The Magic Passport – Story 9

The Magic Passport Story 9: The Little Cloud Dragon (A Story from Ancient China)

High in the mountains of China, where the clouds often played hide-and-seek with the peaks, lived a tiny, shy Dragon. His name was Xiao. While other dragons were big and roared with voices like thunder, Xiao was small, barely bigger than a sturdy dog. His scales were the soft, misty grey of a morning cloud, and his “roar” was more like a gentle puff of wind.

Xiao longed to be a magnificent sky dragon, bringing rain to the farmers and showing his strength. But he felt too small, too quiet.

One sweltering summer, the sun burned fiercely. The rice fields in the valley below turned dry and cracked. The streams became just trickles. The villagers looked up at the sky, hoping for rain, but the clouds drifted by without dropping a single drop. Even the great, powerful dragons of the mountain seemed too busy with their important dragon business to notice the thirsty land.

Xiao watched from his cave. He saw the farmers sadly tending their wilting plants. He saw children carrying tiny buckets, trying to find water for their families. His small dragon heart felt a pang of sorrow.

He knew he couldn’t bring a big storm like the other dragons. He couldn’t roar loud enough to shake the heavens. But he could do something.

Xiao took a deep breath. He flew up, up, up, until he was just above the dried-up stream. He began to gather tiny, misty clouds with his breath. Swoosh… swirl… swoosh… He puffed and puffed, pulling little bits of water vapor together. It was hard work for a little dragon! His small wings ached, and his misty breath felt thin.

Slowly, carefully, he gathered one tiny cloud. Then another. And another. He pushed them together, gently nudging them until they formed a small, grey puffball, just big enough to shade a single patch of dry land.

Then, with all his might, Xiao let out his softest “roar.” It wasn’t a thunderous sound. It was more like a gentle sigh.

And from his tiny cloud, a few drops of rain began to fall. Pitter-pat. Pitter-pat. Not a storm, but enough to moisten the thirsty earth and fill a birdbath.

Xiao kept working. Day after day, he would gather his little clouds and release his gentle rain over different dry spots—a wilting bamboo shoot, a parched patch of rice, a sad little flower. He didn’t make floods, but he gave just enough to keep things alive.

The villagers noticed. “Look!” they would say. “A small cloud! And a gentle rain, just for our tea plants!” They didn’t know it was a tiny dragon; they just felt a little hope.

One evening, as the sun set in streaks of orange and purple, a wise, old Dragon, with scales like ancient jade, flew down to Xiao’s cave. “Little one,” the Jade Dragon rumbled, his voice like distant thunder, “we, the big dragons, were too proud. We waited for a grand storm. But you, with your gentle breath, saved the small things. You have the greatest strength of all: the strength to care.”

And from that day on, Xiao, the Little Cloud Dragon, became the most beloved dragon in the valley. He learned that being kind and helping in small ways was more powerful than any loud roar. And sometimes, when you look up at the sky in China, you can still see soft, misty clouds drifting by, bringing gentle rain—a sign that Xiao is still at work, with his golden heart.