A monkey lived happily in the forest. One day, he found some red apples. They looked delicious, so he took one in each hand. When he tried to eat one of the apples, it hurt his teeth. It turned out that these apples were made of wood (木头) . Though he couldn’t eat them, he decided to keep them.

On his way home, the monkey found some bananas. However, he couldn’t let go of the wooden apples to get them. He was afraid of losing the apples, so he just walked away.

As he held the apples longer, it started to feel heavier. The more he looked at the fruits in the forest, the more he grew hungry and unhappy.

Finally, he gave up the apples and went back for his meal. He was happy again.

Like the monkey, we sometimes carry things that seem too valuable (有价值的) to give up, but fail to see that they do more harm (伤害) than good.

A one-armed 13-year-old basketball player in a video moves China. He is Zhang Jiacheng, from Guangdong Province. In the video, facing a taller, stronger, and older opponent (对手), he isn’t afraid at all.

Attracted by his good skills in the video, many people even fail to know that Zhang Jiacheng has only one arm. Although the young boy lost one of his arms in an accident, he became crazy about playing basketball at 12. “Work hard or just give up,” he always says. Thus, he spent all of his free time on it without considering his body condition.

People’s attention has encouraged him to work harder towards his goal — to become a top basketball player. “I just keep practising every day to improve myself, whether at home or in the playground,” he says, “My biggest challenge (挑战) is to control the ball much better.” After only a year of hard practicing, Zhang Jiacheng has improved his skills greatly. Through patience, confidence and determination, the young basketball player is getting closer to his life goal.

His effort and courage finally caught the attention of Yi Jianlian, a Chinese professional (职业的) basketball player, who shared the video on his own Weibo.

Hundreds of years ago, a Roman army came north from England to make war on Scotland. The Scots, a brave people, love their country. They fought hard to drive the enemy out of Scotland. But there were too many of the Romans. It looked as if the Romans would win.

One night, the leader of the Scots marched his soldiers to the top of a hill. “We will rest here tonight, my men.” he said, “Tomorrow we will fight one more battle. We must win, or we will die.”

They were all very tired. So they ate their supper quickly and fell asleep. There were four guards on duty, but they were very tired, too, and one by one, they fell asleep.

The Romans were not asleep. Quickly they gathered at the foot of the hill. Slowly they went up the hill. Closer they came to the sleeping Scots. They were almost at the top. A few minutes more the war would be over. Suddenly, one of them put his foot on a thistle (蓟). He cried out and his sudden cry woke the Scots. In a minute they were on their feet and ready for a battle. The fighting was hard, but it did not last long. The Scots wiped out the Romans and saved Scotland.

The thistle is not a beautiful plant. It has sharp needles all over it. Few people liked it. But the people of Scotland liked it so much that they made it their national flower.