I am a plastic bottle. A week ago, I was on a supermarket shelf. I had a normal life, the same as all my brothers and sisters--other bottles full ________ water. I felt really happy.

Then a tall woman ________ me up and put me in her basket! The woman took me home and put me in the ________. It was cold, but I soon made friends with the cans and bottles in it. ________, only a few hours later, she took me out of the fridge and drank the water inside me. Then she threw me into the dustbin. I never felt so ________ and alone in my life.

Early the next morning, a man took me out of the dustbin. He threw me and the other rubbish into the back of a truck. There were so many horrible smells. Then I was pushed together with the rest of the rubbish. Soon I was ________ flat (扁平). I can’t believe how thin I became.

I slept for a while. Then I ________, I found myself in a terrible place. Everything around me was ugly and had horrible smells. I felt afraid. I kept hoping that I would be moved ________ else. Then huge trucks came and covered us with some soil.

I asked ________ bottle what would happen to us. He said that we would never leave this horrible crowded place, but would have to stay here for thousands of years.

“Why can’t they reuse or _________ us?” I cried.

Spring is here, and it is time to enjoy West Lake Longjing tea. Usually, we think of workers picking tea leaves by hand. But now, some Longjing tea is being picked by smart tea-picking robots!

In a Hangzhou tea garden, a smart tea-picking robot developed by Zhejiang SciTech University begin to work for the first time. “We took thousands of pictures of new tea buds (芽) and put them into the robot for it to learn. The robot uses an AI model to recognize (识别) the buds it needs to pick,”said Professor Chen Jianneng, Party branch secretary (党支部书记) of the research team. This lets the robot find the right tea buds about 90% of the time.

The robot’s arm pulls and sucks (吸) up the tea buds. These buds are quickly moved into a special box. After the robot collects all the buds from the area it’s working at, it moves the buds from the box to a main box.

The robot was made because there are not enough people to pick tea leaves. In Zhejiang, about 400,000 more pickers are needed now. “Picking is the biggest challenge for the development of the tea industry,” said Professor Wu Chuanyu, who leads the research team.

“Tea-picking robots are a trend (趋势) of the future,” said Wu. About five years from now, the robots will do the job of picking West Lake Longjing tea instead of people, Wu added.

March 22 is World Water Day. Believed to be the source (源头) of all life, water plays a great role in the beginning of Chinese civilization (文明) and has inspired wise ideas in Chinese philosophy (哲学).

Chinese civilization is one of the world’s ancient river civilizations. It began thousands of years ago along the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, linking the culture to water from its beginning.

However, the way people and water get along has two sides. Water is highly important for life and growing things, but if we can’t control it, it can cause big problems. Knowing the strong power of water, Chinese people have always tried to use it in the best way possible. For example, Yu, the first ruler of the Xia Dynasty (朝代), controlled floods by changing and digging the waterways so that the water could easily go into the sea.

The Dujiangyan irrigation (灌溉) system in Sichuan was cleverly built. It makes full use of the natural features of the area without harming the environment.

Water is also given philosophical meanings to educate Chinese people and rule the country. According to Xunzi, Confucius (孔子) believed water had qualities such as justice and courage. He once said that: “He who is wise loves water; he who is virtuous loves mountains.” So, Confucianism suggests that people should learn from water and train their sense of morality (道德感). Inspired by water, Laozi gave birth to the idea of “overcoming hardness with softness and non-action”. These ideas later inspired rulers to follow the rules of nature and respect the will of the people.

A mystery box (盲盒) keeps what’s inside a secret.     41     But now shops are putting food in them—they are “leftover mystery boxes”.

The food inside is near its expiration date (保质期) and will be thrown away if no one buys it.     42     They are more and more popular in China’s cities, such as Beijing, Nanjing and Chengdu.

In 2021 when I was studying in the UK, I bought leftover mystery boxes from an app called Too Good To Go. Each box cost about 3 to 5 pounds (27 to 45 yuan), and there were usually three to four things inside.     43     The box cost 3 pounds but the original price (原价) was around 10 pounds.

    44     I felt happy to see kinds of food in it and then I would be happier thinking about how much money I saved. And it helped to cut down wasting of food.

    45     Because I can’t choose what’s in the box, sometimes I got the same kind of food. I had to make other dishes, such as a salad, to make the meal healthier.

56. A Meaningful Thing between My Parent and I

提示：亲子时光是家庭中特别珍贵的时刻，通常包括父亲或母亲和孩子一起度过的有意义的时间。请以“A Meaningful Thing between My Parent and I”为题，用英语写一篇短文叙述你和父亲或母亲做过的一件有意义的事，或描述一个承载你们共同美好回忆的物品。谈谈它的意义以及你的感受。