a.Keep it for yourself. You need the food for energy, and you’re sure someone else will come by with food for her.
b.Give the old woman your food. You don’t know how long she’s been without food, and you can find something when you get to your destination.
2)After your teacher leaves the room, you notice that the answer sheet for the next test is sitting on the edge of her desk. You . . .
a.Take a look. If your teacher didn’t want you to see it, why did she leave it in plain sight?
b.Close your eyes and flip it over. You and your classmates will pass or fail on your own.
3)You are offered the opportunity of a lifetime! Unfortunately, if you take it, you will hurt your friend’s feelings. You . . .
a.Take it. These opportunities don’t come around every day, and your friend will understand. If they don’t, were you ever really friends?
b.Turn it down. Friendship is more important than any opportunity. What’s success without someone to share it with, right?
4)While you are walking, you stumble upon an ancient spell book that teaches powerful dark magic. You . . .
a.Read it. You might not use it, but it’s good to know—just in case.
b.Give it to the proper authorities so they can destroy it. No one should have access to something this dangerous.
5)Like Nerit, your true love—or so you thought—betrayed you after you risked your entire life to be with him or her. You . . .
a.Return the favor. As they will soon know, you are not to be messed with.
b.Move on. Creating more pain won’t solve any problems.
ANSWER KEY:
Mostly A’s: Villain
Though you might not feel the urge to go on a crime spree, you possess all the tools you need to become a serious villain. Some may call you selfish—but you think you’re really just looking out for yourself. Just bear in mind that stories are fiction—the villains in real life face real consequences.
Mostly B’s: Hero
Welcome to the club. True, you might not always get the recognition you want or deserve as you’re busy looking out for others, but people can rest easy knowing you’re always there to help.
BEAUTIFUL VENOM
BY CINDY PON
What did it feel like to have your body slowly turn into stone?
Mei Du slithered between the dust-coated statues of gods and goddesses and knocked them over, one by one, with a swipe of her powerful serpent body. They were large figures and crashed with thunderous noise. She avoided the tumbling stone fragments with finesse, smooth and graceful as a dancer, sliding between their ruins. Dust obscured her vision, rising high toward the pitched temple roof.
She paused in front of the lone statue that remained, and as the air cleared, the Goddess of Purity’s impassive face emerged, perfect lips pressed together in an enigmatic smile, the orbs of her marble eyes blank and unyielding. She stood tall and majestic, the folds of her white robe carved to drape elegantly over her frame. One hand was pressed over her heart, and the other arm was extended, palm lifted heavenward, as if in benevolence or forgiveness.
But Mei Du knew the truth.
From the time she was just a girl, Mei Du had prayed to the Goddess of Purity, believing her to be just and the protector of women. But no longer. The goddess’s betrayal still stung. Mei Du had thought that her heart had grown as cold and hard as all the mortals she had turned into stone, but the Goddess of Purity’s image pained her like a fresh-cut wound. She fought the urge to cower and sob, remembering the humiliation and hurt like it’d happened yesterday—and she was once again a helpless girl with some other name.
The snakes on her head hissed, thrashing until her scalp burned. Mei Du raked her yellowed nails over her face, crusted with warts and pustules, eyes roving to the dark corners of the derelict temple. She listened, the rough green scales of her arms prickling.
A man was approaching.
She had been on the run for centuries, but her legend and infamy had only grown, as had the number of those who were determined to slay her. Always men—she knew they pursued her with murder on their minds, for there was no capturing the evil Mei Du alive. Death was the only solution, the only ending to her story.
Yet she had eluded them this long—had suffered their taunts and curses, the burning and cutting, the stones hurled at her head. After years of abuse, she had turned on her persecutors, wanting vengeance and enjoying grim satisfaction in their deaths. She refused to remain a victim.
Morning light filtered through the broken lattice windows above, penetrated the eroded wood of the massive door panels. The temple door scraped open, and she flexed her hands. There had been rumors. Rumors whispered enough that they had even reached her ears during her solitary travels through the provinces. The mortals spoke of a great warrior, trained by the masters, said to be faster and more agile than any man, inhumanly strong with his bare hands and lethal with a weapon—a true hero. A hero who had been blessed by the gods. He would be the one to end Mei Du’s reign of terror.
Is this him? Has he finally come?
The rotten door slammed closed again, and dust swirled, glittering in the sunlight. The shape of a man emerged in the gloom, and she was reminded of Hai Xin, his powerful presence blotting out the light.
Mei Du lifted high on her coil, and the snakes on her head writhed with anticipation.
She was ready to meet her match.
Jia Mei Feng sat very still in the deep, curve-backed chair as the royal portraitist used brush and ink to capture her likeness. The artist had thoughtfully adjusted where she would sit in her family’s opulent main hall, pulling the carved chair away from the others. The Jia manor was the most extravagant in their town of Qin He, but despite the family’s high status as rich merchants, it was not every day that they received a visitor from the palace. Her mother had made certain of securing this one opportunity to present Mei Feng’s portrait to the emperor, for a young woman could not climb higher than becoming an imperial consort, one of over a thousand brides the emperor kept at the palace.
The artist had slid a door panel open, seeking the right amount of light, before he began. She saw him glance at the scrolled paintings adorning their walls—prized originals by masters long dead. Her mother, Lady Jia, flitted behind the man, her silk sleeves billowing with her nervous movements. Mei Feng wished her mother would stand still—she was making her anxious.