Miss Witch Doesn't Want to Become a Songstress-Chapter 178

Wrapped in a thin blanket, Hestia sat by the electric heater in her slippers, her beautiful black eyes occasionally staring blankly at the orange-red glow of the heat source.

"Sister Thilan, look at this~" A lively set of footsteps approached, and three children around ten years old came up to her, holding up a freshly drawn picture.

The drawing was made with watercolor markers, and the style was... imaginative. The chaotic lines required some kind of hallucination to decipher, but it seemed to depict a small black-haired figure holding a sword, flying in the sky, with various buildings tilting haphazardly below.

"This is my drawing of Sister Thilan. Do you think it looks like you?" The boy held up the picture, eagerly awaiting her response, a snot bubble forming at the edge of his nose.

"Wipe your nose first," the girl handed him a couple of tissues, then glanced at the drawing.

She didn’t want to discourage him, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie either.

"There’s room for improvement, but the future looks promising."

"Yay~ Sister Thilan praised me, hehe." He proudly showed off to his friends, then insisted on taking a photo with her as a memento before running off with his companions.

As the children scampered away, one of the aunts in the room spoke up.

"You’re too indulgent with them. Mark my words, in a few days, several more will come asking you to draw with them."

"These kids, they’re just..." another aunt chimed in.

"I think their drawing is just an excuse. They’re really just here to be around Thilan. After all, Thilan’s beauty is truly one of a kind. The drawing is just a pretense."

"Thilan, don’t think of children as too innocent. These little ones are quite cunning." The two aunts warned the girl. In their eyes, Thilan, at sixteen or seventeen, was still too young and naive—essentially still a child herself.

"I understand," Thilan nodded, unable to refuse the elders’ well-meaning advice, then leaned back in her chair, gazing at the fire and drifting into thought.

Occasionally, she had lazy moments like this, where she didn’t think about anything, just sat quietly, letting her thoughts wander. The orange glow of the heater added to her drowsiness.

Time passed unnoticed. It had already been a week since she arrived at her uncle’s house, and she was gradually getting used to life here. Occasionally, when prompted by the aunts, she would share stories of her past life, which often left the listeners sighing in reflection.

"Your mother, Lady Gu Yongrong, was exceptionally beautiful even as a child. Countless people in Thousand Towers City pursued her, and she had many childhood friends. But in the end, she chose none of them and instead left with someone she had just met. At the time, everyone thought she had passed away, and many shed tears for her."

"Little did we know the truth was quite different... It’s a good thing the lady didn’t die in that accident, but who would have thought that outside, she still..."

"Ah, look at me, bringing up sad things again."

"It’s alright. I’m not as sad about it now," Hestia replied, knowing she resembled her mother greatly, which naturally evoked nostalgia in others.

After all, they hadn’t seen her as a child, and now, her appearance was strikingly similar to how her mother had looked when she left, making it easy for them to be confused of the two.

Another day passed, and the snow finally stopped for once.

Having sat indoors for too long, Hestia put on a fleece-lined winter dress and long boots and stepped outside into the snow-covered world, accompanied by a few children of similar age.

First, they walked through the streets of the residential area, then ventured out of the under-construction city district toward the hills beyond.

The mountain path was relatively flat, with traces of past vehicle tracks faintly visible beneath the snow.

They trudged through the uneven snow, reaching the halfway point of the hill, where they could overlook the entire city below and the gray wilderness in the distance.

"Thilan," a girl a few years older than Hestia pointed to the distant wasteland.

"That area will eventually become a glass greenhouse, producing a lot of food. I’ll work there in the future." She was Gu Qianlou’s second daughter and Hestia’s cousin.

"Does it sound a bit underwhelming? After all, my older sister is already starting to handle some of the city’s affairs." Her name was Gu Fanying, and the older sister she mentioned was Gu Fanqing, the eldest daughter of Gu Qianlou. They also had a younger brother, Gu Fanyun.

"It’s fine. It seems like a perfectly normal job," Thilan brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and looked out at the wasteland.

"You wouldn’t understand. You grew up outside, away from the prying eyes and gossip of our relatives.

"We, as the chief’s daughters, were strictly educated from a young age. While it was for our own good, the restrictions and discomfort are hard to describe.

"I guess I just couldn’t keep up. I was never outstanding enough, and my father often scolded me. I even had a big argument with him once, but I ended up too scared to confront him again. You have no idea how terrifying my dad can be when he’s angry." She shook her head.

"But in the past six months, he’s changed a bit. He’s become gentler and finally had a proper talk with me, no longer demanding so much from me. He even agreed to my almost ‘slacking off’ idea—not pursuing high-ranking positions in the city but simply becoming a gardener in the greenhouse.”

"People’s personalities don’t change overnight, and the biggest change in the past six months has been because of you." She turned to look at Thilan.

"So, I’m very grateful to you.”

"These past few days, I’ve noticed you often spacing out, sometimes looking sad. I don’t know what’s troubling you, but I want to say, you should live well.”

"I haven’t experienced the loss of a loved one, but I can imagine the sadness and loneliness it brings.”

"Because I often feel that way too—misunderstood by my family, constantly criticized and advised, feeling wronged. It’s like being surrounded by people yet feeling utterly alone.”

"I don’t want to deal with the trivial matters of family life anymore, nor do I want to be like my sister, striving for power and status. I just want to escape and live a simpler life, but this desire to escape also makes me feel weak." She stomped her feet, shaking off some snow.”

"But there’s no way around it. Things don’t change just by thinking or wishing. Hesitation and waiting won’t change anything.”

"Keep moving forward, and the path should gradually widen." After saying this, she gently hugged Thilan.

"You’re the most talented and beautiful girl I’ve ever met. You shouldn’t be so sad all the time. Shining brightly, dazzling everyone—that’s how you should be."

Was she being comforted...?

Thilan thanked her, wanting to explain that she wasn’t actually that sad, but by then, the other children had slowly climbed up the hill and were running over.

"Haha, I got here first~" The children chased each other, their cheeks red from the cold but full of energy.

Once the other children arrived, Thilan and her cousin no longer had the chance to talk. Soon, they were surrounded by the others, chattering about various things.

After building snowmen and playing in the snow for a while, the other children grew tired and didn’t want to climb any higher, so the group slowly made their way back. As they walked, Thilan reflected on her cousin’s words.

It seemed her behavior had worried others. She took a deep breath, trying to cheer herself up a little, then looked up.

The world was filled with falling snow, the desolate gray wilderness hardly a pleasing sight. Only the city below, with its day-and-night construction sites and the constant movement of mechanical autonomous units, offered a sense of vitality.

She wanted to change something, but she was anxious about whether she could truly make a difference. This sorrowful planet and world, and her own uncertain future.

Standing on the mountain path, Thilan stopped and gazed for a long time, until finally, she turned her eyes to the vast sky above, the endless sea of stars beyond the atmosphere.

People born in past eras were fortunate because their world was just a single planet. They could spend their entire lives exploring and experiencing its wonders.

But in this era, even seeing the entire Federation has become nearly impossible. The world is too vast, and I am so small—so small that any wish I make feels like despair from the moment it’s spoken.

The more she understood her own talent, the more Thilan felt a sense of insignificance and helplessness, along with the anxiety that came with it.

Did she truly have the right to shoulder the great mission of the previous two generations of Color-Grade Songstresses? And now, all the problems of the Federation were deeply rooted—wealth disparity, regional inequality, disunity, corruption at every level of society, and the singular nature of social evaluation, creating a hell where everyone tormented each other. Everyone lived for themselves, as they should, but what right did she have to unite everyone under a single voice?

The road ahead had reached its end. She could only stand halfway up the mountain, helplessly watching it slowly decay until the day it collapsed.

If singing was the voice of the heart, she couldn’t even convince herself. What right did she have to convince others, to make them believe, to give them hope?

If there was no path forward, then the so-called hope was nothing but a torturous poison, an even crueler emotion.

So, she didn’t want to speak, because her heart was full of sorrow, and she had no words to express it.

Beneath the quiet and gentle surface of her life, the real Thilan was constantly haunted by these questions. That’s why she often spaced out and occasionally felt sad. She was uneasy about her increasingly revealed unique talent, yet also sorrowful that even with such talent, she could hardly bear the mission of a Color-Grade Songstress.

The sky gradually darkened, and the night sky filled with scattered stars. Against the pitch-black earth, her tiny figure wandered aimlessly across the wilderness until she finally stopped in front of a pile of junk.

Here, scattered about were numerous desks and chairs, their metal surfaces still dusted with snow, cold to the touch.

They were probably brought here from some abandoned school. Thilan could see numbers marked on some of the desks.

These old desks and chairs were left exposed to the elements, piled into a small hill.

Thilan’s figure leaped lightly, her toes landing on the small flat surfaces among the chaotic desks, then leaped again, moving gracefully and quietly over the obstacles until she reached the top of the pile.

Standing atop the hill of desks, the faint glow of distant lights peeked through the darkness. On the horizon, her silhouette merged with the pile of desks, creating a unique sense of loneliness, like a king from some adolescent fantasy.

From the top of the desk hill, Thilan looked up at the endless expanse of stars above, where countless suns and moons revolved endlessly, their light traveling billions of years to quietly illuminate the world.

No matter how glorious a civilization, there will come a day when it dims and falls.

Humanity today is just one of the brighter stars among them.

Planets will vanish, civilizations will perish, the universe will end. Everything is slowly moving toward its conclusion. So, what is the meaning of our existence?

If nothing has meaning, then how should we act?

Thilan slowly closed her eyes. The night breeze gently brushed past, the cold and chill creeping up from below.

Like this, she stood quietly for a long time, then leaned back and let the wind carry her, before slowly landing on the ground.

She still hadn’t figured it out. Thilan brushed off the light dusting of snow from her clothes, her fingers tracing the metal desks and chairs in the snow, then headed back to her lodging.

Today, she still hadn’t found the answer, but she knew that such questions rarely had clear answers.

Perhaps, as her cousin said, taking one step at a time, the path would gradually widen. For now, she would focus on what she could do.