All My Colleagues Are Animals 88p2

Chapter 88 p2

Ye Qingyu was looking at her phone when footsteps suddenly came from the side.

Pei the Little Able Cat, who had just brushed her teeth, was also looking down at her phone and came to sit on the sofa.

Her gaze did not even move from the screen, and her reddish-brown, fluffy head presumptuously slipped into the human’s arm, and her whole lazy body lay in the human’s arms, contentedly nuzzling the human’s neck.

Her series of actions was as smooth as flowing water.

Ye Qingyu looked down at the beautiful childhood sweetheart nestled against her and, remembering some of the things she had said last night, her gaze gradually became obscure.

And the little red panda, for the time being, was completely unaware of the surging thoughts in the human’s heart.

As she looked at the studio’s WeChat group, she said to Ye Qingyu:

“Our little cat has a situation.”

She said with an air of composure, “I saw it long ago. That day, at the panther’s engagement banquet, A-Shuang and the special guest emcee on the stage, Miss Chu, looked at each other many times.”

“So—the fallen little cat is sulking, and Miss Chu is in a ‘she flees, she chases’ situation.”

This little red panda had clearly not even figured out her own feelings yet, but when she was acting as a strategist, she was analyzing things so logically.

Ye Qingyu stared at her beautiful childhood sweetheart’s stunning profile without a moment’s pause.

After a moment of silence, her voice was clear and deep, and she said with a half-smile:

“You know so much, Jiejie.”

Pei the Little Able Cat’s ears twitched slightly.

Did Yu Bao finally call her Jiejie?

She looked up in surprise, but was caught off guard by the young woman’s deep and obscure, sea-like eyes.

“…”

Her peach blossom eyes fluttered innocently, and for a moment, she was at a loss for words.

Ye Qingyu held the woman a little tighter and, lowering her head, lightly pressed against the corner of her lips.

She could feel her beautiful childhood sweetheart’s lashes tremble slightly, and they tickled her heart like fluff, making her itchy.

“Last night, you said—”

“The first time I saw you, you wanted me to be yours.”

“You also said that raising a human is an expression of love, and also a natural way of possessing the other person. So you decided to raise me.”

“Excuse me, Boss Pei, what does this mean?”

Ye Qingyu said, word by word.

Her face was calm and composed, but in reality, her heart was pounding like thunder, and she was so nervous that even her fingertips were numb and pale.

But she saw Pei the Little Able Cat blink her peach blossom eyes and answer as if it were a matter of course:

“I fell in love with you at first sight.”

“…”

To have so easily gotten an answer that she had thought was a luxury, Ye Qingyu’s breath hitched, and for a moment, a scalding heat spread from her cheeks to her neck.

Seeing the young woman in a daze, Pei the Little Able Cat tilted her head slightly.

“Ye Qingyu, you didn’t know all along?”

Back then, the little red panda had taken a liking to the human and had immediately wanted to take her home.

But to take the human’s feelings into consideration, she had used the method of hiring to raise the human.

“On the first day of the interview, you said ‘I love red pandas the most’ to confess to me, and I hired you. So we are in love with each other, and we are together.”

Pei the Little Able Cat recalled with pleasure.

“…We’re together?”

Ye Qingyu’s heart trembled violently, and she felt an unspeakable shock.

She was stunned for a moment. “But at that time, I didn’t know you were a red panda, and I wasn’t confessing.”

“…”

Pei the Little Able Cat blinked her peach blossom eyes and, belatedly, had a realization.

Indeed, at the beginning, Ye Qingyu had thought she was also a human.

It was she, as a red panda, who had naturally substituted herself.

Her pupils trembled, and she innocently licked the tip of her teeth.

After a moment’s thought, she said again, “But later, you knew I was a red panda. I asked you countless times if you loved red pandas the most, and you always said—yes, you love Pei the Red Panda the most, and you love me the most.”

Ye Qingyu: “I thought I was in a one-sided love.”

Pei the Little Able Cat’s peach blossom eyes widened. “But, I was raising you from the beginning.”

Isn’t raising a human an expression of love?

Ye Qingyu: “I thought I was just working for money.”

Pei the Little Able Cat: “…”

It seems that was indeed the case.

She had been so focused on taking care of the human’s feelings that she had forgotten that the employment relationship was too proper, and thus had lost a certain meaning.

Ye Qingyu said reasonably, “And, you never said that you liked me, let alone that you wanted to be in a relationship.”

Pei the Little Able Cat’s lips moved.

But in the world of beasts, being together is often not expressed through words.

Like accepting a courtship feather, or biting each other’s tail tips, or nuzzling necks… there are so many ways. She did not know that humans had to say it directly.

And her affection was hidden in every presumptuous squeeze into the human’s palm, in all the unguarded intimacy, in the anticipation of meeting in the morning and the reluctance to part after work…

The little red panda was speechless for a moment, and with a trembling voice, she presented her final piece of ironclad evidence. “But, we’ve already had countless fireworks shows and have mated.”

“I even said that I hoped that next spring, you would only mate with me.”

“For a small animal, this means wanting to be together for a long time.”

In the world of beasts, many species do not mate for life. Even if they do, it is often limited to one mating cycle. Species that mate for life are very few.

So that day, Pei the Little Able Cat had thought she had said something very impressive.

And Ye Qingyu’s answer, that she wanted to mate in every spring, summer, autumn, and winter, was a fervent response to her love confession.

Ye Qingyu’s throat felt tight at the words. “…”

How to tell the innocent and pure little red panda that she had mistaken it for a no-strings-attached, sex-before-love relationship?

Actually, as a human with romantic fantasies about love, Ye Qingyu had never thought that she would let herself be in a “sex before love” relationship.

But once you fall in love passionately, you will really be in all sorts of contradictions, and you can’t help yourself—

She felt that the red panda could not truly distinguish between love and lust, and so she was unwilling to rush into a relationship.

But because if she did not satisfy the red panda, the red panda would be sad and disappointed. So she gave her whatever she wanted, and gave her all the feelings she craved.

She thought she was sacrificing her original persistence in love and having sex before love with the red panda.

But she did not know that this was actually a truly pure-love red panda—

Under a muddled and mistaken misunderstanding, in the collision of a huge difference in human and beast thinking and cognition, the red panda had actually thought that they had been dating all along.

So that was why she was so spoiled with her on a daily basis; that was why she had let her set herself as her phone wallpaper; that was why she had held her shoulder in front of a strange woman and had possessively declared “I’m already raising her”; that was why she had kissed and cuddled her; that was why she had easily accepted having fireworks with her; that was why she had been so wronged and had curled into a fluffy ball and cried and complained that she did not like her when she did not take the initiative to be intimate.

All the past events, so it turned out that there had been a trace to follow all along.

Ye Qingyu was as if struck by lightning and stood there, stunned.

Spring had passed, and early summer had arrived.

How much joy had she missed?!

“…”

Pei the Little Able Cat looked at the young woman’s astonished expression and bit her lip, and her peach blossom eyes gradually filled with a pitiful, swaying mist of tears.

She pulled away from Ye Qingyu’s arms and, puffed up with anger and in disbelief, said:

“So, it was all a misunderstanding… you never wanted to be in a relationship with me, Pei the Red Panda?”

Ye Qingyu suddenly came back to her senses.

“I do!”

Meeting that pair of wronged and disappointed, misty, teary eyes, her heart ached.

Her breathing was rapid, and she reached out to hold her beautiful childhood sweetheart tightly in her arms again.

She gently petted her long, reddish-brown curls and, turning her head, carefully kissed her fair and rounded ear.

“I like you, I like you very, very much… I’ve always wanted to be in a relationship with you.”

The young woman’s clear and gentle voice fell on her ear, and her explanation was anxious, but it carried a sincere and certain love.

Pei the Little Able Cat blinked her misty peach blossom eyes, and a clear sweetness poured into her sour heart.

Ye Qingyu held Pei Rong and, soothingly, patted the woman’s back and coaxed her in a soft, quiet voice for a moment.

She closed her eyes and pondered for a moment. Then she spoke seriously:

“When I was little, I always hoped that you would always be clinging to me. Mom said that red pandas are naturally fond of trees, so I worked hard to grow up, wanting to become a tree.”

“For this, I grew from a Ye the Little Sprout to a Ye the Little Seedling, and then finally became a Ye the Little Tree.”

“I was full of joy, hoping that I would be your favorite tree, a tree that you could wantonly climb and roll on.”

“But it was just at that time that you suddenly left.”

“…Looking back on the past ten years, I have also waited and become a tree.”

Losing the reddish-brown little red panda, the world had faded to black and white overnight.

Ye the Little Tree was deeply rooted in the day the red panda had left and had stood there for eternity.

For ten years, she had not been able to find a single trace of sorrow or joy.

“Until that day, you suddenly appeared.”

The world was instantly dyed with brilliant colors.

Ye Qingyu was like a tree that had finally seen the light of day and could once again absorb oxygen, and her withered and wilted branches and leaves were revitalized in the sunlight.

She no longer resisted social interaction and could get along with the little beasts like a good friend.

And she no longer needed to numb herself with frantic busyness and could calmly give herself the freedom to be idle.

The most important thing was—she had finally, in the posture of a mature tree, stood tall and straight in the world of a red panda.

The childish words of a three-year-old, after years of grinding and tempering by an unpredictable world, had at last taken root firmly.

The corners of Ye Qingyu’s eyes were wet with tears, but the corners of her lips were slightly curved up.

She tilted her head slightly, and her cheek intimately pressed against the woman’s wet face, and she asked in a low and devout voice:

“So… Pei Rong, can you be my red panda? I will always be your tree.”