Starting with a Compass: My Treasure Hunt in the 1990s

Starting with a Compass: My Treasure Hunt in the 1990s Plot:

In the sweltering summer of 1995, Lin Xiaoman, a recent high school graduate, urgently needed 3,000 yuan for her mother’s surgery. She found her late grandma’s tattered compass, whose needle surprisingly pointed to an abandoned ancestral hall that had been empty for a decade. Chen Mo, the cold-faced boy guarding the hall, tried desperately to stop her, claiming the hall was haunted, but Xiaoman insisted on breaking in to save her mother. However, instead of treasure, the box in the underground chamber held only grandma’s diary and a bracelet missing a bead. It turned out grandma and Chen Mo’s grandfather had “hunted for treasure” years ago—not for gold, but for the “brightest bead” grandpa promised her. Grandpa went to work in a coal mine to buy a glass marble for her, but disappeared in a mining accident, and the bracelet was their token of love. At that moment, Chen Mo took out the matching glass marble left by his grandfather, along with the surgery fee he’d paid by selling a coal stone. The compass didn’t lead Xiaoman to money, but to grandma’s regret—and Chen Mo’s hidden affection in the marble. The real “treasure” is the love that mends regrets.