Chapter 132 - 95: Handsome is a Lifelong Business

Hair loss is an unavoidable hurdle for all baldness-prone friends approaching middle age, and it remains one of the great medical challenges baffling the entire medical community.

If Fermat’s Last Theorem, the four-color theorem, and the Goldbach conjecture are the world’s three great mathematical conjectures—simple to state but profound in their implications...

...then hemorrhoids, appendicitis, and hair loss are their medical equivalents.

It seems like the medical world has thoroughly researched the pathology and causes of these three conditions, yet the actual treatments are all crude and less than ideal.

You either cut it out once and for all, go for an aggressive hair transplant, or apply some random topical medication that can’t cure the root cause.

For a condition like hair loss, there still isn’t a single miracle drug that works for everyone.

If someone could invent a miracle drug to cure hair loss, forget about just fame and fortune; they could probably bag a few Nobel Prizes in Medicine. At the very least, becoming the world’s richest person off that drug would be a piece of cake.

That’s because out of the global population, a staggering two billion people suffer from hair loss, with 250 million of them in Huaxia alone.

When Chen Jue first noticed he was losing his hair a few years ago, he’d spent time researching the condition online and had even visited the hospital several times.

According to the doctor’s diagnosis, he had the most common type: androgenetic alopecia, also known as seborrheic alopecia or hereditary hair loss.

The cause of his hair loss was an overproduction of male hormones. These hormones travel through the bloodstream to the hair bulb cells in the scalp. There, they react with the enzyme 5α-reductase in the cytoplasm to form DHT (dihydrotestosterone), a compound five times more potent. This DHT then has a toxic effect on the hair follicles, causing them to gradually shrink, shortening the hair’s growth cycle until the follicles eventually die.

It was all his genetics’ fault; Chen Jue was just the poor scapegoat taking the blame.

The Chens, his entire family, carried the gene for male pattern baldness.

As far as Chen Jue could remember, his father’s generation and even his grandfather’s generation had similar symptoms.

It wasn’t that they went completely bald, but their hair had been progressively thinning since puberty.

After he entered the workforce and his lifestyle became more irregular, Chen Jue’s hair loss grew even more severe.

From a distance, it looked normal enough, but if you got close and the wind blew, you could see the scalp he couldn’t quite cover up.

For a man in the prime of his life, this was a significant blow!

It wasn’t a case of "I went bald, so I got stronger."

Instead, once hair loss began, his self-confidence was shattered.

Especially in today’s dating market, no one wanted a partner who was balding.

So, upon discovering that this new "Designated Points" function could target his scalp directly, Chen Jue didn’t hesitate for a second before dumping his spare free attribute points into that area.

’I can earn more free attribute points every day anyway. If I can use Designated Points to fix my hair loss, I’m willing to spend as many points as it takes!’

After all, for a man, getting stronger is temporary, but being handsome is a lifelong pursuit!

...

A small fraction of a free attribute point was successfully consumed, and his Constitution Attribute increased by another 0.01.

Chen Jue clearly felt a warm current gather from all over his body and converge on the designated area of his scalp.

This was followed by a slight cooling sensation that spread across the top of his head. His scalp felt as if he’d just had a treatment, and all his pores seemed to have opened up.

Just then, a new notification popped up on the panel:

——————

[DING~]

[Consumed 0.01 Free Attribute for Pointing and Adding Points to the scalp area. Blood circulation, metabolism, and the secretion ability of sweat gland ducts in the area have been slightly enhanced.]

——————

’Huh?’

’That’s it???’

’Nothing else!’

Chen Jue stared at the new notification with a look of utter confusion.

The scene he had imagined—his lost hair miraculously growing back after adding the point—didn’t happen.

Instead, the top of his head felt slightly warm, as if his scalp had just received a massage. His pores were open, but there was absolutely no information about his dead follicles.

Chen Jue refused to accept it. A man’s dignity was on the line here—his hair!

To test the "Designated Points" function further, he tried adding another 0.01 to his scalp.

Once again, a warm sensation shot across his scalp, and the panel displayed another notification:

——————

[DING~]

[Consumed 0.01 Free Attribute for Pointing and Adding Points to the scalp area. Blood circulation has accelerated, and the nutrient absorption capacity of the subcutaneous fat layer has been slightly enhanced.]

——————

’Still not working!’

’Can’t even adding points cure hair loss and baldness?’ Chen Jue still refused to believe it.

Ever since he’d awakened this attribute panel, it had given him one confidence boost after another.

It had not only helped him lose weight and develop respectable muscle definition, but it had also significantly improved his herniated lumbar disc and hemorrhoids.

Most importantly, it had even cured his nearsightedness, a condition notoriously difficult to reverse. Chen Jue refused to believe that "mere" hair loss could stump the panel!

’I must not have added enough points!’

Chen Jue took a deep breath and tried adding to his Constitution Attribute in the scalp area three more times.

Three more surges of heat rushed to his scalp, followed by his pores opening and a cool, refreshing sensation spreading across his head.

The first part of the next two notifications remained unchanged, both indicating that blood circulation in the area had accelerated.

However, the second half of each message presented new alerts: one was [The excretory function of the sebaceous glands in the area has been slightly enhanced], and the other was [The peripheral nerve network in the area has received mechanical stimulation, and the sensitivity of the hair shaft nerves has been faintly enhanced].

Finally, on the last enhancement, Chen Jue at last saw a glimmer of hope for his hair’s regrowth from this "Pointing and Adding Points"!

——————

[DING~]

[Consumed 0.01 Free Attribute for Pointing and Adding Points to the scalp area. Blood circulation has accelerated, and damaged capillary networks are beginning to rebuild.]

[Some hair follicle stem cells have been stimulated and are beginning to differentiate into new follicles. They will replace the old, necrotic follicles. Dormant matrix cells in some dermal papillae are beginning to divide and proliferate again.]

[Friendly Reminder: It is now possible for your lost hair to regrow. Please maintain a good lifestyle, nutritional intake, and scalp hygiene to increase the likelihood of hair regeneration.]

——————

"It worked!"

"It worked!"

"My fucking hair is coming back!"

Staring at the new notifications, Chen Jue felt like his pounding heart was about to leap out of his throat.

He only had 0.03 free attribute points left on the panel. If this hadn’t worked, he would have had to consider stopping the "Designated Points" and switching back to an overall Constitution enhancement.

At least that way, he could have alleviated the minor inflammation in his fascia and muscles.

He would have recovered sooner and been able to jump back into a new round of exercise to farm more attributes, creating a virtuous cycle between physical activity and panel enhancements.

But just as the doors of hope were about to close, the panel had given him a massive surprise!

Hair loss, a problem that had plagued humanity for countless years, had finally been solved by him using a cheat!

Although it was just the first glimmer of hope, having researched male pattern baldness, Chen Jue knew that as long as the follicles regenerated and the matrix cells began to divide, his thinning hair would definitely return to its former thickness.

From now on, all he needed to do was maintain regular care and continue allocating free attribute points to his scalp.

But as he looked at the five "Designated Points" enhancement notifications scrolling on the panel, Chen Jue couldn’t help but sigh. "I never realized curing hair loss involved so many factors."

"Blood circulation, metabolism, nutrient delivery, waste excretion from the follicular environment, and even related nerve stimulation... only then do you get to the crucial step of reawakening the follicles and matrix cells."

"No wonder the medical community hasn’t developed a miracle drug yet! With such a complex pathology and individual variations, creating a broad-spectrum drug must be incredibly difficult."

Chen Jue stared at the panel, analyzing it for a while. He realized that his successful, non-medicinal cure for hair loss was utterly impossible to promote or share with ordinary people.

Because no one else had the magical attribute panel that he did.

Besides that, through the consecutive "Designated Points" additions, Chen Jue had also discovered something crucial.

It seemed that adding points to Constitution was strongly linked to "blood circulation," a term that appeared frequently in the notifications.

Thinking back on all the Constitution Attribute points he had added before, that warm current spreading through his body was clearly the sensation of his blood flow accelerating!