Behind every brilliant firework is a thrilling story.

- Ma Hualong

Every student has an unforgettable teacher in their hearts, and every teacher has a student in their minds who still remembers it. In my more than ten years of teaching career, Ma Hualong is such a student engraved in my memory.

The clock went back to June 25, 2009, it was a sunny summer day, the day of the college entrance examination score query in Shandong Province, although it was not a special festival, but from morning to night, the sound of firecrackers never stopped. In the afternoon, although the clock hand on the south gate of No. 1 Middle School was already pointing to 7 p.m., the sun was still dragging its long tail and reluctant to leave, using the technique of Impressionist painters to paint the western sky with a brilliant cloud.

The first- and second-year high school students who had not yet taken the final exams lined up in a neat square under the leadership of the homeroom teacher to the small square outside the teaching building early, waiting for the annual fireworks to bloom. The sophomores who watched it once last year seemed a little calmer, and the new freshman children seemed much more excited, laughing and talking, and everyone's faces showed a look of having never seen the world. I also brought my new students to the location arranged by the school and eagerly awaited the full bloom of the fireworks.

The waiting time always went slowly, and half an hour felt like half a day. At 7:30 p.m., the fireworks began their show with the explosion of firecrackers that snake on the ground. The 5,000 firecrackers are just a prelude, and the sound of each explosion conveys the happy mood of a student on the list. The second kick seems to have been an excellent student, and admission is a thunderstorm, and graduation is still sonic and sonic in the clouds. Pulling the long whistle to the sky and blooming the flower umbrella in the sky are the outstanding students who have been motivated and finally fulfilled their dreams, and those who were silent at first and suddenly flashed in the air are undoubtedly dark horses.

"Teacher Wang Nai!" A slightly excited, familiar bass squeezed through the crowding cacophony and drilled into my ears.

"Ma Hualong! What are you doing here? "I was a little surprised and a little delighted." Today, the school allows high school seniors to enter the school to watch the fireworks, and they only need to register at the doorman, I just want to come and see the fireworks that belong to me! ”

"Do you know which one belongs to you?" I asked with a smile.

"Yes."

"Which one?"

"It looked like a dud at first, but then it finally came bright."

After pondering for a moment as he said this, I nodded thoughtfully.

"Teacher, do you know that in fact, there is a thrilling story behind every brilliant firework."

"There must be a thrilling story behind your fireworks, right?"

"Yes,—— do you want to hear it?"

"Do you want to say?"

"Yes." Ma Hualong said very simply.

"Let's go to my office, it's too noisy here."

After arranging the things that needed to be handled by the shift leader, and through the crowd that had become restless and excited from watching the fireworks, the two of us came to my office one after the other.