The woman you see in the picture looks like a 60-year-old.
But the truth is that the long-haired, slim and tall woman is only 21.
Miss Zhu Yan, from Meizhou City in China's Guangdong Province, has to endure the pain of being mistaken for her grandmother when she goes out with her mother.
She is afflicted with Acquired Anetoderma, a non-fatal condition that results in flaccid, sagging skin.
The condition is so rare, only 10 cases have been reported globally in the last 20 years, reported Apple Daily.
There have been only three cases in China, including Miss Zhu, who is the first Chinese female patient. But she was not born with the condition.
In 2003, Miss Zhu bought a cheap brand of pearl powder that she started applying on her face every night.
She would only wash the powder off at about noon the next day.
Her routine was only a few days old when she realised that her face had become more and more reddish-looking.
She sought treatment at various clinics and tried all kinds of medication, but nothing could reverse the redness of her skin.
A year later, red spots had broken out all over her body, including her face.
Her skin had also started to fold and sag, and more and more wrinkles started appearing.
Miserable
'I almost wanted to die,' said Miss Zhu.
Oriental Daily reported that she sank into depression and refused to leave her family home.
She did not contact any of her friends or former classmates, and do not look up or make eye contact when having conversations with her family members.
She smashed her favourite pocket mirror and plastered all the mirrors and reflective surfaces at home with newspapers.
Miss Zhu also gave up her place in college and spent most of her time surfing the Internet.
Her family have spent whatever money they had on finding a way to treat her condition.
Her mother took her to a Beijing hospital for an operation to remove the excess skin, but because her skin was 'loosening' at an extremely fast rate, the effects of the surgery were not significant.
Because of her aged appearance, Miss Zhu has had great difficulty in getting a job for the last few years.
But she still lives in hope. The hospital has come up with a treatment programme that lasts four to six months.
She said that during her stay in the hospital, she will pore through books on computers and hopes to find a job related to this field.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
