What drew even more attention was her skin—white as snow—and her distinctly exotic features. She was clearly not a woman from the Central Plains. At first sight, a phrase involuntarily popped into Song Qingshu's mind: A foreign babe?
The moment that thought arose, Song Qingshu's old face heated up. He thought that Xue Pan had truly influenced him; he had actually begun making such associations without realizing it.
The woman seemed to have been through a fight and had suffered serious injuries. Her face was unusually pale, and she was breathing rapidly. Clearly, she was in an extreme state of panic.
"Could this be some drama about abducting a woman?" Song Qingshu was taken aback. He wondered if Hulagu Khan had sent someone to find him a woman for amusement. Hulagu Khan had spent years conquering western nations, so it was only natural that his tastes had become more Westernized.
In ancient China, high noses and deep-set eyes had nothing to do with handsomeness. Such features were called "barbarian looks" and were regarded as ghostlike. During the chaos of the Five Barbarians, Shi Hu and his son of Later Zhao had been extremely wary of people commenting on their appearance. Anyone who mentioned their deep eye sockets and the like would be slaughtered wholesale.
Only someone like Song Qingshu, who came from a later age, could appreciate the beauty of Western women. Most people in this world could not appreciate it at all. Thus, when he saw this barbarian woman being dragged inside, his first thought was that she had been sent by Hulagu Khan.
He had been worrying about how to find a way in. Seeing this, Song Qingshu quietly followed them. The woman's escort caused quite a stir in the garden, and no one noticed him slipping in