Why bother with dating when you already have a cat?

I wonder if Ai Qing's cousin would be willing to work for a salary of 5,000 yuan a month.

But Li Qiqi, who was standing next to her, immediately asked with concern, "Besides me, how much does our store cost per month?"

"The total cost of labor and shop rent is ten thousand," Xiaoyu said, "but that doesn't include your salary."

"What kind of salary is this?" Li Qiqi shook her head repeatedly.

She is aware of the current state of the cat café market. After all, she is a cat lover and has visited cat cafés with her friends quite often, so she has some understanding of the situation.

Many cat cafes that I visited once had already closed down when I went back a few months later.

Therefore, Li Qiqi is well aware of the difficulties faced by cat cafes nowadays, not to mention that this particular cafe only has stray cats, which means it doesn't have much appeal.

Aside from the fact that the store is located on the roadside, which gives it a certain amount of exposure, it doesn't seem to have any other advantages.

Thinking of this, Li Qiqi immediately waved her hand and added, "I don't need the salary. I'll come to the store to help you for free. As long as you're willing to adopt stray cats, I won't ask for money."

To be honest, only someone from Li Qiqi's family background could have the confidence to say such a thing.

However, Xiaoyu was also a little surprised when she heard this, and then quickly shook her head and said, "How can that be? You come here to help, so you definitely have to be paid."

"Oh dear, why are you saying so much, sister-in-law? We're all family." Li Qiqi found Xiaoyu's flustered state rather adorable and couldn't help but put her arm around her shoulder, saying in a very familiar tone, "Do you have anything else to do here? If not, how about we go sit with my brother for a while?"

"Um... there's nothing else for now..." Xiaoyu glanced at the stray cats in the house, thinking that today's employee training was pretty good, so she said, "Then I'll take you home to meet your brother."

"Brother?" Li Qiqi was taken aback.

“Yes, that’s what I usually call him,” Xiaoyu said without any attempt to hide it.

"Eek~" Li Qiqi touched the goosebumps on her arm, clicked her tongue twice, and followed Xiaoyu out of the store.

No wonder he seemed uninterested when I introduced him to my best friend.

So you like this style!

Honestly, he likes it when young girls call him "brother," why didn't he say so earlier!

It's not like she doesn't know some female classmates.

However, after talking with Xiaoyu for a while, Li Qiqi found that Xiaoyu was a very friendly girl with a good personality.

She looks several years younger than me, so calling her "sister-in-law" feels a bit strange.

All the way, Li Qiqi chattered away, curiously asking about all sorts of experiences the two had, enjoying the dog food they were eating.

After all, besides petting cats, Li Qiqi's favorite thing to do on a daily basis is to read all kinds of romance novels for female readers.

Although Ai Qing's books don't follow the typical romance genre for female readers, they are still full of sweet moments and not too angsty. They're quite refreshing and easy to read, and you don't have to worry about the female lead getting into misunderstandings, car accidents, or losing her memory all the time.

Listening to Xiaoyu recount their love story now is like being fed dog food on the spot.

However, there were many things that Xiaoyu couldn't say. She could only tell some of the stories she and Ai Qing had agreed on, transforming their bizarre story into something relatively normal.

At the very least, the idea of ​​a cat turning into a human is something that can never be told to anyone.

The two walked and talked, and soon arrived at their doorstep.

After Xiaoyu swiped her fingerprint to open the door, Li Qiqi immediately clicked her tongue twice.

She already knew from their conversation that Xiaoyu and Aiqing had been living together recently.

However, seeing Xiaoyu personally confirm this by unlocking the door with her fingerprint still made Li Qiqi somewhat sigh.

"Change into these slippers." Xiaoyu took out the slippers she specially used for entertaining guests, squatted down, and personally placed them in front of Li Qiqi.

She then changed into slippers and walked towards the bedroom where they worked.

At this moment, Ai Qing was taking a break, and the warm current that Xiao Yu had given her when she left in the morning had already been used up.

Hearing footsteps at the door, Ai Qing looked towards the door of the second bedroom. She saw Xiao Yu open the door and come in. She only heard Xiao Yu call out "Brother" before Ai Qing hugged her tightly and kissed her lips.

At this moment, Li Qiqi also changed into slippers and walked into the house. Seeing that no one was in the living room, she walked in the direction that Xiaoyu had just gone.

Good heavens, she suddenly saw two people hugging and kissing, which made Li Qiqi back away repeatedly.

"Um... Brother... wait... wait a minute." Little Fish was so soft from his kisses that she finally managed to say, "There are... guests at home."

"Huh?" Ai Qing was taken aback for a moment, then released Xiao Yu and asked in confusion, "Where did this guest come from? Sister Qian?"

"It's not Sister Youqian, it's your cousin, her name is Li Qiqi," Xiaoyu said carefully.

"Huh?" Ai Qing raised an eyebrow, released Xiao Yu, stood up from the chair, and walked towards the living room. Sure enough, she saw Xiao Yu sitting obediently on the sofa, as if she hadn't seen anything at all.

"Cousin." Li Qiqi chuckled twice when she saw Ai Qing come out. "Long time no see."

“It has been a long time, we only met once during the Chinese New Year.” Ai Qing nodded, then looked her up and down, asking with a suspicious expression, “So what are you doing here? Did your mother kick you out of the house?”

"It's not that exaggerated." Li Qiqi rolled her eyes at him, then said, "I heard you're planning to open a cat cafe that takes in stray cats, so I came to help you out."

"Aren't you a volunteer at the adoption center?"

"What can I do if it goes bankrupt?" Li Qiqi sighed as she spoke, then, not wanting to discuss the topic further, she glossed over it and said, "So give me a straight answer, your girlfriend has already agreed, you know."

Ai Qing looked at the little fish beside her with a puzzled expression.

Then Xiaoyu went up to Ai Qing and whispered a few words to him.

Ai Qing then nodded in realization, looked at Li Qiqi with a smile, and her face immediately became warm. She sat down on the sofa and asked, "So you really want to come?"

“Of course I really want to come.” Li Qiqi nodded vigorously. “As soon as I heard about this, I rushed over to find you.”

"So it's true that you're willing to help for free?"

"Really?" Li Qiqi nodded. Anyway, she had been a volunteer before, so there was no harm in doing it again here.

"Great!" Ai Qing slapped her thigh, quickly tapped the board, and said to Li Qiqi, "Congratulations, I hereby announce that you have been hired. Just remember to report to the cat cafe at the end of the month."

We won't sign any contracts or anything like that.

After all, a contract with zero salary is probably not very effective.

With such a free laborer available, Ai Qing would definitely accept any offer.

Moreover, Ai Qing was well aware of Li Qiqi's family's financial situation and didn't need the meager salary she received.

Li Qiqi's aunts and uncles let her do whatever she wanted, as long as she liked it and it didn't violate the law or morals.

For a hobby like liking cats, that's already considered a very economical thing.

Especially since Li Qiqi doesn't pursue expensive purebred cats, and simply wants to do volunteer work and protect stray cats, then there's even less to worry about.

"Okay, it's settled then." Li Qiqi chuckled twice, stood up and said, "I'll be going now, so as not to disturb your time together."

"Hey, wait a minute." Ai Qing looked at Li Qiqi, chuckled coldly, and took out her phone from her pocket. "The cat cafe matter is over."

"Now explain to me, was that screenshot of my mom's WeChat Moments in the comments section of my new book posted by you?"

hiss……

Li Qiqi gasped, then ran towards the door without looking back: "I suddenly remembered I have something to do! I'll be going now! See you next time, cousin!"

"Li—Qi—Qi!"

"Stop right there!"

Chapter 193 Countdown to Opening

On the last day of October, there was only one day left until the opening of the Stray Cat Cafe.

The opening of a store always requires some publicity and celebration.

However, to prevent the cats in the cat cafe from being frightened, Ai Qing refused her father's suggestion to set off firecrackers.

However, my mother specially sent over those huge flower baskets used for openings, a total of six, three on each side of the door, which looked quite festive.

It's said to be a florist they contacted when their company's stores opened, and it's a token of my mother's affection.

Although cat cafes don't seem very reliable, they're still a bit safer than writing and listening to novels online.

Yao Qiang and Ai Zhongguo didn't know much about the cat café market; they simply felt that compared to something as superficial as online novels, a physical business would definitely provide more security.

Therefore, they were relatively supportive of Ai Qing's attempt.

However, if Ai Qing were willing to open another shop, they would probably feel more at ease.

As for cat cafes...

They really don't understand at all.

It can only be said that today's young people are indeed quite different from those of the past in terms of their views and ideas.

Anyway, for older people, having to spend money to pet a cat is a bit outrageous.

Besides the flower baskets for the opening, the cat cafe's promotional work also took place.

Compared to offline promotion, Ai Qing and Xiao Yu's online promotion has been surprisingly effective.

This time, in particular, Ai Qing did not limit herself to Bilibili alone, but also tried to publish videos on other popular platforms such as Douyin.

The results were quite encouraging; Xiaoyu's videos of opening a cat cafe received positive feedback on various platforms.

Among them, the videos posted on Bilibili were the earliest, so they have the highest popularity, allowing this small account to accumulate 100,000 followers in a short period of time.

In particular, Xiaoyu later uploaded a new video, which talked about the other preparations before opening after the renovation was completed.

For example, there's the scene of Ai Qing running around with Kong Fugui to get all sorts of certificates, and the pregnant cat being properly settled in the lounge.

And how Xiaoyu trains stray cats to get used to life in a cat cafe, and what they need to pay attention to.

Of course, this last part has the suspicion of being staged.

After all, Xiaoyu definitely can't tell netizens how she truly teaches them to live in a cat cafe.

Therefore, we can only film some methods that seem correct, but if someone actually tries them, they may not be effective quickly.

If someone were to open a cat cafe specifically for the gimmick of stray cats, they would truly be going to lose a fortune.

After all, judging from Ai Qing's experience of occasionally accompanying Xiao Yu to train stray cats at the cat cafe during this period.

If it weren't for Xiaoyu, these stray cats would have quite a few bad habits.

Only a small fish that can communicate with stray cats without any problems can train them in a short period of time.

Even so, Ai Qing and Xiao Yu decided to try a trial operation on the afternoon of October 31st, the day before the official opening.

Let's see if the stray cats can really adapt to this kind of work.