I hoped to be set free one day, so I was nice to the Lilliputians. Gradually, ________. Sometimes the children even played hide-and-seek (捉迷藏) in my hair.

One day, the king said to me, “Gulliver, I invite you to watch an important performance. It is a competition called Rope Dancing.” In the competition, a thin rope (绳子) was tied between two poles (杆子) very high above the ground. People had to dance on this rope. Each dancer tried to jump higher than the others. I hadn’t seen such a dangerous sport before.

“Your Majesty (陛下),” I said, “many dancers must fall and be hurt or killed.” “Yes,” he replied. “But I will give the best jobs in my kingdom to the men who are not afraid and jump the highest.” “What a strange way to choose who will work for the country!” I thought.

Then, as the king watched, I tied each corner of my handkerchief (手帕) to a strong stick, and pushed the four sticks into the ground. My handkerchief was now under the rope but above the ground. Any dancer who fell would land on the handkerchief and not get hurt. The king was very pleased with my invention. His family and many other people watched the rope dancing.

“Would you and the queen like to see better?” I asked the king. I gently put them on my hand and held it beside the rope. They had a good view (视野) of the dancers. One excellent performer held on to the rope and flipped (翻转) his body right over it. The king and the queen cheered. Later the king told me that he made this man one of his chief (首要的) advisers.

The king and I met often. He seemed to enjoy our conversations. One day, I said again, “Your Majesty, please set me free.” This time he answered, “I have talked to my advisers. We agree that you have been good to our people...”

The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand, a thousand miles from any place where humans live. Therefore you can imagine my amazement, at sunrise, when I was awakened by a strange little voice. It said, “If you please—draw me a sheep!” “What!” “Draw me a sheep!”

I jumped to my feet, really surprised. I looked carefully all around me. And I saw a most special small person, who stood there examining me with great seriousness. Remember, I had the accident in the desert a thousand miles from any place where humans live. And yet my little man seemed neither to be lost in the sands, nor to be fainting (晕倒) from tiredness or hunger or thirst or fear. When at last I was able to speak, I said to him, “But—what are you doing here?”

And in answer he repeated, very slowly, as if he were speaking of a matter of great result, “If you please—draw me a sheep…”

When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey (不服从). I took out of my pocket a piece of paper and my pen. But then I remembered how I had only studied geography, history, math, and grammar, and I told the little person that I did not know how to draw. He answered me, “That doesn’t matter. Draw me a sheep…”

But I had never drawn a sheep. So I drew for him one of the two pictures I had drawn so often. It was that of the snake from the outside. And I was surprised to hear the little boy greet it with, “No, no, no! I do not want an elephant inside a snake. A snake is a very dangerous animal, and an elephant is very heavy and big. It will take up too much place. Where I live, everything is very small. What I need is a sheep. Draw me a sheep.” So then I made another drawing. He looked at it carefully, then he said, “No. This sheep is already very sickly. Make me another.” So I had to draw again.

8 . In China, the full moon is a symbol of peace, luck and family reunion, which is one of the reasons why appreciating the full moon has become one important thing of the Mid-Autumn Festival. People usually gather with their loved ones and share delicious meals and mooncakes to celebrate the day.

Today let’s look back into that peaceful autumn night in mountains with Chinese poet Wang Wei.

Wang Wei is a well-known landscape poet and a talented landscape painter of the Tang Dynasty. One of China’s greatest poets Su Shi once praised his works, “Pictures in poems, poems in pictures.”

The first line draws a calming picture. It has just rained in the mountains without crowds around, and the fresh and cool autumn atmosphere comes stronger as the night falls. The second line is considered one of the most classic descriptions of the moon: the beautiful moonlight surrounding the wet mountain, first it went through the pine trees and then to the clear forest spring. At this moment, you may hear the wind from the forest, the sound of water running or your breath. In the third line, you may hear a slight laugh from the bamboo forest. It’s the girls who finished washing clothes coming back from the waterside; the lotus (莲花) leaves are wandering, which must be the fisher working on his boat. What a creative description! It expresses his love for the simple and quiet mountain life.

At the end of the poem, Wang shared his open minded philosophy (哲学) of life. Although spring is gone, autumn is also beautiful. Why not stay away from the noise of the world and stay in the mountains to feel the true meaning of life?