I Can Talk to Cats C15

Chapter 15: Planning to Open a Shop (Part Two)

Translated by Lime

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Recap: Lin Lan buys the bubble tea shops’s equipment for four thousand yuan and Xiao Zhang offers to teach her for a month. She informs her parents of her decision to open a cat cafe and convinces them.

In this chapter: Lin Lan tells the family of black cats, Sapphire, and Snowflake about her plans. She then visits Cat Boss 🙂

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Even though she had decided to open a shop, there was still work to be done. Just saying you would do something didn’t mean that it was going to happen magically.

Excluding the time it took to demolish the wall, renovate and decorate the interior, and obtaining licenses and business permits, there was a month left until the two shop owners would move out.

Thus, Lin Lan had plenty of time to find kitties. But first, it was more important to learn how to make the foods and drinks offered in the cafe and to inform the eight cats of her plans.

Lin Lan intended for the seven cats, excluding Snowflake, to become employees, so training was necessary.

After attaining the approval of her parents, she entered her apartment. Lin Lan had designated a room facing the rising sun to be the bedroom of the kitties. There was a cat tower and several toys for the cats scattered on the ground.

Snowflake had gone out to follow Cat Boss around, leaving seven kitties. The mother cat was laying on the topmost level of the cat tower, in the sunlight that streamed through the windows. Her tail languidly moved back and forth, relaxed.

The kittens playing on the ground were not as peaceful and quiet. It was evident that three months later, the bodies of the kittens were stronger, and they were now curious about the world. Every second they were awake, the kittens were exploring and playing.

Obviously, they were very noisy.

Currently, a pile of black kittens and a ragdoll kitten were scrambling on top of a ball of yarn, happily playing. 

When the door opened, all the cats were alert, and watched the entrance. The appearance of Lin Lan prompted the cats to swarm towards her, other than the unmoving mother cat.

“Miaow, miaow!” (Mom, Mom!) The sole longhaired cat, also the only cat that was a bit white, cheerfully ran towards Lin Lan. However, her speed was much slower than that of her kitten seniors. She wasn’t at the front yet, before being buried under the black kittens.

“Mew, mew, mew!” “Meoww!” (Lan Lan, Lan Lan! You’re back!) *N

_{(T/N: *N = was repeated nth number of times.)}

The black kittens surrounding her feet continously mewed, one after the other.

“I’ve come to see if you little rascals have been behaving.” She couldn’t help but laugh at the ragdoll kitten who ran the slowest and she squatted down. Lin Lan scooped up Sapphire and set her on her lap, then spoke towards the kittens, “I especially smelled for the odor inside this apartment and there is no heavy stench, meaning that everyone has learned how to use the toilet. Good job everyone!”

People that are sh*t shovelers would know, cat poop is smelly. Everytime she went to clean up the litter box, it would be unpleasant.

When she first took in Snowflake, like a novice, she scooped sh*t. For a while, she was a sh*t shoveler.

Her mother, Wang Xiuzhi, hated the smell. It was more than she was able to tolerate, so she captured the cat and brought him to the bathroom to teach him how to squat and use the toilet. 

From this point on, they did not need to buy cat litter, and their house, other than the bathroom, never had the odor of cat sh*t.

In this regard, Lin Lan immensely admired her mother. Even if she was threatened with death, she would not have thought of this solution. Now that Sapphire was living with them, Lin Lan simply asked Snowflake and the white cat obediently taught the newly recovered ragdoll kitten how to use the bathroom.

“Miaow! Miaowow—!” (Mom, Mom, I taught them! I was the one who taught them how to use the bathroom!)

Sitting on her knee, the ragdoll cat looked up towards Lin Lan and meowed, taking the credit. The three month old ragdoll cat was not any smaller than the five month old black cats around her. Her long, fluffy hair that was carefully groomed covered her body, and her beautiful eyes that seemed to be polished stared at Lin Lan. The small pink mouth mewed, and the cute kitten noises were to die for.

“Sapphire is the best!” Lin Lan said as she simultaneously rubbed her head. The feeling was exceptional. Suddenly, she had a thought—

When her cat cafe opened and Sapphire grew up, she would become the most sought after cat.

Haha, she shouldn’t think anymore. It was still too early..

“I have some things to tell you.” Lin Lan addressed the small kittens sitting in front of her, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw the mother cat trotting towards her: “It has something to do with hunting.”

Hunting! Foraging!

The most important topic amongst cats had been mentioned. Tails straightened and their ears pricked up.

“Ahem!” Lin Lan cleared her throat as the mother cat sat down behind the kittens and diligently listened. Her tone of voice became more serious, “In order to earn more cat food, including dried fish, small kittens, I require your assistance!”

The sunlight in the afternoon was perfect. On the rooftop of the abandoned house, a large group of stray cats relaxed in the sun, lazing around.

“Miaowowow—” (So, you want me to help you find cats that look like this?)

Cat Boss stepped on a piece of paper. Lin Lan had provided him with various photos of valuable cats. If he sniffed closer, he would be able to distinguish the smell of the fresh ink.

“Yup, surely, you must have encountered cats like them within your group? Usually, they have previous experience with humans, which would be helpful when extorting food from them. In return, I will always take care of them, even when they are old.” Before coming to this place, Lin Lan had explained her plan to her cats in her apartment. Then, she talked to Cat Boss, “If it’s possible, I hope that your group of stray cats can come too. The same promise applies.”

Without needing time to think, Cat Boss refused: “Waoao!” (I won’t go to a two-legged creature’s place! I don’t want to be confined!)

They really liked the carefree and unrestrained lifestyle of a stray cat!

Lin Lan expected Cat Boss to refuse and did not say more about it, nodding. She brought up another condition: “If you help me find these kitties and convince them to join me, I will give your group several benefits. How about for every kitty that matches the description, I will deliver you three big bags of cat food? Altogether, the food would be around the size of that mound over there.”

Lin Lan gestured to a pile of rubble next to the corner of the abandoned house.

According to her expectations, the Li Hua cat agreed. A two-legged creature voluntarily giving them food was better than sneaking into their house and sneakily eating.

It wasn’t easy to be a stray cat.

Not only were they risking being beaten up and killed for stealing food, but it was more likely that the food would be poisoned. If they went to rummage through garbage bins, sometimes they would have to fight with stray dogs for food… These were the troubles of a stray cat; it was very easy to lose their life. 

Cats that were taken care of by humans had it easy. They did not have to worry about food and even less about enduring windy, rainy, or freezing weather. On a wintry day with heavy snow, they were able to gaze out at the world from a heated home, separated by a window. Without a doubt, it was a carefree and easy life.

However, cats like Cat Boss loved the outdoor lifestyle of a stray cat and would never willingly be confined indoors for the sake of guaranteed food and so-called security.

If he was not willing, there would always be those that would be. Besides, stray cats weren’t able to find food all the time.

The arrangements that Lin Lan talked about favored the cats. All Cat Boss had to do was seek out the cats that she was searching for, and the rest of his companions would be well fed. Cat Boss was completely incapable of refusing her offer.

“Then, let’s agree on these terms. If you find a cat of these descriptions, you can let it come over by itself or notify Snowflake and I will come over to receive it.” Lin Lan continued to think about everything, “Wait, the weather is gradually lowering, and it will soon be winter. Are your sleeping quarters warm enough? Do you need me to make a few cat beds and send them over? I came over with some cat food and a few old clothes. If you need them, just take them away.”

Supplies for the winter were necessary. However many Lin Lan offered, Cat Boss would collect. With each passing winter, several of his companions would also pass. Without sufficient supplies, the group of stray cats would not be able to outlast the entirety of winter.

“If the winter is too cold, you guys can come to find me. I have an empty apartment that is enough for your group to live in.” After finishing her speech, she hugged Snowflake and was about to leave when she had the urge to pet the Li Hua cat’s head. He nimbly avoided her touch and Lin Lan awkwardly bid them goodbye, “Ahaha, I’m sorry, it was out of habit.”

Cat Boss was silent and sat there peacefully, watching her. For some reason, Lin Lan knew that he was not angry.

Lin Lan waved goodbye to the stray cats and carried her white cat home.

Because it was her second time here, Lin Lan chose another path to go back home, one that was a shortcut. Taking the “cat path” was much quicker, but that was for cats. Humans were not able to leap onto roofs or jump over walls.

Lin Lan was familiar with this route, turning at the road with two lanes and passing through a small public park. At this point, she was able to see her family’s apartment building.

It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. While passing through the park, Lin Lan realized that there were few people around. Today was Thursday, on Saturday, the weekend, there would be many more people exercising.

Many pedestrians curiously glanced at her because she was carrying Snowflake. Those who liked cats would inch towards her. In the end, not one person reached out to pet him.

Snowflake peacefully let Lin Lan carry him. The white cat felt secure, tucked in his owner’s embrace and was motionless, not frightened by the strangers around him.

All the while, his owner had thought of a problem: it seemed that she hadn’t measured his weight or height in a long time. It was the same with the kittens she had just brought back; she did not record their measurements and ought to do it soon.

They returned home and Snowflake jumped out of Lin Lan’s embrace, familiar with the surroundings. After the kittens were moved to Lin Lan’s apartment, Snowflake was the only cat that frequented the place where he lived for four years. The Lin family was fond of the second cat, Sapphire, but she was not Snowflake.

The adult cat that was approaching five years old had a stable temperament, and accepted the arrival of the kittens. There was no fighting or incompatibility between the previous cat and the new ones.

The white cat began to play in the living room by himself, amusing Lin Lan. She entered her room and walked to her desk. Pulling out a drawer, she retrieved a leather notebook from inside.

With one glance, you could tell that the notebook had been used for many years. It was bought four years ago by the novice cat owner Lin Lan, who recorded Snowflake’s measurements inside. She had also copied data from official sources, such as the minimum height and weight of a healthy kitty – wait a minute.

“How heavy was he? Recently, I experimented with various types of cat foods because of the new kittens. Snowflake ate a lot as well. When I carried him back, he was a bit heavy.” Lin Lan flipped through her notebook, one hand propping up her chin, the other hand reaching inside the drawer with familiarity. She brought out an empty plastic bag and without looking, threw it into the living room. Lin Lan returned to her desk and continued to flip through her previous records.

A few minutes later, the rustling sounds of a plastic bag being occupied came from the living room. It wasn’t long before the noises stopped.

Lin Lan immediately stood up from her desk and held the notebook as she walked into the living room. The plastic bag on the ground was originally empty, now there was a cat inside. Lin Lan used her free hand to pick up the bag and set it down on the electronic scale between the hallway and the kitchen.

The electronic scale quickly displayed:【4.5 KG】

“Last time, he measured to be 30 CM wide and weighed 3.8 KG. He definitely put on some weight.” Lin Lan wrote down the data: “Never mind, he is within the normal range. He doesn’t need to lose or gain any weight.”

The actions were completed so smoothly that it was only afterwards when she exclaimed, holy sh*t.

_{(T/N: ‘卧槽’ = Wo cao, slang for f*ck/profanity. I’m sure some of you are familiar with this term hehe.)}

“I didn’t need to trick him in order to weigh him!” Lin Lan watched the cat obediently stay in the plastic bag and yelled with amazement, “I can already speak with you, what am I doing, using so much effort!”

Inside the bag, the white cat was unaware of his owner’s stupidity and happily meowed, “Miaowow—” (Lan Lan, this is fun! Let’s do it again!)

You are a foolish cat!

She realized her mistakes and didn’t use the same method when she weighed Sapphire and the family of black cats. Snowflake, who trailed behind her, wore the plastic bag into her apartment, and the playful kittens followed suit, burying themselves inside the bag.

Lin Lan, who was able to understand them, heard, “Hahaha, this is so fun”. She glanced at the black lumps inside the plastic bag and wanted to die.

All of these little kittens were foolish!

Now that she decided to open a cafe, naturally, she had to learn how to make the refreshments, as she had settled the problem of obtaining cats. The next day, Lin Lan went to Xiao Zhang’s bubble tea shop to learn how to make the refreshments.

The bubble tea that Xiao Zhang made was subpar, but his teaching method was very precise and organized, making it easy for Lin Lan to learn. In one day, she was able to make many different types of milk tea.

Secretly, she sighed inside. She was just taught the recipes and was able to make it, no wonder bubble tea shops were everywhere, there wasn’t much skill or effort required. Lin Lan estimated that within three days, she would be able to make all the milk tea recipes of this shop.

By herself, Lin Lan silently prepared milk tea while Xiao Zhang was dumbstruck beside her.

How come he was the one who taught her the recipe with his own hands, but the landlord’s daughter’s milk tea tasted so much better than his!?

“Boss, I’ll have a cup of strawberry milk tea with tapioca and a cup of matcha milk tea!” A customer that rode a small moped entered and said, “I want the drinks cold, not hot!”

Without another thought, Xiao Zhang grabbed Lin Lan’s drinks and sealed them, sticking a straw in the matcha milk tea at the customer’s request.

The customer slurped in a mouthful and was satisfied: “It tastes very good, my wife wasn’t lying to me after all! Boss, your recipe has improved, it tastes much better than before. I’ll be sure to come back!”

He finished speaking and rode the moped away, eager to deliver the other cup of milk tea back to his family.

Xiao Zhang was not able to explain for the entire conversation and was speechless: “…” 

He felt a bit sad and turned his head to watch Lin Lan froth the milk, silently laughing at his speechless expression and retorted: “What are you looking at? Aren’t you familiar with this milk tea recipe already? I’ve taught you the ratios of syrup and milk. If even you are confused, how am I supposed to help you?”

Creating an ordinary tasting cup of milk tea was easy, yet making the perfect cup that made your tongue feel blissful was difficult. Clearly, Lin Lan had this talent and Xiao Zhang did not.

Therefore, Xiao Zhang was very dissatisfied but couldn’t complain. 

The person behind him was rubbing salt onto his wound: “I think I have learned how to make milk tea. You should teach me how to bake cakes and make waffles tomorrow.”

After the heart-wrenching lesson, Lin Lan smoothly sailed through the rest. Two days later, she received news from Cat Boss. He had found cats that she was searching for and they were willing to follow her home.

“For real? And there are two? This is great, thanks!” Lin Lan brought a specially packaged bag of dried cod as a reward for the stray cats and didn’t ask further. She picked up portable cat carriers and left the apartment.

“Lan Lan, where are you going?” Wang Xiuzhi asked her daughter who was energetically running outside.

Her daughter had run pretty far away so only her voice echoed in the stairwell, “To pick up cats!” 

It was the weekend and there were many people in the park.

Cheng Fengyang was walking his dog alongside his elder sister, Cheng Xingyu, and her daughter.

His sister was holding her five year old daughter: “You were the one who loudly proclaimed that you wanted to go outside. Again, you asked me to hold you. Li Mengmeng, you are a big kid that is in kindergarten. You need to keep your promises.”

This little girl was acting strange.

Cheng Fengyang pretended to carefully look both left and right while laughing at his sister’s teaching methods in his heart.

Sure enough, the little girl was unconvinced and grasped her mother’s neck: “Don’t yell at me! No yelling! I won’t come down! Mom, my legs are tired and I need you to carry me!”

“Your legs still hurt?” Cheng Xingyu smiled at her daughter’s shameless remarks, “They’re fine. You need to run around and they won’t be tired anymore.”

Her daughter didn’t fall for the trap: “Mom, not only are my legs tired, but my feet are sore as well.”

As Cheng Fengyang listened, his stomach began to hurt from keeping in his laughter. He faced his sister with a stern expression.

“Your mommy is tired of carrying you, let your uncle carry you instead.” At this moment, Cheng Xinyu was about to throw the 20 KG girl to her younger brother.

“No, I still have Star’s leash!” Cheng Fengyang promptly refused and speedily escaped the incoming calamity: “Eh, Mengmeng, quick, look! There’s someone blowing bubbles over there, a lot of bubbles!”

The young girl’s attention was diverted to a toy stall not far away. A peddler was selling long bubble wands. Whenever his hand moved, a large row of bubbles would fly out.

“Wow—” Without anyone further persuading her, the girl wiggled her way out of her mother’s embrace and ran towards the stall with her little legs.

Even though the problem of carrying the child was temporarily solved, Cheng Xingyu was not grateful towards her younger brother, rather glaring at him: “Why are you telling her to look over there? She will pester me to buy it now!”

Buying the item was not the main point, the main point was that she would discard the toy after playing with it for a while. 

This gave adults the biggest headache, and was her most unsolvable problem to date.

“What’s the problem, it’s not expensive anyways. If she wants it, just buy it for her.” The single dog didn’t understand the problems of a household with children and disregarded its importance.

_{(T/N: ‘单身狗’ = Single dog, means someone who is not in a relationship and is usually used in a negative manner towards oneself. In this context, the single dog is Cheng Fengyang.)}

Cheng Xingyu sneered towards him, “Hmph. As her uncle, you should buy it for her.”

If he had to buy it, then he would buy it. At most, it would cost ten yuan.

As she predicted, the uncle bought a bubble wand for his niece and after blowing bubbles three times, she was attracted by a parent and child car.

_{(T/N: ‘亲子小汽车’ = parent and child car, not sure what this is referring to, but it’s something along the lines of a toy car.)}

“Mom, mom! I want to go over there.” The girl shoved the bubble wand into Cheng Xingyu’s hand and ran in that direction.

Faced with this, her mother was calm and shoved the bubble wand into her brother’s hands: “You bought it, so you should play with it.” Saying this, she left with her daughter.

Cheng Fengyang, who was abandoned, held the bubble wand, not knowing how to react. How did it turn into him buying a toy for himself?

His sister had accompanied her child across the park to look at the small cars, leaving him behind. Cheng Fengyang lowered his head to look at the dog leash in his hands. The border collie on the other end was wagging her tail, having recovered from an infection a month prior. The shaved patch of fur on her butt had grown back and she was finally willing to go outside to play.

Star saw her owner staring at her, and shook her head and barked “Wang”, looking at the bubble wand in his hand.

“Do you want to play with this?” Cheng Fengyang noticed her and waved the wand.

The dog’s tail wagged harder.

The early winter sun shined onto the park, warming the area. The people walking around were bathed in a cozy warmth. In the vast park, there was a young man wearing loungewear laughing while waving a bubble wand. Countless bubbles were blown out from the wind towards a border collie that was happily chasing them. The human and the dog joyfully played.

This scene of a dog jumping and running after bubbles was seen by a person carrying a cat carrier, crossing the park.

The author has something to say:

That’s right, this sand sculpture is the male lead.

_{(T/N: ‘沙雕’ = sand sculpture, used to refer to people who are carefree or silly.)}

The genre is slice of life, so the female and male leads are regular citizens. There are no wealthy chairmen or powerful characters with high-end identities. This story only features two ordinary people meeting, falling in love, and getting married.

But the main focus is still the kitties.

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Hope you enjoyed!

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