Ray of Light – Guo Jingfei, Ren Min, Roy Wang

In the summer of 2011, at Ren Zhen's home, her college entrance exam results were not ideal. She had already filled out her first and second choices, and her mother started scolding her in the living room. Ren Zhen was alone in her room, feeling like her world was about to collapse. Her phone received messages of joy from her classmates who were going to college. Ren Zhen's mother ran into her room and questioned her. Her father pulled Ren Zhen outside while her mother continued venting in the living room, throwing things around. Ren Zhen, in her room, started tearing up papers and breaking various stationery items to release her frustration, but she accidentally cut her hand with a ruler. The atmosphere at home was too oppressive, so Ren Zhen packed her bag and decided to go outside.

Hao Nan went to a pool hall, where a young man appeared and startled his younger brother. After recovering from the shock, his younger brother ran out to chase the young man who confronted Hao Nan. Inside the pool hall, there was a young man who had won a lot of money and was very arrogant. Hao Nan couldn't stand him and wanted to teach him a lesson. When he saw Hao Nan, he felt that it wasn't appropriate for the two of them to play together because the pool hall belonged to Hao Nan. However, seeing that Hao Nan was also arrogant, the young man decided to gamble. The pool game between Hao Nan and the young man officially began, while Hao Nan's younger brother was still chasing the young man who confronted Hao Nan.

After winning the game, Hao Nan asked the three high school students who lost about a math problem from high school. It turned out that the three of them couldn't answer it. Hao Nan had already noticed that they were students and wanted to help them win back their money. Hao Nan threatened the young man who played pool not to bully kids anymore. At that moment, his younger brother called and had already caught the person behind the scenes, Chen Ming. Hao Nan rushed over and saw it was Number Two, so he asked his brother to bring the alcohol. Learning that Hao Nan was going to let him go, the Number Two and his companions were reluctant, but before leaving, Number Two made a threatening remark. Hao Nan remembered the past; he used to be a high school teacher, and Number Two was his student. The two of them had become enemies since then.

Ren Zhen, alone, arrived at the rooftop, where Hao Nan also saw her. Thinking that Ren Zhen was going to jump off the building, he prepared to save her, which resulted in both of them falling together. Ren Zhen mistakenly thought that Hao Nan was a gangster, while Hao Nan thought that Ren Zhen was going to jump off the building, so he started comforting her. After hearing that Ren Zhen wasn't trying to commit suicide, he felt embarrassed. As a result, Ren Zhen accidentally left her diary behind when she hurried home.

Time went back to June 6th, the day before the college entrance exam. Ren Zhen was studying at home when her drunk father came to the door holding a doll, causing a commotion to celebrate Ren Zhen's birthday. With no other choice, Ren Zhen's mother let her father come in. Ren Zhen's father accompanied her to the exam, but due to a collision with another car, Ren Zhen had to ride her bicycle instead. The exam hall started letting people in, and Ren Zhen pedaled desperately towards the exam venue, finally arriving on time. However, during the exam, due to Ren Zhen's nervousness and inability to solve the questions, combined with her worry about her mother's illness, her state of mind was affected, resulting in a poor performance in the college entrance exam.

After the college entrance exam, Ren Zhen's classmates wanted to go out and have fun, but Ren Zhen wanted to stay at the dumpling restaurant to help out. She was also worried about her mother, who fell ill. It was her mother's illness that made Ren Zhen decide to study medicine and become a doctor.

Ren Zhen and her classmates went out to play and went to the seaside together. They walked towards the sea to see who could go the farthest. As a result, Ren Zhen and the male protagonist went the deepest. Ren Zhen's classmates were very happy, but one female classmate got too excited and drank too much. She had to end her conversation with the male protagonist and left with her classmates. The college entrance exam results were officially released. Ren Zhen searched for her scores with her mother, and her score reached over 500 points. Her mother was happy to hear that, but even with such a score, she couldn't get into the dream medical school she desired. With this score, she couldn't even choose a good major if she applied to other medical schools. Ren Zhen was very disappointed. After returning home, Ren Zhen used her computer to search for the majors she could apply for at universities. Suddenly, her father rushed in and asked Ren Zhen to apply for the medical school. Ren Zhen told her father that her score was not good enough to apply. However, her father told Ren Zhen that he had found a way for her to get into a good major. Ren Zhen didn't believe in such methods, thinking that it was impossible to find help for university admissions. But her father insisted and claimed that he wouldn't harm his daughter. Ren Zhen didn't believe him and hesitated, but her father directly pressed the enter key, confirming the application for the medical school. After her mother sold Ren Zhen's books and returned, she told Ren Zhen that the score requirement for the medical school had increased again this year. Ren Zhen knew that her score couldn't make it, so she went to ask her father. However, he didn't answer the phone, and her father called the middleman and learned that the contact person, Director Li, had already disappeared. Ren Zhen's father had been deceived, and Ren Zhen missed the application deadline like this. Time went back to after the college entrance exam. Hao Nan was reading Ren Zhen's diary when his younger brother called and told him that the pool hall had been smashed. Ren Zhen returned home and saw her father with a head injury. She asked with concern, but she found out that nothing had happened and angrily went back to her room. Her parents were still arguing in the living room, and Ren Zhen proposed to repeat a year. Hao Nan's landlord came to the pool hall and, seeing the mess, became very worried and searched everywhere for Hao Nan. As a result, he found Hao Nan fainted in his room, unable to open the door, and called the police. When the door was finally opened, they found that Hao Nan was fine. Hao Nan and his father went to buy study materials everywhere, and coincidentally ran into classmates. Hao Nan felt a little embarrassed, and when he returned home, Ren Zhen's mother was very angry and wanted to divorce her father. Ren Zhen sat alone in her room, listening to her parents' conversation. Hao Nan closed down the pool hall and distributed all the recent profits to his younger brothers. It was said that he went to a new school, and when the teacher saw Hao Nan's college entrance exam scores, which had passed the cutoff for admission to first-tier universities, and heard that Ren Zhen's name was exposed, they asked him to adjust his mindset because the pressure of repeating a year was greater than that of normal senior year. After closing down the pool hall, Hao Nan started looking for jobs everywhere and encountered many eccentric bosses but couldn't find a suitable job. Just as Hao Nan was searching for a job, Qingyun High School called and offered him a teaching position that suited him well. Hao Nan's younger brothers also searched for jobs everywhere but faced constant setbacks. When they learned that Hao Nan had applied for a teaching position, they encouraged him to give it a try. However, because of the trauma Hao Nan experienced as a teacher before, he had been reluctant to teach students at a school.

The next morning, Hao Nan's mother called him on the phone. His mother had already learned about the pool hall incident and, to prevent her from worrying, Hao Nan lied and said he had a teaching position lined up and was preparing to apply for it. This also gave him the idea of going for an interview. Hao Nan cut his long hair and arrived at the school for the interview. When he heard Principal Wang Zhiguo's words, it seemed like they knew each other before. It turned out that Hao Nan had participated in a competition before and ranked first in the city, and Wang Zhiguo, who was a judge at the time, valued him highly. The school director noticed that Hao Nan had a three-year gap in his resume after resigning and was prepared to ask about it, but Wang Zhiguo, who understood the situation, interrupted the director's questioning and helped ease the tension. Hao Nan was puzzled because he hadn't submitted a resume, so he wondered how they found him. Wang Zhiguo promised to keep the applicants' information confidential. Wang Zhiguo appointed Hao Nan as the head teacher of the senior third-year class, but the grade director felt that Hao Nan had been away from frontline teaching for several years and was also concerned about the changing situation of the college entrance examination. They were worried that Hao Nan wouldn't be able to teach the class well. Ren Zhen also arrived at the new school to repeat the year, but she seemed visibly nervous after seeing the new students. Hao Nan bid farewell and finally began his journey on the podium as a teacher. He was fully confident and prepared to teach again in his new life. Ren Zhen arrived at the classroom with the homeroom teacher, and as a result, two classmates played a prank and splashed water on them. The homeroom teacher was very angry and punished the two boys by making them clean the two buildings. Hao Nan started his job as a teacher, but the homeroom teacher believed that he got the position through connections and often used harsh words when speaking. Hao Nan became the homeroom teacher of the class where Ren Zhen was located. When Ren Zhen saw Hao Nan, she remembered that he was the person who had saved her that day. However, the students in the class were not easy to get along with and deliberately set traps, intending to give the teacher a hard time. After class, Ren Zhen found Hao Nan because she was afraid she wouldn't address him properly after seeing his previous thuggish appearance. At the school, Hao Nan ran into his former female friend, who had recommended him to Qingyun. When Ren Zhen just walked out of the school gate, a few troublemakers came to cause trouble, but Hao Nan's group of brothers came to help Ren Zhen get out of the situation. However, Hao Nan felt that speaking to the thugs at the school gate would affect the students and pretended not to recognize everyone. Mao and his brothers felt a bit sad about it. As they had to give a public lecture at school, Hao Nan had to be very careful and was afraid of behaving inappropriately in front of students and other teachers. Mao took out some alcohol to celebrate together, but now that Hao Nan had changed, he decided not to drink alcohol on regular days except holidays. After returning home, Hao Nan prepared for his public lecture, but when he looked at the textbooks, he had a headache because they had changed a lot from before. So, Hao Nan decided to start studying from scratch and looked for study materials everywhere. While Hao Nan was searching online, Ren Zhen came in and discovered it, thinking that Hao Nan was learning on the spot. Interestingly, Gao Yuan, the male protagonist who was in the sea with Ren Zhen, was also repeating the year at Qingyun. Similarly, he coincidentally ended up in the same class as Ren Zhen. Ren Zhen felt a bit nervous seeing this. She didn't expect that after repeating a year, she would encounter two familiar faces in a row, and it was a somewhat awkward situation.