The woman smirked as the bulky guy in black sneered sarcastically, "How kind of you to do so without a fight."
However, the man in white didn't say anything as he watched the snake woman look up to her the tail stuck into the sand, "They're here. Behave yourself, A-Cong."
"Grr..." The man grumbled before planting his feet onto the ground like an impassable wall.
Seeing this, the woman huffed a small laugh before looking back up again. Almost at once, two figures in black and red appeared before them as the bulky man lept to his feet ready to grab the two by their collars.
The woman sighed in dismay as she quickly pulled back her tail, "I thought I told this guy to behave himself..."
However, to their surprise, the gigantic hour glass shattered into pieces and the bulky guy was sent flying back!
Shocked, A-Cong regathered his bearings and looked up to see that amidst the mist of sand, a thin figure stood on top of the tall pile of sand. The cloud of sand quickly vanished revealing a youthful boy carrying another in his arm. The teenage boy had his eyes closed, but he continued to stand before them as if knowing that they were there!
Surprised, A-Cong wearily sent another wave at the boys causing the woman to shout, "A-Cong. no!"
However, the whistle of the force cutting through the air was cancelled by the lad's own wave of attack.
A-Cong scowled as he clutched his injured arm, "This guy isn't normal!"
"Could it be..." The woman gasped in bewilderment when she saw this.
"What a surprise to find that the guardians of this dorm actually attempts to harm their students! I guess it was wrong of me to assume otherwise."
It was then that the guy under his arm began to stir, "Uh... Wh-Where am I?"
"Oops... I almost forgot about him there." The boy noted upon realization.
"Who are you?!" A-Cong growled as he grimaced, "Forget it. First, he have to be restrained!"
"A-Cong, that's enough!" The woman spoke bluntly but with enough force for her voice to echo the room making her word loud enough for others to hear.
The figure in black stopped his movements and turned to the woman, "But-!"
"That uniform belongs to the students of Night Raven College and the other is in the dorm uniform of Scarabia. If they are harmed in any form, you understand the consequences, do you not?"
"But, the Roc-!"
"The Roc made a mistake almost harming a student of Scarabia. He is lucky to have not received his punishment just from this one act." The woman stated boldly, "One mistake would have cost him his life, unless you have forgotten?"
Unsatisfied by her answer yet knowing her meaning, the bulky guy stepped down in disappointment as he glared at the two. How he wished he could just pin them against the wall for breaking the rules!
With a frown, the woman spoke to the two, "You have broken the rules and trespassed onto the outskirts of the dorm. Though I apologize on behalf of A-Cong, we still can not let this go unpunished."
The lad hops off the pile of sand and landed on the cave ground before them as the lad replied in a rather reasonable tone, "I see. It is true that it was against the rules for us to trespass onto the outskirts. However, we had yet to trespass into the outskirts when we got attacked. Instead, we came knowingly that you were the guardians of this dorm due to the attack on us. That divine beast came at us and an airborne beast tried to hurt my friend."
"What?!"
A-Cong was quickly hushed by the woman who presented herself in her more human form as she walked up to her softly and responded, "I understand your outrage. However, that airborne beast is a friend of ours, whom we sent to protect you two. Yet... On behalf of their mistakes, I apologize for the mess we created due to our carelessness."
The lad thought for a bit before now-conscious lad looked around in confusion and whispered to Lotus, "Um, I don't know what's going on, but can't you just let things go for now, Lotus? I didn't get hurt, so..."
Hearing his words of confusion that was trying to understand the situation, Lotus breathed a sigh of relief and responded, "Very well. But, even if I'm willing to forgive you. Two wrongs does not make a right. I can compensate by not revealing your location or your presence inside this dorm. This is what I can do for the attack your friend launched at us. As harming your friends, name your price and, as long as it is within my abilities and reasonable, I will hand over to you followed by the medicine to help treat them."
This guy!
They were shocked in bewilderment upon the shameless behavior of this youth student. Seeing this, the woman looked to the guy in confusion when it dawned upon her, "This..."
Silence overcame her as she nodded her head with a sigh, "Very well. But, I would like to ask some question, if that is all right?"
"Go ahead." Lotus responded after seeing the woman seemingly reasonable as she set the boy down and ignored the bewildered expression of the guy in black.
"My name is Hei Hui. May I ask for your name, children?" She asked trying to not sound as formal as she could since she knew that this was one of the better ways to speak with children calmly.
"I'm Lotus and this is Raaji." Lotus responded as she pointed to her uniform, "As you can see, I'm not a part of the Scarabia's dorm, but Raaji is."
"What brings a cultivator to this school?" Hei Hui asked curiously.
"I'm here to learn." Lotus stated bluntly, "I only came to this dorm for certain matters, especially one concerning that guy over there."
"This one?" Hei Hui noted in bewilderment.
She turned to the other guy in white only to find that he did not move. Or rather, she was surprised in bewilderment to see that he actually couldn't move!
She turned to the young cultivator in shock and said, "You are here for this man?"
Lotus nodded with a wide and childish smile, "Yup! I wanna ask if he wants to work under me for a bit instead!"
"What?!" Raaji looked up on to her confusion.
Having been lost from the very beginning, he knew that he was certainly nowhere in this conversation at all and probably dismissed too. The guy in white opened his mouth with furrowed brows, "I-!"
"Before you refuse..." Lotus interjected with a wide smile, "What if I said I can treat that flesh deficiency of yours?"
"What?" Huo Wei looked to her in bewilderment when he heard this.
Lotus took out a handkerchief from her ring shocking Raaji as she wiped the sand away from her face.
"I'm saying that I want to strike a deal with you!" Lotus clarified with a wide smile, "I will cure your body and in exchange you help me for a while."
"This..." Huo Wei was left speechless when he heard this but slowly shook his head, "I'm afraid that will not be possible. I've already known about this condition from the very beginning. This flesh deficiency was caused-"
"Caused by a poison passed out by the Twin Needle Sect, right? I can cure it." Lotus responded with a wide smile.
"Huh?"
They looked to her in bewilderment as she continued, "The poison slowly rots away the exposed flesh once it is met with metal. Without a temporary antidote to subdue the effects, the rot would continue around the wound. That is the function of the poison from a needle of the corpse flower. Seeing that all of the other members have a similar condition, it would seem that everyone was poisoned by the same flower."
"The Corpse flower?" Raaji's ears perked up followed by a confused look over his face. He had never heard of such flowers before. Just what was it that can create such horrifying effects she was speaking of?
"That's..." Huo Wei hesitated in response. He had always wanted to leave the Twin Needle Sect and tried every means to get rid of the poison in his body for his freedom, but he had witnessed other try to do something similar. They never lived through it as soon as they tempered with the poison. He had still sought out other people before. However, none could decipher the poison or they could but wouldn't dare to do so because it was difficult to cure.
"I take it that you already went to see other people but they couldn't cure it or decipher the poison used on you, right?" Lotus looked up to them with her purple eyes as a cocky smirk soon followed suit on her face, "But, it's only normal if they aren't capable of stopping the blood flow transferring the poison through the body. As long as one can temporarily stop the flow of blood, they can began removing the corpse flower venom from the body. Normally, you can't stop the flow of blood without putting the patient in danger, but there's another way around it and it looks like only I can do it."