Chapter 1
Chapter 1
This was a world where looks were everything.
An ugly man with no money couldn't even leave behind descendants. What's more, if a man was especially ugly, he couldn't find a woman even with money. Shen Lang was precisely that kind of man.
Of course, he hadn't been born ugly. From a young age, many girls had fallen for his looks and pursued him ardently. At the peak of his good looks, Shen Lang was a student at the nation's top medical school. But in his first year of university, an unexpected accident occurred.
During a lab practical, a flask exploded, splashing highly concentrated sulfuric acid across his face and the upper half of his body. The man whose looks had once been described as nothing short of heavenly was disfigured in an instant, transformed from a radiant angel into a grotesque, dark demon. He became so hideous that no one could bear to look at him more than once. Uglier than Quasimodo from *The Hunchback of Notre Dame*, a single glance at him was enough to give someone nightmares.
Shen Lang's face, once one that could make anyone fall in love, now inspired only terror. Barely any female student could look at him for more than two seconds. Just like that, he lost the right to ever find love.
Having lost his handsome face, he resolved to cultivate a noble soul instead. After completing his master's degree, he neither pursued a doctorate nor joined his university's affiliated hospital. Instead, he chose the path to the harshest, most remote regions.
He served in those remote regions for ten years, saving countless lives and earning great honors. Despite this, no woman ever came to love him. Believing his efforts were still not enough to shine, he decided to become even more noble. He thought that if he became nobler still, people would no longer see his hideous, terrifying face.
He went to the even more dangerous and arduous continent of Africa, waging his own desperate battle every day as a doctor in a war-torn nation. Even in dire conditions without a proper operating room, he never gave up, continuing to perform surgeries and care for his patients.
Shen Lang endured another ten years in war-torn Africa. In the end, he earned even more accolades, and the UN even awarded him a certificate in recognition of his noble sacrifice. Day after day, he performed surgeries and saved patients. Shen Lang's reputation spread across the globe, and he became a paragon of struggle, sacrifice, and service.
Shen Lang's hideous face was featured in many newspapers and magazines. Many women looked up to him, but none of them loved him. Not a single woman fell for him. And so, even past the age of forty, he remained alone.
When his parents passed away, he grew even lonelier. This drove him to immerse himself further in his work and service. He worked more than ten hours every day, saving lives and treating the wounded as if by habit.
* * *
There were times Shen Lang operated for twenty-seven hours straight, like a robot. Another twenty years passed this way. Like a man of iron, he worked without rest every day, putting his own life on the line to save others. The number of surgeries he performed and lives he saved over those two decades was beyond counting.
But no matter how noble he became, winning a woman's affection and love was another matter entirely. Just as the heroine of *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* did not hate Quasimodo, but simply allowed his love for her to remain unrequited.
On that day, as always, Shen Lang meticulously finished suturing a refugee's leg. He was utterly exhausted, but there was not a hint of carelessness in his work.
"Whew."
A whining sound grew from a distant hum to a roar. The air began to tremble. Shen Lang knew it well—the sound of a falling bomb. It was right overhead, yet he felt no fear, no urge to flee. Instead, he felt a sense of lightness, of relief. His life had been so tiresome, so lonely.
"It's been a long, hard life. It's just a shame I'm dying without ever having been with a woman. If I get another chance to live, I'm going to take it easy. I'll wear clothes someone else dresses me in, eat food someone else feeds me, and I won't struggle so damn hard anymore. And if I could have my handsome face back... I'd use it to win over the most beautiful woman in the world."
Shen Lang made a vow.
*BOOM!*
The bomb struck the makeshift hospital, detonating right beside Shen Lang. In that instant, his body, the nearby X-ray machine, and his laptop were all blown to smithereens. In the aftermath of the explosion, a vortex of light suddenly materialized in the air, sweeping away everything left amidst the wreckage.