Chapter 1028 – Mo Lan’s Lazy Daily Life 12

Mo Lan took Sylph’s words to heart.

Long ago, she had once imagined that after saving Earth, she would return to the Witch’s Wilds, plant a grove of Witch Trees, and raise a lively group of adorable little witches.

But now, she realized just how reckless and irresponsible such thinking had been.

After turning thirteen, a young witch had to leave home and begin communal life and systematic magical studies at the Witch Academy. After her coming-of-age ceremony at eighteen, she would officially embark on her own independent journey of exploring the world.

The time a child truly spent by her mother’s side—cherished and doted upon as a pure child, free from any worries of her own—amounted to a mere thirteen years.

Though witches possessed pure souls, and bravery, resilience, and kindness were qualities inherent in a witch’s very soul—there had never been a single case of one growing up crooked.

And witch mothers did indeed possess strong hearts and impartial love, capable of never playing favorites and giving equally to all their children.

Among young witch sisters, intimate bonds formed naturally—they loved and supported one another rather than competing or harboring jealousy.

But none of this was reason enough to dilute the already brief attention and love of those fleeting childhood years.

Greater numbers might bring multiplied noise and joy, but time and energy were finite.

A watchful gaze might need to be split between two little faces at once. A hug might need to encompass two small bodies simultaneously. A late-night comforting might need to be done in turns. An exclusive, heart-to-heart conversation might need to wait for a more suitable moment… These seemingly trivial details, compounded together, formed the gap in that “one hundred percent, unshared, exclusive mother’s love.”

Sylph’s regret did not stem from failure or harm, but from a longing for “perfection”—a desire to give every child her absolute, unreserved everything at the very moment they needed it most.

That longing itself was born from the deepest love and sense of responsibility.

Mo Lan did not want to create such regrets either. She decided to plant only one Witch Tree, and only after her little witch had grown up and left her mother to live her own life would she consider planting the next.

After her conversation with Sylph, Mo Lan spent the next two days looking after little Leila and taking her everywhere to play.

Little Leila was like a radiant little sun, brimming with energy—adorable and healing. Mo Lan ran with her through the Sea of Roses, dove to the ocean floor to hunt for treasures, swung together on the treetop platform watching sunrises and sunsets, built block towers with her, read picture books to her… These activities, so simple as to be almost mundane, filled Mo Lan with double the happiness.

It was as if time had turned back, and she had become once again that carefree little witch playing in the Emerald Creek Plains, or later, that little elf frolicking with her friends in the Emerald Forest—no, even more relaxed, even happier than those times!

However, Grandma Dayla finished her Witch Council duties a full day earlier than expected and returned in a whirlwind.

When little Leila saw her mother, she naturally cheered and threw herself into her arms, chattering away about her adventures over the past few days. Her little face was full of reluctance to part, yet she followed her mother without a moment’s hesitation.

After they left, the vast interior of the mutant hollow tree fell suddenly silent.

The space that had been filled with laughter and a child’s tender voice moments before now held only the soft rustle of wind through the branches and the faint crackling of the hearth fire. It wasn’t just Mo Lan—even Zhizhi, Clack, and Sentai felt a touch of loss.

It was precisely this sudden silence and that unmistakable sense of loss that made her desire to “nurture a little witch of her own” grow clearer and more resolute, even tinged with an eager impatience.

She turned and went back to the treehouse, directly summoning the Card Shop interface. She added to her cart every Knowledge Card and book card in the shop that had anything to do with parenting—regardless of level, author’s race, or theoretical school of thought.

This included not only the experiences of senior witches in growing Witch Trees and raising young witches, but also parenting books from humans, Dragons, Elves, Angels… even from many races of other worlds.

Before long, a large pile of cards shimmering with various colors materialized before her, forming a small “mountain of books.”

Mo Lan organized them one by one, sorting them into categories.

After that, she still went fishing by the shores of Spring Sight Lake, but more often than not, she would half-recline in a soft rattan chair or on a spread-out picnic blanket, reading through the eclectic assortment of parenting books.

She read with great earnestness. The human parenting books were filled with exhaustive analyses of infant crying, sleep patterns, feeding, and other specific physiological needs, along with coping strategies. Some worlds where human living standards were relatively advanced even addressed children’s psychological and educational development, with every aspect covered in meticulous detail—as if one moment of carelessness could lead to the child’s death, or cause problems in their psychology, personality, or abilities.

Dragon parenting books, on the other hand, focused more on how to guide hatchling dragons in controlling their innately powerful strength, avoiding destruction, and gradually awakening their inherited legacies—brimming with raw power. Elf parenting books were as elegant as poetry, emphasizing following the child’s natural disposition and learning through play in nature…

Mo Lan did not accept everything wholesale. After studying these parenting philosophies from different civilizations and different life forms, she began extracting the best parts and discarding the rest, forming her own personal parenting compendium.

The bloodline talents and physical structures of Dragon and Elf races differed from those of young witches, but Dragon strength-training and Elf nature-based education were certainly worth trying on the second-generation little Sorceresses that would grow from a Witch Tree.

The meticulous observations humans made regarding infant physiological care were worth learning from, but some of their overly anxious or mechanical methods might not apply to young witches, who had stronger bodies and purer souls.

The more she read of other races’ parenting books, the more profoundly Mo Lan came to realize one thing: young witches were truly so easy to raise!

Compared to the various physical discomforts, inconsolable crying, and childhood psychological and foundational education issues that human babies might experience—compared to the destruction a hatchling dragon’s power rampage could cause and the long learning period required to gain control—young witches born from a Witch Tree arrived with pure souls from the moment of birth, an innate understanding of Witch language, extraordinary affinity for all types of magical energy, physical constitutions far surpassing those of ordinary human infants, and clear emotional expression, with virtually no instances of unreasonable, persistent crying or resistance.

This realization dispelled most of the last lingering trace of apprehension Mo Lan had felt about nurturing a young witch.

While she devoted herself to compiling her own 《Parenting Compendium》, the three little ones by her side were not idle either.

Zhizhi, Clack, and Sentai all displayed an intense desire to learn, determined to be part of this undertaking—studying parenting knowledge so they could help care for their future little master.

Mo Lan gave them the sections she had already organized, letting them study ahead of her. (End of Chapter)