"Ah." Lotus smiled as she immediately recognized him, "We met at the stalls outside of the tournament. It's nice to see you again!"
The man smiled welcomingly, "That's right! You must be the one our dorm leader told us about! Haha! I had my suspicions that it was you."
Lotus shushed him quietly with a wide smile, "Let's not talk here. You're currently around a lot of people, right?"
"Ah, you're right..." The student nodded apologetically before hurriedly brought her to the halls.
The interiors were rather light blue and with a purple hue to which she find rather calming. She did not say a word and obediently followed after him silently.
.....
When she arrived at a room, there was three students with one of them on a futon on the ground. there was two adults in the room to which Lotus went towards and politely gestured to the elders before her, "Greetings, sirs."
One of them was the nurse and the other was an acupuncturist. Both wore their doctor uniform and both wore a look of futility. They asked her a few series of questions to which she replied steadily and respectfully.
When they were done, the acupuncturist agreed to watch her carefully as she walked over to the one on the ground and saw Azul, who was also in the room with the twin brothers, to which she had also politely greeted without discomfort much to one of the twin's curiosity. She asked as she picked up the wrist, "How was the students' condition after they were bitten?"
"They stated feeling a little light headed, however, everyone had been diligently working. So, we assumed they were just tired from working all day." Jade responded bluntly, "However, one of them started to feel numb after half an hour."
Feeling the pulse, Lotus nodded, "Where did he come across the spider? Under the sofa? Behind a potted plant?"
"In the lower cabinets." Jade responded, "As soon as he picked it up, the thing revived itself and bit him."
"How many times did he got bit?"
"If I remember correctly, he got bit twice." Jade responded, "Once on the finger and the other on the palm."
"Different places?" Lotus raised a brow.
Azul nodded, "We designated the freshmen to clean up the spiders, but we didn't know they were poisonous until it was too late."
Lotus sighed, "I thought I was correct..."
"You know these things?" Floyd looked up in confusion as he watched her check the other guy on the ground, "Ah, that guy got bit once."
Lotus grumbled, "Sort of, I've heard of them. This is my first seeing them in real life. They're Metallic Sapphires. One bite from these guys can stun their target for many days. If the immune system of these guys weren't strong, they'd have came across a shock by now..."
The acupuncturist raised a brow and whispered to the nurse quietly, "You have a prodigy in your school..."
The nurse smirked, "Since when did we lack prodigies?"
Lotus restrained herself from rolling her eyes as their words didn't escape her ears. She turned to the guy on the ground who was fidgeting nervously, "A-Am I gonna die?"
Lotus sighed with a smirk, "Not yet, of course. You've still got years ahead of you before then. Now..."
She turned to the guy on the bed who was out cold, "I'll start with him, since he's the most serious."
"Eh?" The nurse raised a brow.
"This gentleman on the ground was bitten two days ago, but the one of the bed had been bitten long before two days." Lotus hummed as she checked the pulse, "I'd say he got bit around three days before the others. Even if he didn't get stun, he probably should've become a little more sluggish before he received a second and third bite. He had a strong immune system before the second bite, so the effect didn't hit him as hard as the others did. But once the third bite came in, the effect hit him hard. So..."
Lotus opened his cool palm and saw the two sets of red dots, "These are the first and second bites he's gotten. There's a first somewhere else on the body."
"How do you know?" The acupuncturist raised a brow.
Lotus turned to the nurse, "You've probably checked his pulse by now. He has a slower heart rate unlike the other two students. If this goes on, you're probably prepared to call in more professional help, correct?"
The nurse looked to her in surprise as Floyd said with a look of surprise, "Eh... That was what he was planning to do... Could you be a psychic?"
Lotus laughed, "I don't have the abilities to be a psychic, Floyd-senpai."
She frowned, "However, once the heart beat slows anymore, it would become a danger zone..."
She sighed and took out her needles, "I'm going to prevent the poison's effect from starting an arrest. Then, we can begin to extract as much poison as we can from his bite marks."
"What are you going to do?" Azul spoke up curiously, "Can't we just give him the antidote?"
"The antivenom I have is very strong." Lotus explained, "Rather than fighting off the poison in one go, it'd be on par with the poison making him requiring medication for the rest of his life since his nerves are currently being attacked by the poison. This is why the nurse is prepared to call for more professional help."
"Ho..." The acupuncturist looked to her in bewilderment.
"Enough." Lotus sighed, "Let's begin. Give him the antidote, then I'll help it fight off the poison and push some of it out to his hand."
She then beckoned the professional over for her supervision as she began with the guy's top clothing off. One by one, she began to stick the acupuncture needles into his body hitting each meridian with her internal energy as she continued to explain her next process with the acupuncturist's acknowledgment.
One the side, the acupuncturist was already sweating beads as he watched her perform her act with great concentration. He was stunned!
When he was called over by the nurse, he expected to find an overconfident student claiming he could perform acupunture, a subject he spent thirty years of his life studying. Now, here he was witnessing a child, no older than fifteen perform acupuncture with incredible precision!
It almost made him look like a fool studying with a dummy for years!
However, he was very impressed. The child is so young, but he wasn't overconfident or bloat his ability in their face. The lad steadily inserted the needles into the body without hesitation or distractions. It was something that was hardly seen before!
Can he really push the venom back out?
This was something unheard of, but, after watching her movement, he began to feel that it was really possible if it was her.
The older man continued to watch his graceful movements with the needle in awe. The range of needles passed over from his chest to his right arm where he was bit twice.
"Tissue." Lotus responded.
The older man didn't hesitate to hand her a tissue as the other watched in confusion and a little startled. With that, she took it without missing a beat and inserted the last two needles into the arm and shoulder while releasing the one on the right side of the chest. Slowly, four orange pearls of venom mixed with blood emerged from the palm of the hand till it slowly made a small pool in the center of his palm.
"I-It came out!" The older man watched in awe with a huff of laughter much to the nurse's astonishment.
Lotus quickly dabbed the poison away and disinfected the hand. Lotus continued to check the other students in the room to find that they were only bitten once or twice and handed them the antidote. When she returned, she saw that the pool of red appeared on the boy's hand.
"That's a lot of blood..." Azul muttered in bewilderment almost ready to wretch.
Lotus wiped it away and said, "Five more minutes. By then, the bleeding will be clogged. That's when I can start taking away the needles."
She returned to the other students and checked their conditions again.
Lotus said abruptly, "This one is done and so is the other one. Let them rest for another couple hours. Don't work them to hard once they start walking. Their bodies need to regain their strength."
"This student's bleeding as stopped." Jade pointed out.
Lotus nodded, "I'll remove the needles."
She wiped away the blood and began to carefully pull away the needles systematically.
"Hey, hey..." Floyd whispered to his brother, "Why isn't she just pulling all of them right away?"
"This is because the needles are applying pressure on the nerves and the meridians where your energy to lift objects and take care of everyday tasks come from. Recklessly yanking them out could potentially injure those areas and could cripple the child instead or worse." The acupuncturist responded with a nod, "This student is slowly pulling them away in a process that would avoid endangering those senses and functions. If all the energy were to rush through the body, it'd be no different to a dam being destroyed by a flood and he'd be left with a crippled sense."
"Impressive..." Jade noted in awe.
"Impressive, indeed..." The man responded with a nod.
The nurse nodded proudly as he recalled one of the student's recommendations. Looks like he made the right choice, albeit very risky.
With the needles away, Lotus began to treat the other students in the other rooms. When she was done, three hours had passed and a bag of red and white was in the nurse's hands.
Lotus wiped away the sweat on her forehead for the last time before turning to the table and was about to write the list of herbs out before she stopped herself and wrote out different names of medication pills instead.
She handed it to the nurse explaining the situation to him, "Right now, they're out of danger and could begin recuperating. Tonight, it's important that they rest up and rebuild their immune system to fight off the remaining poison with the antidote they had. If they have any of these symptoms, these are the pills that would work with the antidote. These pills down here are especially important or they'd cause problems with the antidote. So..."
As she explained to the nurse of these steps, Azul stared at her in amazement. He's heard of the rumors but didn't think he really could diagnose people and perform acupuncture. According to the nurse, it is a complex study of energy and nerves in the body since ancient times and only the professionals that have passed a series of tests can start to work officially. Not only that, it was also dangerous if an amateur does this.
However, throughout the process, the professional was more excited like a child than how he was hours ago!
Filled with nervousness, Azul wore a wry smile as he recalled the contract and a feeling of doubt entered his chest as he muttered in disbelief, "Don't tell me... I've made a mistake having him sign the contract..."