Shortly after having helped the students and seeing that nearly everyone had finished with their tents, Lotus returned to her tent as the students continued to bustle away with work. However, it did not take long before she found that her tent had gone missing from under a tree! She could hear the snickers from behind her as she hummed to herself curiously. Yet, a sharp voice echoed in her head angrily, "I can't believe it! Those guys dare to steal from our master!"
"They're clearly trying to bully us!" Xiao Li scowled as he nodded in agreement with his sister.
"Enough, you two." Lotus interjected calmly, "Instead of arguing, come and get me the book from my room instead."
"Eh? But, they were clearly bullying us, Master! And, you're just going to let them go?!" Ying Hui stomped angrily.
"I trust in the judgement of coach Vargas." Lotus stated cooly as she kept onto a low branch much to the students' surprise.
Xiao Li handed her the book she had mentioned as he said, "Since master said so, then it must be so. After all, Lotus is usually correct in her predictions."
"But this isn't about predictions!" Ying Hui argued, "She was robbed just now! Petty thievery! What a bunch of low lives scums! Resorting to steal just because someone is better than yourself! And stealing from us of all people! Ugh! Let me at them! If you aren't going to teach them a lesson, I will!"
"Hold on, A-Hui." Xiao Li stopped her quickly, "Let's believe in master. After all, you can't really think that she would just let herself be bullied, right? That's not our Master."
"That-!" Ying Hui hesitated before stomping her feet and crossing her arms as she pouted, "No…"
"Right?" Xiao Li nodded with a pleased look on his face as his sister had finally listened to his words, "Let's wait and see and master comes up with, all right?"
"Just wait and see?" Ying Hui scowled angrily, "Are you just going to leave everything to her? No way! I'm going to see what I can use to beat those bullies into a pulp! Hmph! How dare they treat our Peony like this! I'll teach them a lesson they will never forget!"
"But don't you also trust our master?" Xiao Li reminded her, "She is no pushover either."
"This…" Ying Hui grumbled reluctantly. Still upset over the matter, she crossed her arms and sighed, "Fine! But, I, Ying Hui, will certainly not forget this humiliation on our family. I will see to it that they get their due punishment or I am not Ying Hui at all!"
"All right." Lotus shrugged, "Whatever you say."
From afar, Trey shook his head once he noticed her dilemma and frowned as he looked up from their completed tent, "That's not good. Those guys sabotaged his tent?"
"Oui…" Rook frowned, "I personally saw them took apart his tent while he was away."
"Strange." Malleus raised a brow, "If you saw them, why did you not intervene? Is Lotus not one of your members?"
"He is, but…" Trey hesitated.
"Monsieur Snow Fox had told us to stay out instead." Rook explained, "He told us that we should make sure that everyone keeps a calm mind to avoid getting set off by other clubs trying to rile our new members up."
"I can see why." Trey shook his head in exasperation, "Compared to the third years and second years, the majority of the first years are still a little more impulsive. They may jump into a pit dug by others before realizing their dilemma. If that were to happen, we would need to exert more energy in pulling them out of it. Moreover, not many in our club know that Lotus has been chosen as our next club leader. Things will not be looking too good if that were to happen."
"Why would that be?" Malleus questioned looking rather surprised.
"Because he's the first freshman to be chosen as the next club leader in a long time." Trey explained, "Aside from outsiders bullying, it will also gather the envy of a few members we did not suspect. This is why he told us not to make this news known."
"Time's up!"
"What will he do now?" Malleus muttered quietly under his breath at the sound of Coach Vargas calling for them.
The coach arrived to the scene in which he scenes his surroundings before there was a sudden clashing sound and five tents from the Literature Club's side suddenly collapsed.
"Uh…" Ortho froze in bewilderment, "What happened to those tents just now? How did they just collapsed like that?!"
"Did Lotus tamper with their tents?" Vil muttered to himself curiously.
"I didn't see that coming…" Azul muttered in bewilderment.
"Seriously?!" Idia looked to him in disbelief, "Was it only know this whole time?"
"Do you know how he did it, then?" Azul looked over to him curiously.
"How am I supposed to know?!" Idia scowled angrily at him.
"Eh?! H-How did he do that?!" Cater looked to the tents in bewilderment, "Should we tell his dorm leader about the prejudice? It's starting to get out of hand."
"That's fine, but I'm curious to know as well." Lilia wore a curious expression.
"What did he do, indeed…" Jade hummed curiously as he noticed something from the corner of his sight, "Even the science club was not spared apparently."
"Huh?" Kalim looked over to the direction Jade was looking at and gasped upon realization, "Ah! You're right… But why would that tent be down too?"
"Ah, yes… What could have happened?" Rook smiled a grin that others could hardly understand.
"The guys there…" Trey frowned in deep thoughts, "So… it's one of those two, huh…"
"Ahem…" Coach Vargas stopped the chaotic eruption from the large group of boys, "Some… crooked parts were very obvious. But most of the tents seem fine."
He sighed in dismay and, after some thinking, finally nodded albeit reluctantly, "All clubs barely passed the test… for now."
The heavy note in the tone of his voice brought a shudder down everyone's back as a ghost rushed up and said to the coach, "Coach Vargas, Lotus said that his tent had broken down and was probably blown away from the wind. So he set up a new one earlier and wanted to know what to do about the broken tent?"
"His tent broke?" Vargas looked surprise as he saw the ghost hand him a piece of what looked be a tent cover. After one look, the coach thought carefully before speaking with the ghost quietly and frowned, "Lotus, come here. As for all of you, the ghost will explain the next challenge to you."
Seeing this, the others were surprised and pondered to themselves in confusion. Lotus's tent broken? Impossible! They saw her set the tent up themselves from the sidelines. How could it have broken down by just a gust of wind?! The only way for a tent such as hers to break was if the tent was sabotaged and, for that to happen, someone would need to approach the tent while no one was looking for them to take action. Yet, it was gone in a blink of an eye! So, the only way for such a thing to occur was if someone was collboarting with more than one person to team up and work together on one goal. A group of people wants to sabotage her!
With that, Lotus walked over to the coach as a bunch of eyes stared at her back. Yet, they could feel that she neither was afraid from their stares, now was she depressed upon her situation. The coach frowned, "Now, Lotus, I know that you are very skilled and work efficiently at everything you are good at. However, there's no reason for you to cover other people's actions and lie to me so you can take the responsibilities of others' misdoing. I can see that the tent cover was damaged too. Even if you build a tent, it will collapse with one gust of wind and the cut is too clean at the start to be an accident from a branch. If someone is taking advantage of your work, you have to report it."
"I understand, Coach Vargas." Lotus nodded, "It wasn't that I didn't want to tell you and the ghosts this, but that I find it would be difficult prove them in the wrong when all of the evidence have disappeared. Due to this, I thought it would be difficult to prove others in the wrong and put the professors and staffs in a difficult position should they claim favoritism and I have heard rumors about myself from the mouths of other students during club collaborations and meetings. I did not share this with Professor Crewel and Professor Trein, but I was worried that the rumors had affected the students' perspectives towards their abilities of assessing other students. When I heard the rumors going about me and my club, I knew that I could be putting Coach Vargas in a difficult position in the near future due to this. Hence, why I did not turn to you for your help. Because you took a great deal of time towards the benefit of the students' development in creating this educational field trip, I did not want to add to the load you and the staff carried on top of the current situation with the school at the moment. It must also be difficult for the headmaster to take such events into consideration and rare for us to get this chance to get hand on experience on using what we learned. Studying in the science club has taught me this. Chances to practice our knowledge into day to day activities are rare. I did not want to ruin this experience for those who did not take part in our trouble. They are only targeting me and not the club. So I can put up with it, but it would not be good for me if the targeted everyone or even others in the club who has never have the experience."
Coach Vargas was surprised upon hearing this. He never thought that one idea to get the introvert kids out from under the roof would actually be more beneficial to them than he had imagined.
"Hm, I see." Coach Vargas folded his arms in deep thinking and hesitation before nodding his head, "I have never thought that you hold this trip with such high regards, Mister Xue. When I started this idea, I simply wanted to have the students build muscles and learn survival lessons. I did not imagine that some would take it as a test to their knowledge in other fields. I had imagined students would use their knowledge in history and alchemy, but not for science to this degree."