After the first shock subsided, Tang Yin suddenly felt a gaze pin her to the stone walls of their shelter. She turned to Jiang and smiled awkwardly, whispering a small "Thank You."
She was sure it was thanks to him; she met Snakie and now had a way to handle her spirit power. Touching her back, she shuddered; the pain she could still feel was a shadow of it.
Jiang rose his body and gave free sight at the great fire Lizard outside that slowly crawled past him and eyed them suspiciously but flinched back as Jiang growled at it.
This was Mama Lizard, and she was not pleased to see them. She slowly approached the hundreds of children that soon gathered closer to her. Since the weather had only moderately improved, the storm subsided, but it still rained buckets.
No sunshine or leaving this cave any time soon, so we shared. Or rather, Jiang kept growling at Mama Lizard, and mama lizard hissed back while the humans of the conversation were stuck in the middle and prayed not to be buried under a massive amount of scaly hide. Mostly, Tang Yin was scared of being crushed by the mama fire lizard's scaly self. Someone you could converse with was immeasurably less scary than someone you couldn't understand.
Unconsciously, all humans present shifted closer to Jiang. He noticed and placed himself strategically so that with the next gust of wind, the adults were hit by the rain and wet through. Tang Yin and the others were safely protected by Jiang's massive body.
Tang Yin started to sniggle when she saw the Grandmaster's graceful figure standing there, completely wet and very much not amused.
"Great job.", she whispered to Jiang, who gifted them a toothy smile.
The rain continued even as the others spent the rest of the storm being hit occasionally by gusts of wind that brought the rain to them.
As soon as the rain finally subsided and the clouds dissipated, they looked upwards and watched the blue sky slowly reveal itself. Mama fire lizard, seeing that hissed again at them to get lost, and this time they happily obliged.
They walked back or tried to because they needed to figure out where they were on the map. They got a little lost during the monsoon.
Jiang instead vanished into the sky and left them behind.
"I have to admit I will miss the dragon.", Lize said, looking after him, "no worries about being attacked." She noticed, and they walked.
Ning Feng, who clutched her Teddy, walked between Tang San and Tang Yin taking a deep breath.
"T-to j-join Tang S-Sect, what d-do I need t-to do? "she asked them, and Tang Yin looked at her, slightly surprised.
"You want to leave your clan and join ours?" she was more than surprised by Ning Feng's actions, "Why, we are poor; we can never give you a chance or open the doors that the name of seven treasures can open."
"S-skills.", she stuttered, "Y-your m-martial s-skills."
"Joining Tang Sect means you may never leave. Learning our skills means making an oath to never reveal them and keep them to yourself; if you betray it, we will have to come after you and kill you.", Tang San told her very clearly, and behind them, Yu Hua balled his fists.
"That's fine.", she muttered in agreement.
Tang San shook his head, "think carefully about it, Ning Feng. There is no way back.", he told her and walked ahead.
Ning Feng looked at Tang Yin, who raised her hands helplessly. "If he says so, I can do nothing about it, but he isn't wrong; think carefully about it. There is no way back once you join in."
With that, she, too, walked ahead and left Ning Feng to her own thoughts. To learn the skills of the Tang Sect, she not only had to join, but she would also never be able to leave alive.