The Magic Paintbrush

Once upon a time, in a small village in China, there lived a little boy named Ma Liang. Ma Liang loved to paint more than anything in the whole world. Every day, he would sit by his window and watch the birds fly by, the flowers dance in the breeze, and the clouds float across the sky. He dreamed of painting all these beautiful things, but Ma Liang was very poor. His family had no money for paintbrushes or paints or paper. Still, Ma Liang never stopped dreaming. He would close his eyes and imagine painting the most wonderful pictures - bright red birds, golden sunflowers, and fluffy white clouds. In his heart, he knew that someday, somehow, he would become a real painter.