All My Colleagues Are Animals 5

Chapter 5

It’s a well-known fact that the workplace is a dangerous place, and one’s superior is often the most dangerous entity within it.

Those who can climb the ladder or become the boss—which one of them isn’t a cunning fox well-versed in the ways of the world? Their words must be carefully dissected, otherwise, the slightest misstep could lead one right into a trap.

After two years in the workforce, Ye Qingyu had always remained vigilant about this.

And yet—

“Peel me some mangosteens.”

The new “dangerous entity” before her had suddenly made this baffling, self-righteous, and rather spoiled demand. Her head was tilted slightly, her beautiful peach blossom eyes sparkling as they stared straight at her.

Ordering someone around so imperiously.

But Ye Qingyu couldn’t detect the slightest hint of danger. Her heart just skipped a beat, her emotions flickering along with the glistening light in the woman’s eyes.

An unfamiliar sense of familiarity tugged at her, smothering her reason until it dissipated.

And in her moment of speechlessness, Boss Pei seemed to have already come to some bizarre conclusion on her own.

The woman’s lashes drooped slightly, her gaze lingering on Ye Qingyu’s hands for a moment before her peach blossom eyes filled with doubt and disbelief.

It was as if a full, joyous expectation had suddenly been shattered by reality, leaving it to teeter precariously.

Ye Qingyu’s fingertips tingled under that gaze.

Just as she was about to speak, she saw Boss Pei, like a small animal that hadn’t been fed by its keeper, dejectedly tell her to leave.

She turned away, leaving only a beautiful, melancholic silhouette.

“…”

What is happening?

Ye Qingyu actually felt a subtle twinge of guilt.

On the first day of raising a human, Pei Rong learned a piece of news that broke her little red panda heart.

—Her human was no good.

A request as simple as peeling mangosteens could throw Ye Qingyu into such a prolonged state of difficulty. She truly had a pair of beautiful, slender hands for nothing.

Didn’t that mean that slicing apples, rubbing bellies, and drying fur and paws were all out of the question too?

As her fantasies crumbled, Pei Rong’s peach blossom eyes grew misty. She bit her lip and typed into the search engine:

【What to do when the human you’re raising is no good?】

It seemed many humans had this problem.

Pei Rong browsed through numerous Q&As, seeing all sorts of strange suggestions.

Some of the advice was esoteric, mentioning things like props and videos that she didn’t quite understand.

But some suggestions were very promising. The gist of it was—nourish the yin and supplement the yang.

It seems there’s hope.

Pei Rong breathed a sigh of relief and took out her brand-new “Human Rearing Plan” notebook.

She poked her jade-white cheek with the tip of the pen. With a click, the ballpoint emerged, and she jotted down a few resolute words:

You are what you eat.

…

Ye Qingyu’s previous job had left her with no leisure time, and thus, no experience in slacking off.

She didn’t know if thinking about her boss counted as a common form of slacking off.

But so far, that was all she had been doing while sitting at her desk.

After a few encounters, Ye Qingyu guessed that Boss Pei must be the kind of young lady who grew up in a wealthy family, doted on and spoiled by everyone around her.

That’s why she could act on a whim, giving her a relaxed, high-paying job just because she liked animals; that’s why she was so naturally spoiled and imperious when ordering people around.

And yet, her tone and expression were always so pure and untamed that it was impossible to dislike her. One might even find oneself unconsciously wanting to satisfy her.

“Sister Luo.”

“Sister Luo!”

Ye Qingyu snapped back to reality.

Amidst her colleagues’ enthusiastic voices, she looked up and saw a woman with light blue hair standing at the entrance to the work area.

It was a beautiful and natural hair color, as if it had been dyed to match a mantis shrimp.

“This is our chef, Luo Bian. She holds a grudge like no other.”

The colleague with white-and-pink hair, Gu Yue, whispered a reminder, “You can offend anyone but her.”

“Last time, I only clamped her a little, I didn’t even swallow her,” Gu Yue tutted. “And she actually fed me nothing but yellow bonefish for a whole week! I hate yellow bonefish the most!”

“…Clamped her?”

Before Ye Qingyu could figure out what Gu Yue meant, she saw Luo Bian flick her long, light-blue hair coolly. She raised a hand and pointed at her.

“Ye Qingyu, Sister Rong wants you to go with me to purchase ingredients.”

Ye Qingyu didn’t know what kind of sacred mission “purchasing ingredients” was, but all her colleagues were looking at her with envy.

Now, standing at the entrance of the building, she watched as Luo Bian drove a luxurious, large tricycle out from the backyard, piloting it toward her with a rather majestic “chug-chug-chug.”

Luo Bian tilted her chin. “Sis’s new ride. Hop on.”

The last time Ye Qingyu had seen a tricycle like this, it had been carrying a fat pig, rattling down a muddy road on its way to the slaughterhouse.

Suppressing the untimely memory, she nimbly climbed onto the tricycle.

“Hold tight.”

Luo Bian drove the tricycle with the swagger of a convertible sports car, twisting the throttle all the way down. They shot through the winding alleys, “chugging” along against the spring breeze.

Her long, still-damp hair flew in the wind, occasionally flinging droplets of water onto the innocent human’s face.

Ye Qingyu shifted to the other side and offered a gentle reminder, “Sister Luo, you’ll catch a cold if you go out without drying your hair.”

Luo Bian snorted, her tone quite proud. “Sis is a cold-blooded animal.”

Ye Qingyu smiled.

That response sounds a little chuunibyou.

The tricycle sped along, going faster and faster. As it rounded a corner ahead, the vehicle executed a sharp drift.

In the driver’s cabin, a black, fluffy paw suddenly pressed down on the back of Luo Bian’s hand.

Luo Bian’s pupils trembled. She instinctively slowed down, driving a little more carefully.

She glanced to the side and whispered, “Sister Rong! Where did you pop out from?”

Pei the Red Panda retracted her paw and lazily sprawled out on the long driver’s seat like a fluffy pancake. With a fresh bamboo leaf dangling from her mouth, she answered evasively:

“You’re driving too fast. There’s no seatbelt in the back. My human will get hurt.”

The internet said humans are fragile. If they get scared or stressed, they’ll become even more… no good.

What if Ye Qingyu really can’t serve me in the future?

How could these empty-headed little animals possibly understand Pei the Red Panda’s deep worries!

At this thought, Pei the Red Panda couldn’t help but feel a little anxious.

She rolled over and got up again, her two paws gripping the back of the driver’s seat. She slowly poked her head up, wanting to see if her precious human had been damaged in the commotion.

Her line of sight moved up, bit by bit…

The red panda’s large, snow-white, furry ears twitched. In her worry, she unconsciously stuck out her little pink tongue and licked her teeth.

She was just about to see Ye Qingyu—

“Beep-beep-beep!” An alarm suddenly blared.

“!”

The naturally timid red panda’s paws went soft. She tumbled backward into a heap, hugging her big tail tightly, still shaken.

“What’s wrong?!” she asked, her voice muffled in her furry tail.

Luo Bian let out a few snickers before explaining in a low voice, “It’s the alarm for the tricycle accidentally crossing the line.”

“…” Pei Rong was now looking at both this tricycle and this mantis shrimp with great displeasure.

She released her tail and, without ceremony, swiped a paw at Luo Bian.

Having known each other for years, Luo Bian got the message. She cleared her throat. “Ye Qingyu?”

It took Ye Qingyu a moment to respond dazedly, “Hm?”

She thought her eyes were playing tricks on her.

Just now, she thought she’d seen a pair of small, white, furry animal ears pop up beside Sister Luo, only to vanish in the next instant.

“Are you okay? I got carried away and drove a bit fast out of habit.”

Luo Bian was forced to say this under the threat of the red panda’s paw.

Ye Qingyu’s heart warmed.

Sister Luo is actually a pretty easygoing colleague.

She ignored what she thought she saw and replied warmly, “I’m fine.”

After about a twenty-minute drive, the tricycle arrived at the largest procurement market in the East District.

Parking in a corner of the market, Luo Bian carefully locked up her precious new ride. Just as she was about to ask the venerable Buddha for instructions, she glanced over and saw that the red panda was no longer on the driver’s seat.

She looked up, and her brow twitched.

The vehicle had stopped one second ago, and Pei the Red Panda had appeared at the fruit stall picking up a box of freshly cut apples the next.

In her human form, she was so beautiful and exquisite she seemed to glow. Every move was graceful and composed, completely erasing the awkward image of the fluffy ball that had just tumbled onto the driver’s seat.

Luo Bian sighed.

She turned back and saw Ye Qingyu leap nimbly down from the back of the tricycle. The young woman had dark brows and bright eyes, her skin as white as jade. She looked gentle and completely non-threatening.

Such a fragile human, to have run into a red panda as difficult as Pei Rong. I really don’t know what will become of her.

Luo Bian tutted softly. Out of sympathy, she became a little more amiable toward the human she usually disliked.

“Come on, Sis will take you to buy some meat.”

She expertly led Ye Qingyu to buy meat, ordering a pile of high-grade raw meat and seafood with a flick of her finger. The quantity and price were staggering.

And as a chef and procurement officer, she clearly had seasoned haggling skills—

The butcher, stone-faced: “Beef is 95 yuan per jin. No bargaining.”

Luo Bian, with a cold glare: “A little cheaper. 2000 yuan for 20 jin.”

The butcher, magnanimously: “Done.”

Ye Qingyu: “?”

Ye Qingyu: “Wait—”

Luo Bian was starting to think that Pei Rong raising a human was a stroke of genius.

After all, before Ye Qingyu’s arrival, her, Luo Bian’s, math skills were unrivaled in the entire studio.

After buying a large amount of meat, Luo Bian also specifically bought a pig’s trotter. She said to Ye Qingyu with deep meaning, “This is what Sister Rong told me to buy for you. Make sure you eat it all.”

“…” Ye Qingyu glanced at the pig’s trotter, then down at her own hands, her expression stiffening.

It… doesn’t mean what I think it means, right?

They had the sellers load the large bags of ingredients onto the tricycle, which gradually piled up into a small mountain. Ye Qingyu noticed a bag of mangosteens on the side that had appeared from nowhere.

She asked casually, “There don’t seem to be many people in our studio. Do we need to buy so many ingredients?”

“Not many people, no,” Luo Bian said with a confident smile. “But we’ll finish all of this.”

After all, there’s only one human in the whole studio. The rest are beasts of prey.

“You watch the vehicle here. I’m going to buy some vegetables.”

“Okay.”

Ye Qingyu stood peacefully by the tricycle, waiting. A moment later, her gaze suddenly sharpened.

A woman’s fiery, cascading, reddish-brown curls blazed in the sunlight, so unique and eye-catching—

Why is Boss Pei here?

As Ye Qingyu focused on her, something suddenly flashed before her eyes.

A young woman was standing in front of her, her cheeks flushed as she said, “Jiejie, you’re so beautiful. Can I get your WeChat?”

Ye Qingyu pulled her gaze back.

She was very practiced at handling this kind of situation. She opened her mouth, about to politely decline, when she felt a hand suddenly rest on her shoulder. The clear, elegant scent of bamboo leaves wafted over.

Pei Rong’s peach blossom eyes stared nonchalantly at the young woman. Her red lips curled slightly, revealing the tips of her sharp canines as she announced, like a creature protecting its food:

“She’s my human. I’m already raising her. I don’t plan on giving her to anyone else.”

The young woman: “…”

Under the young woman’s gaze—which was filled with shock, then pity, and finally acceptance at the thought of “so you’re being kept by a rich woman”—Ye Qingyu’s ears burned red.