Chapter 7
The door to the work area was locked from the inside.
The cozy tranquility of the afternoon, along with the intoxicating scent of flowers carried on the gentle breeze, filled the space.
Pei Rong lightened her steps, approaching the sleeping human alone, her eyelashes fluttering.
Raising a human required patience, a step-by-step process. But that was for when the human was awake.
What was wrong with playing with her a little while she was asleep?
Besides, from now on, Ye Qingyu belonged to her and her alone. She could play with her however she wanted.
In the next second, Pei Rong transformed into Pei the Red Panda. Gripping the edge of the desk with both paws, she used Gu Yue’s chair as a stepping stone and nimbly climbed onto the tabletop.
Then, with a leisurely, wobbly gait, she approached the human’s head, which was resting on the desk.
The human was sleeping soundly, her head buried in her arms. Through the partial curtain of her soft, black hair, the peaceful and lovely contours of her face were visible, like a distant mountain on a spring day.
Warm sunlight flowed over the young woman’s fair skin, illuminating the fine, downy hairs on her cheeks in a transparent, golden light.
Only then did Pei the Red Panda discover that humans were also fluffy.
She observed carefully for a long while, then tilted her head and lifted a furry left paw, patting the top of the human’s head with great care.
The feeling of the soft fur on her paw pad touching the human’s soft hair sparked a wondrous sense of joy and satisfaction in her heart.
Is this how everyone plays with the humans they raise? Pei the Red Panda didn’t know, but at the very least, she was having a blast.
Her paws pressed and patted all over. The soft, black strands of hair got caught on her untrimmed, sharp claws, inadvertently messing them up a bit.
Pei the Red Panda paused, wanting to help the human smooth her hair back down.
Licking it into place was out of the question. It would be more appropriate for Ye Qingyu to lick her, Pei the Red Panda.
But her paws had always been used for grabbing bamboo shoots and holding apples; she had never done such delicate work.
Seeing the human’s hair get messier and messier, Pei the Red Panda grew anxious, gradually standing up on her hind legs. Even her injured right paw joined the effort.
The little red panda, paws flailing wildly on the human’s head, looked remarkably like a busy Tony the stylist in a hair salon.
Five minutes later, Pei the Red Panda gave up and flopped down limply beside the human’s messy hair.
Her large, reddish-brown tail with its beautiful rings swept unconsciously, occasionally brushing against the human’s cheek.
She felt like she hadn’t played enough, so she rolled over and stretched out a paw to gently touch the human’s nice-to-look-at-but-useless hand.
The touch was warm and smooth.
As long as it’s supplemented enough, it should become useful soon.
In her deep, hazy sleep, Ye Qingyu felt something fluffy constantly patting and scratching the top of her head.
A short while later, her cheek was also being swept by a soft touch.
And then, a faint itch started on the back of her right hand, as if fur were brushing against it, now here, now gone.
She tried several times to open her eyes but was dragged back down by a heavy drowsiness. After struggling like this for a while, she still couldn’t wake up.
“Bzzzz—”
The landscaping around the building was excellent, and with the arrival of spring, the mosquitoes had also begun to reawaken.
Master Pei, having been busy all day, now had another worry to deal with: shooing mosquitoes away from the napping human.
Raising a human is so hard.
The red panda sighed.
Her sleepy eyes were half-closed. Whenever a mosquito approached, she would lift a paw and wave it away, driving the annoying thing off.
Her drowsiness grew heavier and heavier.
The red panda’s head nodded, her large, furry ears twitching with each movement, drifting between sleep and wakefulness.
During one moment of clarity, her blurry vision faintly made out a tiger mosquito that had landed on the pale skin of the human’s neck.
A red panda is a beast of prey. In a moment of crisis, it possesses outstanding reflexes.
Though she was still dazed with sleep, her movement was swift and decisive. She slapped a paw down hard on the mosquito.
Splat—
The mosquito was flattened.
The red panda was satisfied.
The human woke up.
The red panda froze.
Ye Qingyu had been in a deep sleep when she was suddenly slapped hard on the side of her neck. She jolted, sitting up in a daze.
Sleeping on her stomach had compressed her nerves, and she had slept for a long time. So now, her hands and feet were numb, her vision was blurry, and she was groggy with sleep… and she could vaguely see a reddish-brown ball of fluff, curled up and nestled beside her arm.
—It looked exactly like her favorite animal, a red panda.
A red panda?!
A Class II nationally protected animal, how could it possibly be in the studio, on her desk…
Wait, no, that’s illegal. It’s a hallucination. I’m in a dream.
Ye Qingyu slowly relaxed.
She let out a soft yawn and moved her neck, which was a little sore from the lack of a pillow.
Sleepiness washed over her again. She casually moved the fluffy ball to where she had been resting her head, then laid her head down on it.
A comfortable sigh escaped her throat unconsciously.
A soft, fluffy, and warm little pillow for a midday nap…
…
It took Pei the Red Panda a long moment to realize what had happened.
She opened her mouth in disbelief, the sharp canines of a predator half-exposed, her little pink tongue also sticking out, unsure of what to do.
Her large tail flicked up and down. She looked down and saw the human’s cheek buried in her soft belly. Her lovely features were relaxed in sleep, and she would occasionally move her head, nuzzling the fur on her stomach.
Although the human she was raising looked very cute while sleeping, and her cheek nuzzling her belly felt very comfortable…
But!
The belly is a red panda’s most vulnerable and sensitive spot! How could she let a human use it as a pillow?
And besides, she, Pei the Red Panda, was the one raising the human! She should be the one hanging on the human, using the human as a tree to sleep on!
The more Pei the Red Panda thought about it, lying there motionless, the angrier she became.
…
When Ye Qingyu woke up, she felt as if she had been in another world.
Her breath was warm, her bones ached, and her memory was a fog.
It felt like a lot had happened, but the dream had left not a single trace.
It was probably because she was used to only taking a twenty-minute nap, but today she had slept for over an hour.
The entire work area was silent, as empty and peaceful as it had been before the lunch break.
Ye Qingyu stretched to wake up her body, then stood up from her seat, planning to go wash her face to clear her head.
She went to the bathroom, and without thinking, looked up at her reflection in the mirror, then froze.
Her usually smooth, long hair was now as messy as a chicken’s nest.
On the side of her neck was a mark that looked like a scratch from a small animal’s paw, and in the middle of it was a raised mosquito bite.
On the shell of her right ear was a bite mark, two small indentations that looked like they were made by the sharp canines of a small animal, and it must have been bitten not long ago.
She hadn’t felt a thing when she couldn’t see it, but now, standing in front of the mirror, her body began to register the corresponding itch and pain.
Ye Qingyu’s pupils trembled slightly.
…Was it Boss Pei’s calico cat?
That clever and cute cat is actually a little troublemaker?
On her first day of work at this divine studio, Ye Qingyu was experiencing the price of “relaxed and high-paying.”
She continued to inspect herself but found no other marks for the time being. The marks on her skin weren’t broken, so she probably didn’t need a rabies shot.
After finishing her inspection, she looked up and inadvertently met her own reflection in the mirror again, covered in the marks of a small animal. Ye Qingyu’s heart skipped a beat, as if struck by a distant memory—
The scene before her triggered a strong sense of déjà vu.
Dazed for a few seconds, she shook her head. She had clearly never owned a pet, and had rarely been around small animals.
After tidying herself up, Ye Qingyu walked back to her desk along the corridor. As she passed Boss Pei’s office, the door clicked open from the inside.
Her new boss had clearly just woken up. Her peach blossom eyes were misty with sleepiness. She tilted her head, her voice soft in the afternoon light.
“Ye Qingyu, did you have a good lunch break?”
“It was fine.”
Ye Qingyu had never been one to hold grudges, and she certainly wouldn’t mind the playful mischief of a small animal, but she still felt it was necessary to mention it.
So she said, as if making small talk, “It’s just that I woke up with a lot of little animal marks on me.”
“…Hm?”
Pei Rong’s gaze swept leisurely over the marks on the human’s skin that she had personally scratched with her own claws and bitten with her own mouth. Her peach blossom eyes blinked once, and she tilted her head slightly.
“How did that happen?”
