The air fell silent for a moment.
Xia Wanwan looked at him calmly.
In the end, all her speechlessness turned into a flat little, "Oh..."
[I'm sick of hearing that! Boring!]
Xia Wanwan lowered her head and went back to playing with her little fingers, then popped them into her mouth to suck on them.
Xia Siheng frowned. "You're not surprised?"
Where was the astonishment he had imagined on his daughter's face?
Where was the daughter who would throw her arms around him and kiss him in excitement?
None of it happened.
All he got was, "Oh."
He even caught a trace of sympathy in his daughter's clear eyes.
The kind of sympathy one reserved for an idiot!
He gripped the little girl's shoulders and asked again, "Wanwan, I'm your real father. Your actual father!"
"You're my daddy? Ever since I was little, I... mmph."
Her mouth was covered.
Xia Siheng said, "Don't say anything unlucky!"
[Am I under some father-attracting curse lately? Why does everyone claim to be my daddy?]
[Before I became a princess, I didn't have a daddy. Now that I'm a princess, daddies are everywhere!]
Xia Wanwan nodded. [I won't. No more unlucky words. Just let go of me first.]
With a dark expression, Xia Siheng lowered his hand and said earnestly, "I'm serious, Wanwan. Don't you want me to be your daddy?"
Damn it, who had gone and made this child call him Daddy?
Xia Wanwan sniffled and waved her hands, explaining in her babyish voice,
"N-no, I don't dislike you... it's just..."
"It's just... I already made someone else my daddy..."
"So I can't... make you my daddy..."
[My new daddy can even get the Imperial Kitchen's chef to make roast pig's trotters for me.]
*[For the sake of roast pig's trotters, I can't