Strangely enough, both the legendary “Accelerator,” who was said to bite the moment anyone touched him, and Gintoki, who absolutely couldn’t be touched anywhere but the head, lay down on the spot when they saw me approach.

They stretched out stiffly and exposed their bellies to me.

Forget biting. The moment I reached out, both cats even nuzzled my glove affectionately and let out adorable little “meows.”

“No… That’s impossible…”

The sight left the shop owner, Lin Ruilong, and the maid, Lan Yueke, staring in shock.

“When did Accelerator and Gintoki become this docile?”

Still looking incredulous, Lin Ruilong cautiously reached out and rubbed Accelerator’s belly.

“Hisss—haaa!”

The result was completely different from mine.

Seeing that the person touching him wasn’t me, the large orange tabby immediately bared two sharp fangs at Lin Ruilong. His ears flattened backward, his fur stood on end, and he let out a warning growl like a wild beast.

“Haa—”

“Yep, that’s still Accelerator.”

Lin Ruilong withdrew his hand and looked at me in confusion.

“Why? He doesn’t act fierce with you?”

“I’m not really sure either.”

I gave an awkward little smile and began stroking the orange cat’s fur.

“This isn’t scientific! Keke, you come try.”

“Okay.”

At the shop owner’s request, the young maid also reached toward the orange cat.

“Grrr!”

She was much gentler than Lin Ruilong. Even so, the orange cat clearly protested Lan Yueke’s attempt to touch him.

He growled a warning, raised one paw, and swished his tail impatiently, looking ready to scratch her at any moment.

“Eek…”

Lan Yueke looked wounded.

“Accelerator, you’re so mean! You’re gentle with a pretty young girl, but you’re so fierce with me…”

“Meow!”

“Okay, okay! I won’t say anything else about you.”

“I used to think a cat’s personality was fixed. I never believed in that legendary ability to attract cats.”

Even the maid had been rejected, so Lin Ruilong could only shake his head and sigh.

“Looks like cats are only fierce because they haven’t met the right person. Xiaoxue, have cats always liked you this much?”

“Huh?”

I thought about it.

“I guess… they have.”

The scene before me brought back many memories from my childhood.

As people’s morals had improved, fewer pets were abandoned in the city. Stray cats and dogs were rare in Vanilla City.

In the countryside, though, wild cats and dogs were still fairly common.

When I was very young—around fourth or fifth grade, I think—I lived with my mother in a small earthen house in a village.

There were stray dogs everywhere, along with tabby cats that villagers let roam freely to catch mice.

I didn’t have many friends back then. Whenever I came across those cats, I would occasionally wander over to them.

Strangely, the village cats would instantly run out of sight whenever they saw strangers. But when they met me, they showed no trace of wariness.

They didn’t run. They didn’t even meow.

I was rather timid back then. Besides, my parents had warned me countless times not to touch cats, dogs, monkeys, squirrels, or other animals I encountered outside.

So despite being very popular with small animals, I had never truly gotten close to them.

“Purr… purr…”

Under my touch, both orange cats began purring comfortably.

Could there be a scent on me that they liked?

That thing Lu Yun had mentioned…

A milky scent?

Small animals did like the smell of milk. But weren’t these two orange cats clearly adults?

“Accelerator and Gintoki used to be strays.”

Lan Yueke sighed.

“I heard it from one of the senior maids who worked here before. Back then, Vanilla City had a huge snowfall, and it was freezing cold.”

“When the shop owner drove home, the car’s engine was still warm. The next day, he found two orange cats inside.”

“Luckily, he was careful enough to notice them and brought them to the shop.”

“Because they were strays, Accelerator and Gintoki had always been wary of strangers. Even the director who saved them couldn’t get very close.”

“I don’t believe this is real.”

After I roughly removed the loose fur from both orange cats and packed it into a bag, Lin Ruilong gestured for me to follow him downstairs.

“Xiaoxue, let’s try the other two.”

“Okay.”

I picked up the little bag and followed the shop owner downstairs.

“Xiao Wang, Jiajia, this is our temporary employee, Bi Xinxue. Get acquainted.”

On the first floor, in the dessert and beggar’s chicken section, Lin Ruilong brought me to the counter.

A man and a woman were busy in the small kitchen behind it.

“Oh, okay… Ah! She’s so cute! Boss, where did you abduct this child from?”

The young woman, who wore a maid outfit like Lan Yueke’s, turned around and glanced at me.

Then she spoke with a shocked expression.

“She’s still underage, right? Hiring child labor is illegal, you know!”

“She’s already in college. What do you think?”

Lin Ruilong laughed.

“Actually, I reacted the same way when I first saw her. Her face just looks young. Her figure, however, is quite mature.”

“Boss, be careful. You could get sued for being a pervert.”

The maid walked over to me and smiled with complete innocence.

“Bi Xinxue… Xiaoxue, right? I’m Li Jiajia. The ‘Jia’ from Shang Hao Jia. Please take good care of me!”

I’d actually noticed her when I first entered the shop.

While Lan Yueke was serving me, I had seen Li Jiajia carrying plates and drinks to the customers on the first floor.

Unlike Lan Yueke, Li Jiajia wasn’t as voluptuous. She was slim—probably even thinner than me.

Her legs, covered in long black stockings, showed almost no flesh.

But her appearance had a hint of classic beauty, which made the girl seem rather mature to me.

“Hello, Senior.”

I gave Li Jiajia a slight bow and instinctively smiled.

“Please take good care of me!”

“This Xiaoxue managed to tame Accelerator. I’m taking her to try her luck with Pidan and Luna now.”

The shop owner looked around.

“Where’s Luna?”

“A customer seemed to have given Luna a can of food. She should be…”

Maid Li Jiajia glanced toward a large cat house in the corner on the other side of the counter.

“She should be over there.”

“Okay. Xiaoxue, come try over here.”

I wasn’t sure whether the rain outside was simply too heavy, or whether the customers liked the atmosphere here too much to leave.

From the time I finished my interview upstairs, changed clothes, brushed the cats, and came back down, not a single customer had left.

In fact, several more people had come in to eat chicken.

“It may be a café, but their chicken is incredible.”

“Yeah. I heard they hired the chef from that century-old beggar’s chicken restaurant downtown after it went out of business.”

I passed the college students, who were wearing gloves and happily eating the beggar’s chicken with their hands.

Then I followed the shop owner to a large cat house in the northeastern corner of the first floor.

“Huh? Is that a Rem cosplay? That little girl is so cute.”

“As expected of a rich second-generation boss. He can even hire such beautiful maids.”

“I’m secretly taking a picture and sending it to the group chat. I’m so lucky today. I got to eat authentic beggar’s chicken and see such a cute Rem.”

Amid the customers’ lively chatter, I noticed that the customer who had previously been playing San Guo Sha had switched games.

He was playing Werewolf now.

“Luna? Luna?”

The large cat house in the corner resembled the kind of “Fortnite” play fortress found in amusement parks for children.

Interwoven passages and little houses formed an incredibly luxurious cluster of cat villas.

“Luna, Dudu, are you inside? Come out and meet the new young lady…”

At the shop owner’s call, several cats with black, python-like patterns across their backs lazily walked out of the little villas.

Then they stretched right in front of us.

“This is Luna. She’s probably the second-fiercest cat in the shop.”

Lin Ruilong crouched down and pointed at a cat with one drooping ear.

“Luna has osteochondrodysplasia, which is why her ears look like this. Cats like her are usually called Scottish Folds.”

“Osteochondrodysplasia is a hereditary disease. Because their soft ears are considered cute, many unscrupulous breeders have continued breeding them.”

“Luna was abandoned. When I found her, she had severe gastroenteritis. She spent more than a week at the animal hospital before we managed to save her.”

“Maybe it was because she suffered so much in the hospital, but Luna has never really liked humans.”

Ah, you…

As I listened to Lin Ruilong’s explanation, I suddenly felt a deep respect for this man with such an imposing name.

Were all the more than twenty cats in this entire café rescued by him?

Or was opening a café just an excuse, while raising cats was his real goal?

I’d watched plenty of cute-animal videos, so I knew that raising cats wasn’t easy.

Even if an ordinary person was as frugal as possible, keeping one cat still cost at least three to five hundred yuan a month.

Five hundred yuan per cat. With twenty cats, that meant more than ten thousand yuan every month.

“Hello, Luna.”

As I thought about it, I crouched down, removed my glove, and tentatively reached toward the American Shorthair.

“Meow—”

At that moment, it wasn’t only the Luna Lin Ruilong had pointed out.

Several other cats, drawn over by the commotion, also gathered around me and affectionately rubbed against my hand.

“Meow…”

“Mrrrow.”

Before long, my snow-white hand was covered in clearly visible cat fur.

“I can confirm it now. Your cat-attracting constitution is real.”

Lin Ruilong stood up beside me and sighed in amazement.

“You didn’t just win over Accelerator and Gintoki. Even a cat like Luna, who dislikes people, is friendly with you.”

“Xiaoxue…”

“Huh?”

“It’s about the thing I suggested earlier. Have you thought it over?”

“How about working at our shop in the evenings? If necessary, I can raise the pay. One hundred yuan an hour is fine.”

Lin Ruilong looked at me expectantly.

“The most troublesome jobs for our previous maids were brushing the cats and trimming their claws. Accelerator and the others are simply too fierce.”

“If you came here, you could probably solve the problem that’s troubled us for years.”

“Ah… about that…”

I felt a little embarrassed.

“I only arrived here recently. And as you can see, there aren’t many customers right now.”

“If I’m going to work as a server, my main duty should still be serving customers, right?”

“How about waiting until dinner, when more customers arrive? You can observe my abilities first, then make your decision.”

“You’re being too modest. When we choose employees, we mainly look at their personality and whether they’re suited to dealing with strangers.”

“Based on your behavior and education so far, you’re completely qualified.”

Lin Ruilong thought for a moment.

“Or, if you think that sounds troublesome, you don’t have to work here as a full-time maid. Just come over after school.”

“We can provide dinner. Everything in the shop is free for you to eat.”

“As for your pay, we can make it one hundred yuan an hour. From six to ten, that’s four hundred yuan a day.”

“How does that sound?”

“Everything is free to eat?”

I cautiously glanced at the customers nearby, who were eating various pastries while playing games.

“Then… I’ll think about it.”