Chapter 2012: Chapter 1020: Such a Teacher (2)
Euphilia asked again.
This time, Noelle Rose fell silent.
She lowered her head, feeling guilty, and started to avoid the question.
"I didn’t do anything much, did I? I just spent a little more than usual, that’s all."
The Spider Witch said softly.
"You call that a little? The Aunties gave you twenty years’ worth of living expenses at Witch Academy, and you spent it all on the day you enrolled—is that a little?"
Mother Dragon glanced sideways at her friend. If it weren’t for their century-long friendship, she might have really been fooled by Rosie’s innocent look.
"It’s not like the Puppet materials were on promotion just in time for the start of school, right? They were at a 40% discount—it’s practically giving them away! So when else was I supposed to buy them? Besides, I did try to make money afterward."
Noelle Rose retorted, unwilling to admit fault.
"Haha, your idea of making money was selling the ancient puppets passed down for thousands of years by your family? Those were precious artifacts once used to perform puppet shows for Lord Demon King—they’re the treasure of your family’s Puppet Theater."
Euphilia said, dismantling her argument expressionlessly.
"Treasure of what? They’re just outdated junk, okay? When I was five, I could already make newer puppets with better performance. Back then, I wanted to replace those old puppets at home with new ones, and I even got scolded for it. Those old relics just cling onto those old things and refuse to progress."
The Spider Witch was rather disdainful of this.
After all, she was a pure pragmatist. Besides having a certain commemorative significance, or maybe boasting to outsiders that Lord Demon King once watched their performance, what other value do those old puppets have?
Absolutely none.
So just keep a couple as souvenirs and sell the rest to collectors willing to pay a high price. With the money earned, buy Puppet materials, and she could entirely upgrade all the puppets in the entire Puppet Theater to the latest high-level ones. Surely then, it would provide some shocking progress for the audience.
Who knows, it might even attract Lord Demon King to come and watch again. That way, she’d have another batch of puppets with high commemorative value and could sell them to collectors and make another fortune.
Isn’t this perfect? What’s wrong with that?
"Were you trying to sell your family’s ancestral theater for progress as well?"
Mother Dragon asked again.
"Of course, although that old theater has a good location in the Second Ring of Pandora City, what’s the use? It’s too small. It’s spacious enough for home use but really insufficient for performances. Better to sell it, take some land in the suburbs, and construct a brand-new theater comparable to Witch Opera House."
Noelle Rose maintained her righteous stance.
"Then why does someone so passionately pursuing progress always spend the Aunties’ money and not earn it yourself?"
Euphilia looked at her friend who nearly squandered all her family assets without a hint of remorse, feeling her blood pressure rise.
She put herself in Rosie’s mothers’ shoes, imagining if one day Dorothy sold off all of Yemengade Family’s ancestral property in the pursuit of progress...
Well, that didn’t seem entirely unacceptable.
After all, the Ancestral Elder was hanging around her daughter’s neck as a necklace, and if Yemengade’s ancestor had no objections, others couldn’t really do much about it either.
Sigh, what she really disliked wasn’t her daughter squandering the family fortune, but rather her daughter didn’t even squander. She outright didn’t want to take over the family estate.
"What do you mean I want to spend their money? It’s clearly them hindering my business, okay. I also want to start ventures, but as you mentioned earlier, they don’t understand my entrepreneurial ideas and lock me at home as a result. I refuse to do performances I don’t want, so I just choose to loaf around, and they accuse me of being too spendthrift, ultimately kicking me out."
Noelle Rose said, feeling indignant.
She genuinely thought living idly at home was quite comfortable, eating and sleeping all day, occasionally playing with her puppets and Puppet houses—it was all very carefree.
But her mothers were seriously unreasonable. They had clearly said they would take care of her as long as she didn’t stir up trouble, as long as she lived a normal life of eating, drinking, and entertainment at home, they’d afford to raise her for a lifetime. But she hadn’t even lounged at home for fifty years when they claimed it was unbearable.
Parents’ words are deceiving lies.
Remembering her experience of having to earn a living after being kicked out, the Spider Witch couldn’t help but tear up.
Initially, she tried writing a few Puppet technology manuals, thinking she could earn some living expenses, but unexpectedly won an award, and they said her name was recorded in the Jade Set.
What good does that do? They should give me more prize money; playing with puppets really burns a hole in the pocket, and I don’t just play with puppets; I like to build houses for them too—it costs even more.
Fortunately, after winning the award, she gained some fame and started working at an Alchemy Workshop. Originally, she thought it would suffice to just earn a wage, but unknowingly, she ended up as the chief engineer.
Despite applying for the position of Architect, those guys insisted that building warships is the same as constructing architecture, and asked her to try, given the ample funding involved, so she went ahead.
Indeed, building ships and Puppet houses are quite similar; she quickly adapted, but the problem was that after completing the project, she calculated and found it went over budget, resulting in her getting almost no money. They just gave her some title of a lifelong professor.
Come on, can you guys be more practical? I want money, not a name!
Besides, I just want to play with my puppets; who wants to be a professor? I have no time to teach apprentices.
So, Noelle Rose had enough of this low-paying, high-responsibility job. She directly went to the front lines to serve as an Armed Witch. In her spare time, she even worked part-time as a Judge in the Judgment Court, playing some black market games.
You wouldn’t believe it, but this makes more money than a regular job. After saving for decades, she finally had a little capital, so she left a few Puppets at the front line to keep working, while her main body went to Witch Academy to find a leisurely position to continue playing with puppets.
But people kept coming to her doorstep to talk about collaborations, insisting on giving her money. Who wouldn’t accept free money?
So, she took all the money; after all, she only needed to submit some surplus scrap materials from Puppet research from time to time to get by.
Alright, it sure feels amazing to squeeze funding, but unknowingly squeezing too much fund requires quite an effort to deliver results later.
Normally, there should not be any issue, but ever since she took Dorothy as her apprentice, she’s been busy writing textbooks and preparing to write textbooks, and she hasn’t had time for research in ages.
With no research, where is the surplus to hand over?
Moreover, writing textbooks recently is draining her brain capacity; she truly has no energy left for scientific research.
The deadline for the next delivery is quickly approaching, but she currently has no inventory; she was initially worried about this, but now...
Hehehe, the Witch of the Forest is my apprentice.
It’s well-known that the Witch of the Forest is famous in the industry for being efficient and prolific, like a sow—this unresolved small project can be easily settled?
Honestly, from the beginning, she just wanted to quietly stay indoors and play with puppets, creating beautiful puppet houses for them.
This was her childhood dream.
Later, she realized that making puppets and puppet houses was quite tedious, so she thought, why couldn’t puppets move on their own? They were mature puppets; they should create houses for themselves.
Thus, the self-regulating Puppet and automated mechanical civil engineering science of Noelle Rose was born.
And now, she thinks dealing with those annoying engineering projects is equally troublesome, so she thought about taking an apprentice, hoping the apprentice could help her settle these irritating matters, allowing her to comfortably continue staying at home playing with beloved puppets.
Indeed, after being kicked out by the family, she realized that elders were unreliable. If the elders don’t work out, then it’s up to the younger ones—a good apprentice is meant to take care of the master in old age.
....Noelle Rose Planning Successful...
