Chinese people call the Spring Festival"Nian". But do you know that Nian  was once the name of a monster ?    A long time ago, the monster Nian lived in the mountains. It ate animals. But in winter, it could not find food. So it came to villages and ate a lot of people. People were so afraid of Nian that they locked their  doors before evening came during the winter. One day, an old man came to a village. He told people there that Nian was afraid of three things----the color red, fire and noise. He told people to play drums and gongs, make big fires and set off fireworks to make Nian go away.   On a moonless, cold night, Nian went to the village again. As soon as it  opened its big mouth, people made loud noises and made fires. Nian was  really afraid and ran away. wherever it went, there was noise and fire.  When Nian was tired and could not run anymore, people killed the monster.   After that, on the coldest day of winter, people beat drums and gongs,  and set off fireworks to celebrate the death of the monster of Nian. They  put up red lanterns and have a big dinner without sleeping during the  night.  In the morning people greet each other happily. So now we have the  Spring Festival. The monster Nian ate people in winter because it  _  .
wanted to make people afraid had no food to eat celebrated the Spring Festival liked to eat people in a village