Chapter 1079 – Mo Lan’s Headmistress Daily Life 11

The group set off from Spring Sight Lake, skimming across the water’s surface toward the lakeside cottage. From afar, they could already see their mothers drinking tea in the courtyard. The mothers smiled and waved at them—everything was exactly the same as it had been five years ago.

Sylvia leaped off her broomstick and threw herself into Mo Lan’s arms. “Mama, I missed you so much!”

“Um… me too.” Mo Lan gently patted her daughter’s back. While she could understand her daughter’s longing, she truly couldn’t say from the bottom of her heart that she had missed her daughter too—after all, she got to see her daughter every single day!

She changed the subject. “Did you have fun last night?”

“So much fun!” Sylvia launched into an endless stream of stories about the bonfire market.

Mo Lan listened quietly, occasionally responding with a word or two, a smile perpetually playing at the corners of her lips.

Mid-sentence, Sylvia suddenly stopped. Her gaze fell upon the area near Mo Lan’s ear.

There, a small Purple Gemstone earring stud glinted—very familiar. No, extremely familiar!

Her voice took on a peculiar tone. “Mama, that earring…”

“Hm?” Mo Lan thought to herself, she finally noticed?

“How come it’s the same as…” Sylvia paused, her gaze sweeping across the ears of Vasida, Lilith, and Sylph, then she corrected herself. “How come you’re all wearing earrings identical to the Headmistresses’?”

Her voice grew slower and slower, her expression increasingly incredulous.

Over the years, she had long noticed that while the Headmistresses would change into different outfits and accessories, their ears always bore the same style of earring studs—the only difference being the color of the gemstones set in them: red, green, purple, and black.

Earrings like these—they had never seen anything similar in the Card Shop.

The Headmistresses who wore the same colored earrings tended to have more similar personalities and habits. The one with the Purple Gemstone earring gave her the strongest sense of familiarity. She had never understood where that inexplicable feeling of familiarity came from, but now, suddenly, it all made sense.

Beside her, Tessa, Dorella, and Evelyn had also stopped talking at the same time, their gazes uniformly falling upon their own mothers’ ears.

The air went suddenly quiet.

Mo Lan, Vasida, Sylph, and Lilith exchanged a smile and said in perfect unison, “You’ve finally figured it out!”

Sylvia and the others stood there utterly dumbstruck.

Five years of confusion, five years of speculation, five years of those inexplicable “illusions” that could never quite be put into words—in this single moment, all of it had its answer.

“So…” Tessa’s voice had gone up an octave. “These five years… those Headmistresses… were you?!”

“To be precise,” Vasida replied with a beaming smile, “it was us and our clones!”

Dorella’s mouth hung open as she struggled to find her voice. “You deceived us for five years?”

“We didn’t deceive you,” Lilith said with a look of pure innocence. “We just didn’t tell you.”

Dorella: “Not telling is the same as deceiving!”

Lilith: “But you never asked either.”

Evelyn: “We asked many times in our letters, and every time you said you didn’t know the new Headmistresses!”

“Did we say ‘didn’t know’?” Sylph tilted her head. “What we said was ‘didn’t know who’—we didn’t know who the new Headmistresses were, because they were ‘us’ all along.”

Sylvia: “…”

Tessa had already crouched down on the ground, her head in her hands, her entire being overwhelmed by the massive cognitive shock.

Dorella covered her face, her shoulders trembling—impossible to tell whether she was crying or laughing.

Evelyn stared at her own mother, her expression indescribably complex.

“So…” Sylvia took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. “These five years, every time we sent letters to Mama by golden bird, the golden bird never even left the Academy?”

“Of course.”

“Every time we complained that the exams were too hard or the survival games were too brutal, you were all…”

“Watching.”

Mo Lan’s tone was light as a breeze, but the smile at the corners of her lips only deepened.

Sylvia stared at her. She stared for a full ten seconds. Then, suddenly, she laughed—laughed so hard that tears nearly spilled from her eyes.

“You’re all… you’re really…”

“Really what?” Mo Lan leaned in closer, a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

Sylvia shook her head, reached out, and hugged her mother tightly.

“Really… wonderful.”

Mama had been by her side all along.

The Headmistress she had so deeply respected and admired, who had given her life-changing guidance and help—was also her mother!

Beside them, Tessa sprang up from the ground and dove into Vasida’s arms.

Dorella threw herself at Lilith, and Evelyn strolled leisurely to Sylph’s side, gently linking her arm through hers.

In the distance, the surface of Spring Sight Lake shimmered with dancing light, as a few waterbirds skimmed past, leaving trails of ripples in their wake.

…

(End of Side Story) (End of Chapter)