Why bother with dating when you already have a cat?

What an evil mana replenishment ritual!

After tasting the little fish's lips, Ai Qing licked her own lips, feeling her perfect physical condition, and mentally complained to herself.

After they finished being affectionate, the two came out of the corridor and walked back towards the entrance of the cat cafe.

This shop is called Peggy's Cat Cafe, and it's a small shop on the street.

But once you enter from the first-floor shop, it's actually just a very ordinary milk tea and coffee shop.

Guests can order drinks here, or simply come for milk tea.

If you want to pet the cats, you can go up to the second floor via the stairs. After paying the entrance fee and being disinfected, you can bring your drinks and go up to pet the cats.

However, before entering the first floor, Ai Qing had already turned on her phone camera and started recording.

Xiaoyu bought a drink for both of them and then leaned over the counter to chat with the young lady working inside.

A girl as cute as Xiaoyu is unlikely to be viewed with suspicion by most people.

Moreover, they are all working-class people and don't have much awareness of self-protection.

Listening to Xiaoyu's questions, I quickly learned about the store's business situation.

It seems that the business is doing quite well, perhaps because the shop itself sells milk tea downstairs.

At least after covering all costs, the boss can still make a profit.

During the peak summer season, I could earn tens of thousands a month.

Even in the off-season, the net profit can still be around ten to twenty thousand.

However, not all cat cafes are this profitable.

Of the several stores Ai Qing and Xiao Yu visited before, more than half were only breaking even, and only one was profitable.

The rest are all operating at a loss.

The profitable one has something in common with this store: it doesn't rely solely on cat cafe ticket sales for profit.

You can't make too much money from this kind of headcount; you have to think of other ways.

This shop came up with the idea of ​​combining a milk tea shop and a cat cafe, placing the milk tea shop on the first floor and separating it as a semi-independent small shop.

Instead of placing the beverage bar inside the store like other cat cafes.

Once inside the store and seeing the cats, most cat lovers wouldn't be in the mood to buy drinks or anything else; they'd just rush to pet the cats.

The other cat cafe was not primarily a cat cafe, but a cattery that bred kittens; the cat cafe was a side business.

The owner of that shop specializes in breeding cats and then selling the kittens that are born.

Cats that cannot be sold temporarily will stay in the store and be kept in the public cat-petting area for customers to pet.

While guests are petting the cats, they can also visit the kittens that are not currently open to guests, and if they like one, they can buy it and take it home.

Because that shop breeds kittens very well, most of them are well-behaved and not prone to illness, and their after-sales service is also very good, they have built up a good reputation and earn much more than other shops.

It seems that cat cafes themselves don't make much money in the current market.

Small cities have cheaper rents, but there aren't as many young people willing to spend money there.

In big cities, there are many customers who want to pet cats, but rent and labor costs are very high, making it difficult to cover costs with revenue, let alone make a profit.

After reviewing the seven stores so far, none of them can make money solely from cat cafes.

The "cat café" has become a way to attract customers, while the real high-profit items are selling cats and drinks.

"The kittens here are so cute." Xiaoyu walked ahead and went up to the second floor, squatted down and petted the kittens that were greeting customers at the entrance. "Every time I see them, I feel like Chief Sheriff and his gang don't seem to have any competitiveness anymore."

"You can't say that," Ai Qing said encouragingly. "Sometimes, when everyone has the same cute cats, it can be an advantage if a family suddenly comes out with something more unusual."

Ai Qing wasn't just making things up; after all, appreciating ugliness is a popular trend online...

Even if a pretty girl posts a photo, some people might still nitpick, saying that her eyes aren't pretty enough, her mouth and nose don't match, whether she's had breast implants, or whether she's had plastic surgery.

However, if a chubby girl posts a selfie, she gets a lot of comments saying, "You look so beautiful, so confident, so gorgeous!"

Well... it's a little strange.

“Brother, I think this store is pretty good too.” Xiaoyu said while making notes on her phone, “Putting the beverage area outside the entrance can guide customers to buy drinks.”

"I just thought about it. When I came in, I saw that all the customers in front of me had bought a cup."

"Although it's not theoretically necessary to buy it, I still queued up and bought a drink before I felt comfortable coming upstairs."

"Could this be considered a form of psychologically induced consumption?"

"You're pretty smart." Ai Qing patted her head and faithfully recorded everything on her phone. "That's how making money is. Just like when I write novels, I try my best to find ways to entice people."

Unlike small fish.

Although Ai Qing accompanied her to promote the cat café, she was also gathering material.

When he learned that Xiaoyu possessed a warm current, he had an idea for a new book: after the spiritual energy revival, he would rely on his cat, who could sense spiritual energy, to cultivate.

However, it was still very imperfect at that time, and the spiritual energy revival school of thought had actually been around for several years, and basically everything that could be written about had already been written about.

He, who had never touched an upgrade novel before, was somewhat worried when he suddenly entered this field.

After all, if the previous book was a masterpiece, no one would want their new book to perform worse than the previous one.

Little do people know how many big names have hastily abandoned their new books after they failed to meet expectations.

It's not that this book doesn't make money, it's just that it doesn't make as much money as before, and many people can't accept this difference.

Ai Qing had already started to develop her ideas along this line of thought.

But these past few days, after accompanying Xiaoyu to the cat cafe, Aiqing suddenly had another idea.

What if, in a setting where spiritual energy is reviving, the protagonist were someone who ran a cat cafe?

Each cat in the cat café has its own unique characteristics, and they are gradually gaining various strange abilities as the spiritual energy revives.

Even so, because the protagonist has always taken very good care of these cats, they still obey him even with his special abilities.

The protagonist also enjoyed the benefits of the spiritual energy revival during this process.

However, Ai Qing didn't want to write the traditional leveling-up and monster-fighting trope; she wanted to try a more slice-of-life style.

Therefore, he did not portray the spiritual energy revival as too severe; it only had a superficial impact on society, resulting in various supernatural and magical phenomena.

However, these capabilities are still no greater than the armed forces of the entire society, nor do they have the kind of world-destroying power; they are all relatively minor capabilities.

Ai Qing found it quite interesting to write about daily life while keeping the intensity of this ability within a relatively small range.

Especially the female lead...

Ai Qing completely immersed herself in the story of Xiao Yu, who was a stray cat mother that Ai Qing had taken in. Xiao Yu died in childbirth after giving birth to the female protagonist's kitten.

So the protagonist rescued the kitten and raised her slowly. As a result, the kitten gained the ability to become human due to the influence of the spiritual revival.

It can even replenish the protagonist's spiritual energy, and even go further, directly merging into the protagonist's body when necessary, giving him a brief period of extremely powerful abilities.

After the allotted time is up, they will separate again.

Hmm... it's a classic countdown technique.

Characters like Ultraman really like to use this kind of setting.

However, since I'm planning to write about cat cafes, I might as well come along with Xiaoyu to gather some material.

After conducting on-site investigations, Ai Qing's previously vague ideas began to become clearer, and she felt an urge to write.

"Brother, I think I have an idea," Xiaoyu said, holding up a finger. "Shall we go look at shop locations tomorrow?"

"Sure." Ai Qing snapped out of her reverie and looked at Xiao Yu. "Do you have any good ideas?"

"Yes, yes, it's about combining the advantages of several stores," Xiaoyu said earnestly. "I also want to put a window for selling milk tea at the entrance, and then there's a disinfection area right inside the store where you can order milk tea or something."

"We've built two super-large cat villas on either side of the wall inside the shop, where the cats can stay at night."

"In the middle is the cat cafe's cat-petting space. The designs of the several stores I've seen before are actually quite good, but there are still some areas that aren't quite right."

"Especially cat trees and the like, I think I can go to the neighborhood and ask the stray cats what kind they like."

Ai Qing: "..."

Wow, you can do that?

Just ask your cat what kind of cat tree it likes, right?

OK OK.

Only a little fish could have this kind of thought process; even if others wanted to ask, they wouldn't be able to.

"In addition, we can set up a separate kitten showroom at the back of the store to house kittens that are suitable for adoption."

"If any guests are interested, they can come inside and take a look, and then they can choose to adopt a pet."

"Of course, the best-case scenario would be to adopt all the big cats outside."

"If everyone can find a good home to adopt them, then I will have achieved my original goal of opening this cat cafe!"

"Okay, we'll do it your way." Ai Qing affectionately patted her head, turned off the phone's recording function, and saved the video.

This video isn't meant to be anything special; it's just intended to promote the cat cafe.

We've already recorded quite a few videos of several cat cafes, and we plan to make them into a series of cat cafe reviews.

After all, these days, cat cafes can only rely on the aforementioned tricks to increase the average order value or go online.

I didn't plan to post the video on Xiaoyu's account.

After all, the main focus there is game streaming, so let's not use other types of videos to lower the purity of the video content.

Ai Qing plans to open a new account, which will be used specifically for managing the cat cafe.

The process of preparing and decorating the cat café, opening, and operating it is shown step by step.

If Xiaoyu were around, she could have a good talk with those stray cats and maybe even make some funny videos.

“If you’ve looked around enough, let’s go home,” Ai Qing said. “I’ll talk to the agent tonight and ask her to take us to see the shops tomorrow.”

"Mmm." Little Fish nodded vigorously, her heart full of anticipation, still looking energetic.

Chapter 187 The Truth Revealed