I wasn't just an intern anymore.
I had a desk. A name tag. A badge that didn't say "Temporary Access." That's right, baby—Tang Jiaxin, bunny-turned-girl-turned-intern, was now a full-time employee at YSHT.✨
You'd think that would make me more professional. Smarter. Less prone to blurting out chaos or tripping over decorative ferns.
You'd be wrong.
Take, for example, what happened at the coffee cart right after our Monday morning meeting.
Everyone shuffled out like caffeine-deprived zombies. I'd officially survived one entire month of adulting without combusting. Honestly, someone should've given me a sticker. Or a nap.
Naturally, the herd migrated downstairs. I trailed behind, clutching my phone and pretending not to eavesdrop.
"Yeah, my side gig ends at ten most nights," one older employee muttered. He looked like he hadn't slept since the Ming dynasty. "But my daughter's tuition just went up again. Can't drop it yet."
Side gig? As in… extra work after full-time work?
But weren't YSHT and Xuhuang, like, rolling in money?
Without thinking, I blurted, "Huh? But don't Xuhuang and YSHT pay well already? I thought you guys were, like… set?"
Silence.
Like the kind that feels like your soul is echoing in a void.
One woman coughed into her latte. Another guy stared at the floor like I'd just confessed I was corporate espionage in heels. The man I'd questioned gave me a tight-lipped smile. "It pays fine. But we've got families. Parents. Kids. Life doesn't stop being expensive just because you have a salary."
My stomach dropped.
Oh.
Oh.
I'd said it like someone who'd never paid a bill in her life.
Because I hadn't. Jinyu bought everything—food, clothes, skincare, emotional damage repair kits. I used to be a bunny, for carrot's sake. What did I know about tuition or rent or the price of raising three kids?
I laughed, weak. "Right. Of course. I just—uh—never thought about it that way. Sorry."
The conversation moved on, but the vibe?
Dead.
Even Feifan didn't tease me like usual. I stayed quiet throughout lunch. Not even his "Do you think HR would kill me if I wore heels to work?" joke could snap me out of it.
Linyue gently asked if I'd double-checked the meeting agenda. She said it with her usual clipboard-in-hand energy, but I could tell she was giving me a subtle reset button.
Jingqi glanced at me, expression unreadable. I swear she saw everything, like she was filing my entire vibe into her mental poetry folder.
Back at my desk, I just sat there.
Replaying the moment. My words. Their faces.
How out-of-touch I must've sounded.
I wanted to fix it.
So I started listening. Really listening. Not just to gossip (although yes, I now know who's secretly dating in finance), but to the quiet frustrations buried between sips of coffee or sarcastic lunch comments.
One designer joked, "It's not like we're asking for yachts. Just rent and bubble tea without tears."
It was funny.
But it stuck.
How could a company as luxe as YSHT—one that bottled Tang dynasty elegance and sold it for thousands—have employees rationing bananas?
So, I started taking notes. In my phone. My notebook. Napkins. Literal voice memos whispered in stairwells.
It became a folder titled:
Operation: Saving My Fellow Employees🫡💸
I didn't know what I was doing. I was still technically a glorified post-it note fetcher. But writing it all down made me feel less clueless. Less useless.
Like I gave a damn.
Then one day, someone casually mentioned cutting fruit costs again. Fruit. As if tangerines were the reason morale was six feet under.
I snapped.
"Why are we pretending everything's fine when people are literally rationing bananas?" I blurted—in Jinyu's office.
He blinked. Slowly. Like his brain had to buffer.
"…Pardon?"
The bunny. Had broken loose.
"Okay, maybe I've been keeping an unofficial log of employee complaints, and yes, I know I'm supposed to be scheduling and fetching toner, but I also have a conscience."
Still silence. Neutral face. Zero reactions.
I panicked.
"I'm not staging a coup! I SWEAR!"
Another blink.
"I know I'm technically just your assistant-slash-ex-bunny, but I'm trying, okay?! Look, I wrote it all down—"
"You wrote it down?"
I shoved my phone at him like it was Exhibit A in a bunny-led revolution.
"Ta-da. Operation: Saving My Fellow Employees."
He scrolled.
Payroll is under-funded. Why??
People are bringing instant noodles to work. Red flag???
Lunch lady budget cut. Still money for gold foil face masks??
Give HR a bonus before she combusts.
Find a way to fix this without getting fired.
He looked up. "You compiled your coworkers' concerns into a… list?"
"Yup. It's organized chaos. But it's mine."
He tilted his head. "What was your intention?"
"Because I don't want people to suffer while I sit here being a decorative paperweight with brilliant hair!"
That got a reaction. His lips twitched.
"You really don't know how to stay in your lane, do you?"
"Never learned how. Blame the bunny snacks. They gave me delusions of grandeur."
He leaned back. Amused. "So. What do you want to do about this?"
"…Wait. You're not mad?"
"I'm… confused," he admitted. "But not mad."
Pause.
"Maybe even… proud?"
"Don't say that. I'll cry."
He laughed—quiet, fond—and handed me back my phone. "Just be careful. Don't stir up too much trouble."
Too late.
The next morning, I came in early.
Not to climb the corporate ladder. Ew. That sounded exhausting.
But to start something.
I opened a new doc:
Suggestions to Improve Internal Wellbeing at Xuhuang.
I categorized everything:
Salary gaps.
Workload imbalance.
Budget red flags.
Employee recognition.
(Yes, there were carrot emojis. Professionalism with ✨personality✨.)
I even asked for help—Linyue explained budget breakdowns like she was tutoring a very dumb puppy. Feifan cross-checked formatting. Jingqi quietly slid me a sticky note that said, "Don't email it yet. Proofread twice."
Then I emailed the draft—to myself.
Subject line:
Bravery?
I didn't know if it was courage or just unhinged optimism. Probably both.
But as I sat there, sipping oat milk latte and watching the office lights flicker on, I realized something:
I wasn't just the assistant anymore.
I had a mission.
A chaotic, sparkly, bunny-powered mission.
And I wasn't done yet.