The brush pen has a long history in China. It’s said that it was _________ by a Qin general called Meng Tian.

Once, Meng led his army and fought against the Chu State. Very often he had to _________ the situations of the fighting. In those days, people could only write on silk with a stick pen which was too hard to use easily. So, it always took Meng a long time to _________ those letters back to the Qin ruler. Gradually, he became _________ about writing.

One day Meng caught some rabbits in the wild. These rabbits were carried back to the army camp, with tails trailing (拖) on the ground. On the way, Meng _________ the traces (痕迹) of blood painted on the ground by the rabbit tails. Suddenly, he got an _________. He said to himself, “Will a pen made of rabbits’ hair work better?” He decided to have a try.

At first, he _________. The rabbit hairbrush worked _________. He threw the brush out into a hole in the rock with _________. When he passed the hole several days later, however, he picked the brush up and found it had _________. It was wet and much softer than before and it could write well. Then the brush pen began to spread.