Romance Across the Ages

Liu Chang'an's anger soon dissipated. He had always been adept at regulating his emotions. Only by keeping his thoughts clear and unobstructed could one maintain a healthy mind and life, rather than becoming some inhuman being with a twisted psyche from negative emotions accumulated over the long years.

More importantly, he had faced countless challenges. He could not claim never to have failed, but in the end, he had always possessed the perseverance and determination to keep going.

All he needed to do was patiently train Zhu Juntang. She was still young; given time, she would surely amount to something, and he could carve a piece of stubborn stone into uncut jade.

It was not as though he wanted to do this because he and Zhu Juntang had some... some kind of relationship. He merely had the drive to act because he had been entrusted by an old friend.

Yes, that was all.

In the not-so-distant past, it had been common for friends on their deathbeds to entrust their wives, sons, daughters, even parents to their closest friends. Some people of noble character would treat the entrusted children as their own, serve the entrusted parents as though they were their birth parents, and arrange the other man's wives and concubines properly—if they wished to marry someone else, they could marry someone else; if they wished to marry him, they could marry him.

Whenever Liu Chang'an lived under various identities, he often received such requests, since he always lived a little longer than his friends, stayed a little healthier, and was a little more capable in every regard. As long as the relationship was not too poor, he would take care of them to some extent.

It could not be helped. He had always possessed a warm, kind, upright, benevolent, compassionate,