All My Colleagues Are Animals 22

Chapter 22

In her third week of work at the new company, Ye Qingyu felt as if she were gradually detaching from the noisy human world and becoming a fluffy little animal herself.

Deep in the alley, the small building of Velvet Bamboo Studio stood peacefully in the spring day. As the weather grew warmer, the courtyard became more and more vibrant with life.

There was no messy infighting here, no heavy and tedious work—only her beautiful boss, her colleagues, and the unchanging theme of slacking off.

Life was so simple and comfortable that it felt a little weightless, making one want to just lie back in a rocking chair, sway, and contentedly expose their belly.

However, perhaps it was because a full belly leads to lewd thoughts, her colleagues had also been getting heartbroken over women with increasing frequency lately.

Just as now, everyone was sitting casually in the second-floor recreation area, watching a new movie projected onto the white screen in front of them.

The two female leads were playing out the classic drama of one fleeing and the other unable to catch up.

Luo Bian ran a hand through her long, light-blue hair and suddenly said:

“Back in the day, every time we argued, my partner would get angry and just swim away. I would flick my tail and chase after her. In the end, I got so fast that no one in the entire clan could swim faster than me.”

The other colleagues sighed in sympathy, while Ye Qingyu, sitting to her left, twitched her ears. “You two always argued in a swimming pool?”

Luo Bian seemed lost in memory, letting out a soft sigh. “Usually in the river, occasionally in the lake. It depended on the season.”

Ye Qingyu blinked.

So they were a little couple who liked to go wild swimming.

Not long after, the two main characters in the movie began to get entangled in a push-and-pull. The little dog they raised together was pitifully caught in the middle, not knowing which owner to comfort.

Jin Can started crying at the sight, her long, brilliant-gold hair trembling with her sobs. “I-I used to worry that if my master got a partner, she would start to ignore me.”

Ye Qingyu was deeply shaken.

So they’re not just into role-playing, they’re in an open relationship.

Seeing her colleague, as sincere and devoted as a real puppy, being toyed with by a bad woman, Ye Qingyu also felt a little bad. She took out a tissue from her pocket and handed her two.

But one of the tissues was snatched away first—

Gu Yue took it and blew her nose sorrowfully.

“These two leads have been in a push-and-pull for three years and still can’t break up. Why is my love life always so short-lived? I still don’t get it. What’s so good about that goose next door that I don’t have?”

She said mournfully, “I’m going to go clamp that goose again tomorrow.”

The hand Ye Qingyu was holding out with the tissue trembled.

Gu Yue always had the words “clamp this and clamp that” on the tip of her tongue, as if she had a beak.

Combined with her WeChat profile picture being an open pink beak, and then her fanatical love for the Chompers in Plants vs. Zombies—

Ye Qingyu couldn’t help but think: Could Gu Yue be fantasizing that she’s a pelican?

Seeing her human colleague clutching a tissue in a daze, Gu Yue took the paper, sniffled, and invited:

“What’s wrong, Ye Qingyu? Do you want to go meet that goose with me?”

“No, thank you,” Ye Qingyu declined politely. “I’m afraid of birds.”

Gu Yue froze. “Not just little birds?”

“Mhm, as long as it’s in the avian class, I’m very afraid,” Ye Qingyu said honestly.

—If the prey falls into a state of fear, the probability of it being caught and swallowed increases.

This sentence immediately surfaced in Gu Yue’s mind.

She blinked, suddenly feeling a little excited, and couldn’t help but want to flap her wings.

I have to try clamping Ye Qingyu next time. What if I can swallow her? My beak isn’t made of clay.

Seeing Gu Yue’s eyes light up, the previous sorrow from her heartbreak completely vanished. An unprompted chill ran down Ye Qingyu’s spine.

At this point, the movie was halfway through, and the two female leads were facing another conflict—one of them was being forced by her family to go on a blind date.

“Grrr…”

A low, gloomy growl, like that of a large feline, sounded, tinged with annoyance.

Ye Qingyu followed the sound and saw the black-haired colleague with jade-green eyes staring at the movie without blinking, her fingertips white from exertion, her strength so great that she had bent the key in her hand.

Nian Qiu exclaimed, “Your key is bent! I remember this is the key to your former master’s house!”

Wu Shu looked down, her pupils constricting.

She immediately clenched the key in her palm and let out a cold, indifferent snort.

“If it’s bent, it’s bent. I was going to throw it away anyway. I just haven’t found a suitable trash can.”

Luo Bian said, “There are very few locksmith stalls these days. Last time I drove the tricycle to the market, I think I saw one nearby…”

Wu Shu immediately turned her head to look at her, her jade-green eyes dark. “Where?”

Luo Bian raised an eyebrow. “Huh? Didn’t you say you were going to throw it away? Why fix it?”

Wu Shu’s gaze suddenly became extremely aggressive, and a dangerous growl rumbled in her throat. She stared at Luo Bian without a word, like a small, bristling beast.

Ye Qingyu, on the side, silently curved her lips into a smile.

Her colleagues are really like little animals. Although their personalities are different, and they’ve all had the bad luck of meeting various bad women, they are actually very pure at heart.

In comparison, her past life seemed a bit too plain and uninteresting.

The movie, serving as a backdrop, silently played to its end. The two female leads, after a lifetime of breaking up, making up, and pushing and pulling, finally got their happy ending and stayed together blissfully.

As the sweet ending music played, the small animals, each pining for their own women, all looked dejected and dazed.

Nian Qiu yawned and asked, puzzled, “I’ve never seen you all so sentimental before?”

She paused, then had a realization.

“Is it because mating season is coming?”

Shui Zhu’s ears twitched. She added, “It is spring, after all.”

“Exactly!”

Everyone started talking at once, all beginning to express that they weren’t actually missing their bad women, it was just that spring was here, and mating season was starting to act up.

Ye Qingyu, who was controlling the movie projection, took a couple of seconds to react. She looked up from her phone, her eyelashes trembling slightly.

What mating season?

This isn’t an ABO novel.

Nor is it a zoo.

“Ahem.”

Bai Shuang, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up, interrupting the conversation that was about to go off the rails.

Her calm gaze swept over them, containing a certain reminder and warning.

“…”

The small animals, snapping back to reality, were startled and immediately shut up, their gazes unanimously falling on the human who was stunned on the beanbag sofa.

“Alright, if your period comes, just ask for leave directly,” Bai Shuang’s flat voice sounded in the silent recreation area.

Oh, so they weren’t talking about mating season, but their periods.

Ye Qingyu raised a hand and pinched her ear, which had been frequently mishearing things.

She still had her reason. Just because her colleagues were a bit like small animals, she couldn’t actually think they were animals.

Otherwise, wouldn’t that mean her beautiful boss was really a red panda?

Amused by her own wild thoughts, Ye Qingyu exited the movie player app, preparing to end the projection.

Just then, Boss Pei, whom she had just been thinking of, pushed open the door to the recreation area.

The woman looked like she had just woken up. Her peach blossom eyes were misty, and her long, reddish-brown curls were a bit unruly, like a small animal in its spring shedding period. “What are you all doing?”

Ye Qingyu looked up at her and, for some reason, couldn’t help but smile, her eyes curving.

Having already become somewhat shameless about slacking off, she answered, “Watching a movie.”

Pei the Red Panda tilted her head, a little unhappy. “You didn’t even call me.”

Bai Shuang was helpless. “I sent the little bee to call you long ago. She came back and said her wings were tired from fanning, and she couldn’t wake you up at all.”

Pei the Red Panda didn’t listen and didn’t admit it. Her gaze swept casually toward the screen in front and saw that Ye Qingyu’s phone interface was currently being projected onto it.

The desktop wallpaper was, in fact, a red panda.

A soft and cute red panda, sketched with gentle, romantic colors and smooth, full curves.

Pei Rong immediately became even more sullen.

Her human is using another red panda as her wallpaper!

Does Ye Qingyu only like her, Pei the Red Panda, or does she like all the red pandas in the world?

Ye Qingyu was completely unaware of this. She lowered her head to end the phone projection and was about to stand up to go back to her desk—

—when she saw her beautiful boss leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, staring straight at her, her peach blossom eyes filled with a fragile, thin mist.

Being looked at like this made Ye Qingyu’s heart panic. The feeling was just like—

—coming home after fooling around at a cat cafe all day, only to open the door and be met with your own cat’s gloomy, scrutinizing gaze.

“…” Ye Qingyu’s throat moved. “What’s wrong, Boss Pei?”

Pei Rong’s thick lashes fluttered. After pondering for a moment, she suddenly took out her own phone from her pocket and poked at it for a long while.

Ye Qingyu felt her phone vibrate.

She opened WeChat and saw a high-definition picture from Boss Pei:

A red panda was covered in fine, white snow, like a delicious pastry dusted with powdered sugar. It was curled into a ball, its head pillowed on its large tail, sleeping soundly in the snow.

Just a fluffy back view, yet its cuteness was already bursting forth.

“Change your desktop wallpaper to the picture I sent you.”

Pei Rong put away her phone, and only then did a little pleasure slowly begin to float in her peach blossom eyes.

“This is your first work assignment.”