As Tunzuo walked into the classroom, Sally and Huli were already sitting obediently in their seats, waiting for a long time.
The warm yellow sunlight spilled over the two little ones, gilding their fur with a golden edge.
Tunzuo walked over to Huli, habitually reached out her hand, and rubbed it on Huli’s fluffy little head.
Feeling the soft touch coming through her fingertips, Tunzuo chuckled softly and asked Huli how her flight today felt.
“So, Huli? How does it feel to spread your wings and soar? Still scared?”
Huli looked up at Tunzuo.
The timidness that had been in her eyes before was now sparkling with excitement.
Huli nodded vigorously, her cheeks slightly flushed from excitement.
“Not scared at all, Sister Tuto! Sally taught me very carefully.
Although I can’t fly as high as you guys yet, I can already pass the assessment tasks on my own.
Sister Tuto, I’ll work hard to pass the Flight Class exam!”
Hearing Huli take credit for her, Sally, who was sitting nearby, couldn’t help raising her hand, rubbed her nose with her index finger, and lifted her chin high with a proud expression.
She was practically begging for praise—
It might as well have been written on her face.
After hearing Huli’s bold declaration, Tunzuo’s smile deepened a little.
She didn’t say anything more, just rubbed Sally’s little head in praise as well before dragging Olivia to sit down side by side behind the two little ones.
Time passed minute by minute as the four witches waited in boredom.
Just when Tunzuo felt she was about to grow mold, the classroom door finally creaked open, breaking the dull silence.
Shirley dragged her weary body into the classroom.
The normally dignified Snow Bow Witch now looked a bit disheveled.
Her usually immaculate hair was slightly messy, and there were faint dark circles under her eyes, as if she had just escaped from a long, painful ordeal.
“Sorry I’m late. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Shirley walked to the podium, put down the files in her hands, and her voice was filled with undisguised fatigue.
She first sincerely apologized to Tunzuo and the others for being late, and then, as if flipping some weird switch, began muttering under her breath.
“Really, what are those school leaders thinking? Just squeezing our labor value like this… The end of the holiday should be a time to rest properly, but they drag us back for overtime meetings to discuss trivial nonsense. They have no consideration for their subordinates… Annoying!”
Hearing Shirley’s resentful muttering, Tunzuo couldn’t help it and burst out laughing.
She slumped over the desk, her body shaking as she tried to suppress her laughter.
Tunzuo couldn’t help thinking to herself:
‘Looks like no matter if it’s Blue Star or Duonayongla World, the essence of being a corporate slave is always the same—a beast of burden squeezed dry by life.’
Tunzuo’s untimely snicker was particularly clear in the quiet classroom.
Shirley’s muttering came to an abrupt halt.
She slowly raised her head, and a gaze filled with resentment and murderous intent accurately chopped toward Tunzuo.
Feeling Shirley’s almost tangible murderous intent and resentment, Tunzuo quickly restrained her smile, straightened up in the blink of an eye, folded her hands on the desk, and put on a serious, respectful, standard good-student expression on her face, as if she wasn’t the witch who had just been mocking Shirley.
Shirley could only shake her head wearily at Tunzuo’s lightning-fast acting.
She sighed helplessly and didn’t pursue it further.
She cleared her throat and began to get down to business.
“Alright, I called you all here for this impromptu class meeting because there’s an important matter to discuss. The Witch Academy’s School Festival is coming up, so I’d like everyone to brainstorm ideas for the joint performance between our class and Miss Lena’s class.”
“School Festival? Performance?”
After catching the keywords from Shirley’s words, Tunzuo’s straight back instantly collapsed.
She turned into a puddle of soft mud in her seat, staring blankly at the ceiling with lifeless eyes.
Ah, so this is happening.
I knew a class meeting meant trouble.
‘The pinnacle of formalism, the favorite of school leaders, a meaningless mandatory group performance.’
Tunzuo rolled her eyes internally, already envisioning the painful future of having to rehearse boring programs just for the sake of face projects.
“School Festival?! Oh no!”
Just then, a startled cry from beside her caught Tunzuo’s attention.
Having turned into a puddle, Tunzuo laboriously turned her head.
She saw Olivia covering her mouth with her hand in panic, her golden vertical pupils filled with terror, as if she had just heard something extremely frightening.
Seeing Olivia so unusually flustered, Tunzuo felt a bit curious.
She poked Olivia with her elbow.
“Hey, perverted dragon, what’s so special about the Witch Academy’s School Festival? Why are you so nervous?”
In response to Tunzuo’s question, Olivia nervously looked left and right first, then leaned close to Tunzuo’s ear, lowered her voice, and cautiously began to speak:
“There’s nothing nervous about the School Festival itself. It’s just a normal celebration. But the reason all the magic academies in Duonayongla World hold their School Festivals on the same day and celebrate together is that this day is Principal Andersen’s birthday! I—I forgot about that… I haven’t prepared any blessings or gifts…”
The moment Olivia finished speaking, an extremely cold chill ran up Tunzuo’s spine.
Tunzuo and Olivia both felt a pair of eyes filled with grievance and resentment staring intently at them.
Then, a voice tinged with tears sounded faintly in their ears.
“Little Dragon Dragon is a wicked witch who forgets her friends for a new love… She has a new darling and forgets the old face… She doesn’t care about me, the old principal at all… Little Tuto, don’t be friends with her anymore, come play with me…”
Andersen’s voice was like a magic spell, making Olivia sit on pins and needles.
Her face turned pale.
She clasped her hands together and bowed repeatedly to the air, stammering in frantic defense.
“Principal! Principal Andersen! Please listen to my explanation! I didn’t mean to—I—I just forgot because I was busy, I really didn’t mean to forget!”
Finally, after Olivia’s flattering, almost sycophantic apologies, Andersen’s resentful gaze slowly dissipated with a dissatisfied snort.
Watching Olivia being so frantically tormented, Tunzuo couldn’t help but gloat.
“Heehee, that’s what you get for running your mouth. Don’t secretly gossip about legendary witches behind their backs… They… can… hear… you…”
Tunzuo’s words slowed down before she finished speaking.
Her eyes were panicked, and fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.
As if struck by lightning, she froze in place.
A forgotten memory suddenly attacked Tunzuo.
‘All those gossip and funny stories I chatted about with Miss Lei Ruiya during the Summoning School specialized theory class—did Bad Mommy hear them all?!’
“VIVI—!”
At that thought, Tunzuo let out a shrill scream, instantly going into an abstract state.
Her Ghost Witch body began to twist uncontrollably, turning into messy lines that twitched back and forth.
Her expression frantically switched between terror, despair, and pain, like an abstract painting crumpled by a mischievous child.
Tunzuo’s intense and sudden reaction made the other witches in the classroom all turn to look at her in shock.
Olivia was also startled.
She had never seen Tunzuo react so violently.
She quickly reached out to hold Tunzuo down, trying to calm her.
“What’s wrong? Little Ghost? Calm down first. What happened?”
After some soothing from Olivia, Tunzuo panted heavily and temporarily stabilized her form, but her heart was still in a panic.
She didn’t dare tell Olivia the truth.
Instead, she murmured to herself with a pale face.
“It’s over, it’s over. If Antuxi, that Bad Mommy, hears those gossips I talked about… No! I’ll be turned into a punching bag!”
But Tunzuo still clung to a sliver of hope.
She figured Antuxi wouldn’t be so bored as to specially eavesdrop on her conversations.
However, at that moment, a crisp notification sound became the last straw, completely shattering Tunzuo’s final delusion.
Ding-dong—
It was the special attention message notification sound from Tunzuo’s grimoire.
And the only witch Tunzuo had set as a special contact was one and only.
Upon hearing that Antuxi—
Who had never sent a single pointless message in ages—
Had actually messaged her now, Tunzuo was completely drained.
She collapsed into her seat, her body instantly losing all color, turning into a lifeless gray-white.
Her soul had already left her body, drifting into the distance.
Olivia watched Tunzuo’s burned-out state with even more concern.
“What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”
In response, Tunzuo replied with hollow eyes.
“My butt hurts.”
Tunzuo’s nonsensical answer left Olivia a bit baffled.
“Huh? Your butt hurts? Is the chair too hard?”
She subconsciously reached out to touch her own seat.
It was ergonomically designed.
But what Olivia didn’t know was that Tunzuo was just thinking that when she saw Antuxi again, her butt would surely bloom like a flower.
Yeah, a few hundred petals—
Definitely blooming in all its colorful glory.
A crisp clap drew Tunzuo’s and Olivia’s attention.
Shirley looked helplessly at her two problem students, a vein twitching slightly on her temple.
“Alright, you two. Please offer some proper opinions on the upcoming School Festival. Stop spacing out.”
In response to Shirley’s words, Tunzuo pouted and barely regained a bit of color from her gray state, muttering softly:
“Tch. What’s so good about this flashy, impractical School Festival…”
“No, no, Little Ghost, you misunderstand.”
Seeing Tunzuo in a low mood, Olivia began to explain the specifics of the School Festival to her, trying to salvage the situation.
“The School Festival in witch society isn’t the stiff face project you think it is. Aside from celebrating Principal Andersen’s birthday, its purpose is also to let students and teachers have a good time and let loose.”
We can invite friends and family to perform and have fun together.
The purpose of the program is to better stir up everyone’s mood.
Everyone can perform whatever they want.
“During the School Festival, there’s a saying: ‘School rules are like blank paper.’ On that day, as long as it’s not illegal, anything goes!”
Despite Olivia’s explanation, Tunzuo wasn’t particularly moved.
After all, hearing is not seeing, and she had never experienced it herself, so she remained skeptical.
So Tunzuo tore a piece of white paper from her notebook, scrawled the words “I’m fine with anything” in big letters, then covered her face with it.
After that, she leaned back and started zoning out, adopting a “don’t bother me” attitude.
Seeing this, Olivia could only shake her head indulgently, turned around, and began discussing with Shirley, Sally, and Huli what program to perform at the School Festival.
“How about a play? We can perform a classic witch legend.”
Sally, who wanted to play the hero, suggested.
“Rehearsing a play takes too much time, and Huli’s flight is still in the practice stage; coordinating might be difficult.”
Olivia shook her head, not in favor of Sally’s plan.
“What about dancing? Or a solo instrumental performance?”
Shirley tentatively suggested.
“Too monotonous. Since we’re performing jointly with Miss Lena’s class—that means with Hai Lanyue—we have to consider Hai Lanyue’s physical condition. Coordination issues are also a factor. Besides, a solo performance in a group activity is definitely inappropriate.”
With each proposal rejected one by one, the atmosphere grew tense.
After a heated discussion, the witches were a bit at a loss.
Shirley glanced at Tunzuo, whose face was still covered with the white paper, and said helplessly:
“Classmate Tunzuo, you should offer some opinions too. At least have some sense of participation. Who knows, you might have a brilliant idea?”
Seeing Shirley speak, pretending to be dead any longer wouldn’t be appropriate.
Tunzuo had no choice but to sigh and decided to throw out a token suggestion to bluff her way through.
Tunzuo rummaged through her mind for ideas.
At that moment, scenes from anime she had watched flashed through her head.
Normally, in such situations, that one line had to be said.
So Tunzuo raised her hand, pointed at the ceiling, and casually said that classic line.
“Then let’s form a band!”
As Tunzuo’s words fell, the classroom fell into a brief silence.
Tunzuo originally thought the other witches would reject her suggestion like they had the others.
But to her surprise, the witches present all put on serious expressions and began to ponder.
“A band… that actually seems like a good idea.”
“Lena is pretty good at musical instruments. Although Hai Lanyue has a weak constitution, I heard she sings well.”
“And the band format is flexible; no complicated blocking is needed. It’s indeed suitable for a joint performance.”
Seeing that the witches were actually seriously considering forming a band and had even started planning personnel assignments, Tunzuo panicked.
She ripped off the white paper mask from her face, widened her eyes, looked around at the other witches who were now excited, and her mouth twitched.
Wait, no!
I was just kidding!
I don’t want to join in!
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