Gold at a Glance

When Chen Du was sixteen, a classmate crushed his glasses underfoot and still owed him 460 yuan in compensation.

Unwilling to make his mother spend more money, he dug out an old pair of glasses his father had left behind.

The moment he put them on, the world changed.

Pure gold lay hidden beneath scrap metal; genuine goods were tucked inside counterfeits. To everyone else, unwanted old things were worthless. To him, they were all opportunities to turn his life around.

While others feared getting cheated at the secondhand market, Chen Du picked 3,400 yuan' worth of treasure from a scrap bin. From street stalls, he made his way into jewelry stores, auction houses, and the world of overseas collectors.

But the more money he made, the more people set their sights on his glasses. His father, a man he had never met who had suddenly disappeared, had also left clues behind in one old object after another.

Chen Du wanted more than just to get rich.

He wanted to make sure his mother would never again have to bow her head over a few dozen yuan, find his father, and make a name for himself in an industry that cared only about a sharp eye and money.

Other people picked through junk. He picked gold out of it.