I will never give in to Miss Death

"Wake up... wake up!"

As the pleasant cell phone alarm sounded, I carefully pulled my hand out from under the cat's belly and stroked this huge cat that was as big as a little lion.

Wow, another bunch of hair.

Sitting up, I yawned loudly and looked around the "Coffee House Girls' Dormitory" where several cats were already lying there.

This is just a mosquito bite, this is just Li Bai, this is just... this should be Du Fu, right? Li Bai and Du Fu are in the same nest, if Li Bai comes in, Du Fu should follow.

Why are these cats running into the house? There is no food and no litter box...

"Why did you all come here..."

Looking at the cats in the house, some of which were lying on the floor, while others were exploring and curiously observing their new environment, I yawned again.

Ugh... I'm still so sleepy.

But I know that I must not go back to sleep at this time. Not to mention that work time is almost up, lunch break is usually only about ten minutes. If I feel sleepy after getting up and fall back to sleep, I will only become more sleepy, which is not good for my health.

"Alright, alright, come out now."

I turned off the alarm on my cell phone, put on the maid's round-toed shoes beside the bed, took the lint remover and carefully removed the cat hair on my body as much as possible, and walked out of the room.

"woke up?"

Ouyang Xue was sorting goods at the central workbench outside the second floor. When she saw me coming out, she smiled faintly: "You have only slept for less than half an hour, and your break will end in more than ten minutes?"

"It's ok."

I leaned over and took a look at the situation on the first floor: "I've slept enough."

"So the afternoon work is about to begin?"

Ouyang Xue took out a broom and dustpan from the counter: "Go ahead, the cat hair has increased again."

More? How long has it been?!

I took the tools, walked quickly downstairs and entered the cat's living area.

"..."

Just as Ouyang Xue said, there were already quite a few clumps of cat hair piled up here. A few cats were fighting for some unknown reason, fluttering and biting each other, and cat hair was flying everywhere around them.

"Stop fighting, stop fighting! If you continue fighting, you won't get any dried fish today!"

I... seem to understand a little bit why the wages of coffee shop maids are so high.

Cleaning cat hair is a very troublesome task.

It is not like ordinary garbage. General household garbage has weight. Like those food stores and fast food restaurants, if there are customers littering, I as a waiter can go over and sweep it up in a few seconds. But cat hair is different. This thing has a "flying" BUFF. It will be blown up by a slight wind. Even if you sweep it into the dustpan, it will fly out again because of the breeze generated by casually waving the broom. Moreover, cat hair itself is particularly difficult to sweep. The broom will blow up a gust of wind first, and the cat hair will fly away and cannot get into the garbage shovel, so you have to chase it and continue sweeping.

The most uncomfortable thing is that cat hair cannot get wet. Some kittens in the living area drink water mischievously and play on the automatic water dispenser, getting their paws wet. They run around everywhere, leaving plum blossom prints all over the floor. Cat hair sticks to the ground when it touches water. The fur of some black and gray cats often forms a large puddle of wetness, making it look like there is a large area of ​​dirt on the floor. It is impossible to sweep it with a broom or scratch it with gloves.

If you use a wet mop to mop the floor directly, the kitten next to you will see the mop and pounce on it as if it has seen a new toy, and hang on the mop like a pendant, and then there will be a pile of cat hair again.

I suspect that cats, as creatures dating back to the Cretaceous and Triassic periods, are probably the same species as sheep, and both are major wool producers.

"Use this."

While sweeping, Ouyang Xue brought down a vacuum cleaner: "Just bought from next door."

Why didn’t you take this thing out earlier!

"next door?"

I took the vacuum cleaner and turned it on.

As the motor made a "buzzing" sound, the cats from the cat cafe were not afraid at all. Some of them even came up boldly and looked at the machine curiously.

I moved the suction mouth closer to their bodies and started sucking hard, causing the cats to scream.

"I just found out that there's a new electrical appliance store opening in the commercial street next door."

Ouyang Xue explained, "It is said that several more milk tea shops will open tomorrow, which will overlap with our business to a small extent. I estimate that more people will bring their own drinks to pet cats."

Isn’t the commercial street next door built yet?

"Several businesses are opening today on the commercial street. There are also discounts on boat rentals on Shenbin River, and there is a fishing competition. I was wondering why there were so few customers a few days ago, but there are so many today."

Ouyang Xue said with emotion while drinking coffee: "Now the area around Shenbin River is full of fishermen, and from their fishing spot, they can just see the big mushroom cap of our mushroom house."

Are they all fishing people?!

I looked in the direction of the Shenbin River with curiosity.

Is there still any fishing activity? Isn't it just a matter of luck?

"The fisherman is very evil."

Ouyang Xue put the broom aside: "They squat there for a whole day, but they often don't catch many fish. However, they often encounter pufferfish, frogs, water monkeys and the like. Someone once found a litter of abandoned kittens by the river, and someone else rescued a passerby who accidentally fell into the water..."

"Ding Dong! Welcome!"

As we were chatting, we heard the sound of a customer entering the door behind us.

Ouyang Xue immediately took the vacuum cleaner from my hand and said, "Go ahead."

"Hello there!"

I also trotted towards the door as if by reflex, and said to the two men who came in with fishing gear in their hands: "Welcome! You can put larger items in the storage area over there first!"

"Put the bucket with the fish over here... Put the lid on it, the fishy smell might attract the kitten to steal the food!"

"That's not the question. We don't feed raw fish to the pet cats in our store..."

"..."

The most annoying thing about being a waiter is having to deal with all kinds of strange customers.

Like someone who comes in with a fish and asks for help with cooking, someone who wants to feed the cat with the fish, someone who comes in wearing flip-flops and then takes off his shoes, someone who comes in with a cigarette in his mouth and asks to "see the pretty girls" without saying anything...

The world is very big, and it is normal for there to be some unreasonable and unethical customers.

Cats can eat fish, and there is no problem with eating raw fish. After all, cats were good at catching fish and birds before they met humans, and no one taught them how to make fire and cook. But that is how free-range kittens in rural areas are fed.

For kittens in cat cafes, if they are fed raw fish directly, the biggest problem is the possibility of parasites.

There are a large group of cats living together here. If one cat is infected, maybe all the cats in the group will fall ill in a few days. Since there are better options, there is no need for us to take the risk and feed them raw fish.

Similarly, for those customers who smoke, take off their shoes, or have particularly poor personal hygiene, Ouyang Xue’s order to me is to persuade them to leave.

Or let them eat at the small tree stump outside, but they can't eat in the restaurant anyway.

Of course, in most cases, customers who come to the coffee shop are still very reasonable.

After I reminded the customer, the smoking customer immediately apologized, “Sorry, I’m used to it,” and put out the cigarette butt immediately. The customer who requested to feed the cat with raw fish also expressed his understanding and decided not to feed the cat after hearing my explanation. No one overturned the table and made trouble like in the movies or like Brother Crow did in the movies, “If it’s hard, then don’t do it.”

"Why is your store full of fried chicken? Do you have shredded chicken? No? Then I want a tongzi chicken."

"How much do you charge for petting cats? Free? Is that true? Do you have any snacks for cats? Give me some."

"Maid sister, maid sister! Table 32, more food!"

"Maid sister, we need to take a photo here!"

"Waiter! Give me two more chicken legs. The chicken legs here are so small. I can't even be full!"

"..."

Just as I predicted, starting at 4:30 in the afternoon, the number of people coming to the coffee shop increased dramatically.

The flow of people in the evening was even more terrifying than the peak flow of customers at noon. Even if Ouyang Xue, the driver and I worked together, we could only barely meet the needs of the customers in the store and had no time to take care of the cats that ran out of the cat living area.

So many customers who like cats simply carried the cats to the chair next to them, bought some snacks, ate a bite themselves, and fed a bite to the cats.

This has led to a surge in sales of Cafe de Café cat food and cat treats.

It is worth mentioning that the customers who come to the restaurant to eat seem to have a very high opinion of me.

"I originally just wanted to experience the legendary cat cafe, but I didn't expect the maid to be cuter than the cat?"

"Indeed, she has a beautiful smile, but she looks a little younger."

"Maybe it's the store manager's relative or something like that who came to help?"

"..."

From 4:30 to 7:00, I had almost no time to rest in the coffee shop. I was running errands and cleaning the whole time.

It was not until after eight o'clock, when the sky outside had completely darkened and most of the customers in the store had left, that I was able to sit down on the massage chair on the first floor of the store to catch my breath.

"I feel like my legs are no longer my own..."

I turned on the massage chair, and amid the "buzzing" sound, I relaxed my body, put my calves on the massager, and enjoyed the "coffee shop employee benefits" after work.

This massage chair was also arranged by Ouyang Xue. It is placed in the corner of the first floor. There are three of them in total. When you sit on it, you can directly see the sparkling sea view outside.

If customers nearby come to use this chair, they have to pay for it by scanning the code or swiping the card, five dollars for ten minutes - I don't know what other people think of this prop, but at least I like it very much.

Not to mention that it's free for employees, even if it's a "black-hearted boss" like Ouyang Xuexue, both the clerks and customers have to pay to use the massage chair, at this time I would still choose to pay and lie down.

Because it’s so comfortable…

After spending a day together, I roughly understood Ouyang Xue's philosophy of running a coffee shop.

She is really good to her own people or "employees". They rest when they need to rest and work when they need to work. And as long as you don't have the idea of ​​"taking it back and selling it for money", everything in the coffee shop is free for her employees to use.

This means I can eat any fried chicken snacks in the store, drink any beverages here, and use any paid experience tools like the massage chair.

At first I thought she was so nice to me because of my “background”, but later I found out that it was not the case. Ouyang Xue seemed to be like this to every employee in the store.

There was only one chef in the store today, Master Wang. When Master Wang was tired and wanted to rest, Ouyang Xue would take over his job. Whether it was cooking, frying chicken or making egg tarts, Ouyang Xue was proficient in everything and could do his job perfectly even if Master Wang was not in the store.

Similarly, the male driver who was driving today was currently working as a "logistics" and "cleaning" person in the store. His task was to drive to bring back the ingredients and various props needed by the coffee shop and move them into the house. When this guy wanted to rest or was away for some reason, Ouyang Xue could also take over, driving, moving heavy objects, and connecting with people at the market...

I don’t see anything here that Ouyang Xue can’t do.

The store manager is used as a clerk, the woman is used as a man, and one person is used as two people...

This is also the first time I have seen a store manager who leads by example.

Ouyang Xue used her actions to explain to me what it means to be the head of a store and to lead by example.

Under her guidance, thinking that “as long as you work hard you will get commission”, I was full of energy no matter how tired I was throughout the night.

"Meow."

After massaging my legs for a while with the "buzz buzz buzz" sound, a few cats that had been bothering me all day came over and seemed very interested in this machine.

"Go and have fun by yourselves. There aren't many customers in the store right now. You can have fun as you please..."

I was so tired that I didn't even want to move: "I'll go sweep your fur later."

At this time of year in Kamihama City, the moon was just beginning to show some buds, and the starry sky was reflected on the sea, looking particularly beautiful.

After a tiring day, I am sitting in a cool air-conditioned coffee shop, lying on an automatic massage chair. I can say that I am in a very comfortable mood.

It would have been better if she had a bottle of ice cola at this time, but the little girl's stomach didn't seem to be suitable for drinking that.

My eyes fell on a lighthouse far out to sea.

Like the Pearl Tower in the Chuo District, this tower is considered a landmark building in the Minaminagi District of Kamihama City. People on the Internet like to call it the Minaminagi Tower. The Minaminagi Tower has a history of at least 50 years. This lighthouse was erected here long ago when the Minaminagi District had not yet become an independent district.

I have watched live broadcasts and related videos about the Nannagi Pagoda on the Internet. The keeper of the tower is an elderly man who lives in a small wooden house next to the tower. He usually grows some vegetables in the back, and then goes to the sea to find some seafood to cook for himself when the tide goes down in the evening, day after day, year after year, without fail.

It is said that the old man has been guarding the tower for at least forty years, but the Kamihama City Government stopped maintaining the tower twenty years ago. The cost of maintaining the equipment on the tower and replacing the lights is all paid by the old man himself using the items he collected from scraps and the pension given by the government.

Because this area of ​​sea is relatively remote and is not on the ship route to Minami Nagi Port, usually, except for those who go to the sea in the evening, few people go to play near Minami Nagi Tower. Over the decades, this tower has become the only building nearby. At night, the tower will light up with a light comparable to the moon, illuminating the surrounding darkness.

From my angle at this moment, I could hardly see the tower. I could only see a bright light hanging high on a hillside.

A host once asked the old man on the tower why he was so persistent and why he had to live nearby. The old man said he was waiting for his lover to come back.

Decades ago, the Minami Nagi area was still a wasteland. An old man and his wife wandered here from other places. They were hungry, and saw a small boat and a fishing net on the shore. They thought of fishing on the sea. As a result, a wave hit and the old man fell into the water. When he woke up, he found himself floating under the lighthouse - the lighthouse workers here saved him.

From then on, the old man lived near the lighthouse, waiting for his lover.

This wait lasted for more than 40 years.

"How does it feel?"

Gazing at the faint light of the lighthouse in the distance, I saw Ouyang Xue coming over through the reflective glass of the store: "Are you used to it?"

"Fortunately."

I smiled and said, "Although I am tired, I am very happy."

I can make money, lots of money, and I can also see the future and be happy.