It had to be said, this ghostlike princess was quite the busybody. She could not even walk properly—one moment she would stop by the roadside to see what people were selling from their stalls, the next she would go bother passing kittens and puppies.
Su Ming could not be blamed for having double standards. Everyone had double standards. That was human nature.
When a beautiful girl skipped along like that, looking at what stall vendors were selling and playing with passing little animals, it was innocent, adorable, lively, and graceful. Passersby would only smile faintly, finding it interesting and lovely.
But if an ugly woman did the same thing, everyone would merely shake their heads in disgust, mutter, "Ugly people always make trouble," and hurry away.
Human life depended heavily on vision, which made people visual creatures. Appearance therefore had an enormous influence on how others treated someone.
The reason for this was actually the reproductive instinct embedded in DNA.
Ugliness and beauty were relative concepts that required comparison to reach a conclusion. But if a member of the opposite sex had too many traits one disliked, one would instinctively feel that reproducing with them would pollute one's genes, causing one's descendants to inherit and display those disliked characteristics. Thus, a physiological aversion arose.
This was not discrimination. It was merely another form of genetic selection.
When survival was not guaranteed, powerful martial strength was beauty; in an era requiring reform, advanced ideas were beauty; and in peaceful, stable times? People pursued paler skin, slimmer bodies, cleaner clothing, and so on.
Therefore, from a biological perspective, war and reform were necessary. They were means of adjusting the direction of evolution, preventing humanity from eventually becoming nothing but a single "useful" brain while its "useless" limbs completely atrophied.
But perhaps if