They said men liked playing the teacher, imparting knowledge and skills, but some men liked playing the father, their overflowing paternal love searching for somewhere to settle.
It was a perfectly proper statement, yet people always managed to read something else into it, reflecting certain social phenomena and fully demonstrating the profundity of language and writing.
A language that could keep pace with the times, adapt, and develop richer connotations was a symbol of excellence that endured without becoming outdated.
What endured often meant truth, and the power of truth lay in its being a rule. The power of rules was supreme in every plane of existence.
That was why, in so many fantasy novels, simple Chinese incantations could stir the power of heaven and earth and become the protagonist's means of dominating another world. It was not made up without basis; it was perfectly logical.
Liu Chang'an was a proper man, so he liked playing the father. It was merely a way of simplifying ambiguous or unclear relationships.
It was like how, in the past, he had adopted many little girls out of kindness. As they grew up, it was inevitable that those girls would develop admiration for their gentle, refined, jade-like, exceptionally handsome adoptive father.
In feudal times, an age gap was no issue at all. Many scholars and poets, even in their seventies or eighties, still fell into "love" with teenage girls and wrote countless poems and songs lamenting their passionate romances.
If ordinary men could receive such treatment, what about him?
He sheltered them from the wind and rain, provided food, clothing, housing, and transport, taught them literature, etiquette, and propriety, and allowed children who might otherwise have ended up in brothels or starved by the roadside to grow up. How could they possibly avoid developing