Little Qingluo had no idea she was being schemed against by her dear father as she continued to play around with the elders surrounding her with love.
Though Qi Shou didn't really care too much about her feelings while planning, he couldn't really come up with an inhumane regimen.
It wasn't like he was taking out his frustration on his juniors or something.
That was his own daughter.
The harshest thing he could think of was forcing her to study for a few hours and trying to walk and remain stable for as long as possible.
She was too cute for him to even think of giving her any forms of discomfort.
Yet his heart had to harden for her future sake.
With that being the only thing to constantly coax his guilty conscience, he didn't waste a day and got to it.
The moment he was done feeding her cookies dissolved in milk, all of which was given by the system, he didn't try to hasten her digestion.
Rather, he carefully placed her on the ground, afriad of the ground causing irritation on her skin.
"Mingzhu, come to papa," he said after taking two steps away from her, and signalling to her using his hands.
Naturally, he had to repeat it multiple times to keep her attention on him.
She crawled, so he could only change his words.
"No, no, don't crawl! Walk! Like papa!"
He said, gesticulating to his legs and taking a few steps.
It was in cue to make her understand.
However, she was just a year or so old, not having developed enough intelligence to understand his words or actions.
In her eyes, her close person who fed her delicious stuff was playing with her.
But she also wanted to be held in his arms rather than roll around on the ground.
It felt more comfortable and secure to the baby her.
It was just... instinctive.
Not something special about her or anything.
"Haa," Qi Shou sighed, "This is going to take a while."
Though he sighed, his hands didn't forget to support her to stand up.
Then he hesitantly kept his hands a few inches from her, hovering around her to catch her if she lost her balance for the slightest second.
All his focus was on her sense of balance that he missed his parents and wife observing him from nearby.
They had just come to see what was going on after hearing his voice, but didn't expect it to be like this.
He seemed to be teaching her words using his hands, gesticulating, while also helping her learn walking without any support.
Although a bit early for Qingluo, none wanted to dampen his spirit.
Most importantly, it wouldn't have any negative impact on Qingluo because she was already far fairer, brighter, and plumper than any other child at her age.
Of course, credit should be given where due.
Mother Qi's daily massaging had helped grow Qingluo's limbs to be stronger, so she didn't feel much of the pain.
"Yes, yes, you can do it!"
Unaware of anything, the father-daughter pair continued their tirade for a few minutes before Qi Shou felt it was too much and lifted Qi Qingluo up in his arms, eliciting a light chuckle from her.
"Hehe~"
It seemed that Qi Qingluo truly enjoyed the process of eating, playing and more playing.
However, her body was still too young.
So much exertion had already made her drowsy and she directly fell asleep in Qi Shou's arms.
"You've worked hard," he whispered to Qingluo before taking her to the small bed made for her and put her down.
It was a crib, just a bit more crude and having more soft parts to prevent any injury due to unexpected movements during night.
It wasn't right to restrict her while sleeping, so Qi Shou felt that the best solution was to pad her crib with soft pillows.
His eyes contained endless doting as he looked at the sleeping form of his daughter.
'What cruel fate,' he cursed to himself, not wanting to wake Qingluo up because of his ramblings.
Then, he headed out as if nothing happened and didn't find anyone in the yard.
Only when he went to the kitchen did he see his wife preparing meat for drying.
"Why are you doing this?" He asked her, indignant that she had to do it.
Without waiting for an answer, he reached out to help her and quickly got into sync with her movements.
His words weren't merely superficial as he directly took action, bit it left Qin Hanliu with a bad feeling.
It wasn't just her here.
Mother Qi was helping her, to begin with, but she left just a few secodns earlier to check on something with Father Qi.
But... such a heart-touching moment shouldn't be ruined by the truth.
It was just his assumption and her not denying it... what did it have to do with her?
Not like he would believe it.
He'd even go and confront his parents for forcing her to work so soon after her difficult labour.
Truthfully, it'd been so long that even she didn't feel the pain anymore.
Yet Qi Shou's heart ached as if she were the most fragile being in the world.
While emotional at first, it would quickly get to the point of being controlling and no one liked that.
Sadly, Qi Shou was different as he directly shared his true feelings with her.
His actual mindset, though, was something along the lines of: my parents both are cultivators, so why do we both mortals have to suffer?
Not like they'll grow old and sick, so can't they just leave the young ones be?
It was his complaint and dissatisfaction that arose mainly after his previous life's memories.
Earlier, he wouldn't even dare to think about such thoughts, considering them sinful.
Yet the modern way of living rubbed off him.
Especially concepts like mutual respect, equality, respect for women.
The last one was what mattered the most to him
After all, he had a daughter.
And he had even began her teaching.