsy and throw him away.
"Come here, I'll wash you. Stop letting your imagination run wild. Since I picked you up, I'll take responsibility to the end." Wang Zhaojun sighed inwardly. So the little fellow was afraid she would abandon him—as if she dared! If her Master found out she had lost Xiaobai, she would be dead as a doornail.
"Sister, you must keep your word." He lifted his little face right up to Wang Zhaojun's, his eyes brimming with a brilliant luster.
Wang Zhaojun wrung out the towel and gently wiped his fair, flawless face. His pinkish little cheeks were soft and easy to pinch.
He bit his lip and asked tentatively, "Sister doesn't hate me anymore?"
Facing this little creature, Wang Zhaojun felt like she was about to fall apart. He was fussy, nagged endlessly, made a fuss over trivial things, and even knew how to play the innocent.
"When did I ever say I hated you?"
"Oh." He nodded.
Watching his long, silver-white hair cascade loosely and untidily down his back, Wang Zhaojun picked up a comb from the vanity and casually smoothed his messy locks, ending up braiding them into two pigtails.
Xiaobai was quite pretty, but the pigtails she had tied were simply too ugly. She had to bite back her laughter so hard tears almost came out.
He instinctively touched the braids hanging down his back, his tender white hands grabbing Wang Zhaojun's sleeve and swinging back and forth as he complained aggrievedly, "Only little girls wear braids like this! I'm a boy!"
Xiaobai had pushed his spoiled whining to absolute perfection.
Wang Zhaojun rubbed his hair and spoke absolute nonsense with a completely straight face, "But you're prettier than a little girl."
"I don't want to! I don't want to! I'm a boy, I won't wear little girl's braids!" He shook his little head stubbornly, his willful tone making Wang Zhaojun laugh out loud.
"If two braids won't do, how about just one?" Wang Zhaojun found teasing him immensely entertaining.
Xiaobai covered his head and bolted out of the house in a huff, shouting angrily as he ran, "I won't do that either!"
Wang Zhaojun walked out after him and searched the courtyard in a circle without finding a trace of him. Finally, she spotted him up in the peach tree and called out in a coaxing, gentle tone, "Come down, it's very dangerous."
"But it's a lot of fun up here." He gazed down at the pale pink peach blossoms, blinking eyes that shone like stars.
"Ungrateful wretch." Tipping her toes against the ground, Wang Zhaojun leaped up into the peach tree, grabbed him by the collar, and hauled him down like a little chick.
The moment his feet left the branch, he panicked, not knowing what to grab, and instead threw himself backward into Wang Zhaojun's arms, hugging her tightly.
Their landing kicked up a flurry of fallen petals. Wang Zhaojun looked at the little thing who barely reached her waist, then at his hair, which had been thoroughly messed up by the tree branches, and sighed as she began smoothing it out for him.
Seeing her fiddling with his hair, Xiaobai hurriedly shielded his head in a panic. "No little braids! I don't want any little braids!"
At this, Wang Zhaojun could only sigh again as she tidied his hair, the corners of her mouth curling upward even more noticeably. She said softly, "No braids, then. What are you panicking about?"
"By the way, I haven't asked you yet—what's your name? Am I just supposed to call you Xiaobai forever?"
He tilted his head, thought hard about it for a moment, and finally shook his head, gazing at Wang Zhaojun with a pitiful and aggrieved expression. "I don't know."
Wang Zhaojun stroked his hair and volunteered with bright eyes, "If you don't know, we'll just make one up."
He nodded, anticipation flashing in his eyes.
After pondering for a long time, Wang Zhaojun said very seriously, "Let's stick with Xiaobai for now, and when you grow up, we'll call you Dabai."
He lifted his palm-sized face, resting his smooth chin on a fair, jade-like hand, and blinked sleepily. "Then you can just call me Baibai."
Wang Zhaojun narrowed her eyes, feigning deep thought. "That works too. You're fair and clean-looking, and completely brainless—your image fits the name perfectly."
"I'm not brainless, Sister, don't abandon me." The moment the words left his mouth, he burrowed back into Wang Zhaojun's arms, rubbing his pretty face against her clothes.
"..." Wang Zhaojun was speechless. He was just like a puppy.
Without a shred of mercy, she pushed him away and patted the wrinkles on her clothes. "I told you not to hug me."
She was a thousand years old now, an adult, and a woman full of fiery vigor.
The instant she pushed him, a piece of blood-red jade tumbled out from inside his tunic. She instinctively reached down and picked up the pendant. The jade was crystal clear, of the rarest and most precious blood-red variety, and carved with the intricately unique design of a phoenix dancing across the nine heavens. The entire pendant emanated Spiritual Power—at a single glance, it was clearly no ordinary object.
The longer Wang Zhaojun looked, the deeper her eyes grew. The owner of this jade pendant could not possibly have a simple background. Her Master had said Xiaobai was a white phoenix, which meant Xiaobai must surely hail from the Zitong Immortal Palace.
Living within the Zitong Immortal Palace was a mysterious and powerful entity. Phoenixes had entirely perished back in the ancient era, yet Xiaobai possessed the noble and scarce bloodline of a phoenix; mortals referred to him as the Phoenix Lord.
The Zitong Immortal Palace stood proudly in Yunzhou, home to numerous collateral bloodlines of phoenixes, collectively referred to as the Phoenix Clan.
When her Master had first found her, she had been told she possessed the phoenix bloodline, but phoenixes wielded supreme divine power, whereas the meager magic she practiced wasn't even worth mentioning. She had once raised doubts about this, but her Master claimed her bloodline had yet to awaken and forbade her from telling a single soul, warning that if word leaked out, dying ten thousand times wouldn't be enough.
Over the years, the outside world had been told she was a peach tree spirit taking human form. Seven hundred years had passed, and yet there was still no sign of her bloodline awakening; she was even starting to suspect her Master had simply been making up stories to fool her.
Her slender, elegant fingers flipped the pendant over to the other side, where a single, powerful character—"Bai"—was deeply carved into the stone. Presumably, that must be his name.
"Just as I thought, your name is Xiaobai," Wang Zhaojun muttered, marveling at her own supreme intelligence.
As if a thought had suddenly struck her, she asked, "Xiaobai, do you want to go back to your family? How about I send you home?"
Her Master had actually gone out of her way amidst a busy schedule to rush over and stop her from boiling Xiaobai into soup, even instructing that he be raised properly—meaning Xiaobai's background definitely wasn't simple.