After playing with the silver coin for several days, Chen Youzai gradually found it dull.
No matter how he changed, it only created misunderstandings and petty farce. Worse still, he often caught sight of his own face. Ever since the girl’s words, he found that face increasingly intolerable.
On the weekend, under his mother’s watchful eye, he was forced to sit at home and do homework—a torture for someone so restless. He felt as though sitting atop needles.
He secretly took out the coin and examined it in his palm.
Was it good or evil?
Why did it feel as though calamity had followed him ever since he obtained it?
In frustration, he hurled it to the floor.
The coin rolled somewhere out of sight.
At first, he was merely angry at himself—but when he realized it was truly gone, panic set in. He searched everywhere, finding nothing.
“How could it vanish like that?” he muttered, tugging at his hair. “If I ever want to become handsome again, I won’t be able to… No, no—come out already!”
Only after losing it did he recall another possibility.
Why limit himself to people around him? Would it be more interesting to specify someone directly? If he asked to become the ugliest person in the world—could the coin produce such a person? At least then he could find comfort in comparison.
The thought made him all the more desperate.
Crawling beneath the bed, covered in dust, he searched again. Just as despair overtook him, he noticed a faint glimmer beneath one leg of a stool. When he had moved it earlier, he must have pinned the coin underneath.
He snatched it up like a priceless treasure.
Quick—try it…
After confirming his mother was elsewhere, he boldly recited the incantation and commanded the coin to turn him into the ugliest person in the world.
With a hint of anticipation—and malicious delight—he closed his eyes.
Golden light flashed.
He opened them slowly.
Nothing had changed.
He stood in the same room, untouched.
His heart skipped.
The light had appeared—so why no transformation?
Surely…
No. Impossible!
Even if he wasn’t handsome, he couldn’t be the ugliest in the world. There were deformities, paralysis, far worse…
His hands trembled as he muttered to the coin:
“It must not work that way. Beauty is subjective. The coin can’t judge who’s ugliest…”
Yet cold sweat beaded on his brow.
Then realization struck.
If he asked to become the most handsome man in the world—and nothing happened—then the coin must simply have failed earlier.
Clenching his fists, he shouted:
“I want to become the most handsome man in the world!”
Outside, his mother heard the roar and rushed in, face dark with anger.
But when she entered, she saw only Chen Youzai nodding off at his desk, hardly in a state to shout at all.
She frowned.
Was she imagining things again?
Futile Devices Scans 
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