If conditions allowed, Lin Lan really didn't want to pick a kitten at this moment.
The kittens were just born, their fur was still baby fur. They would go through a complete change later as they grew up, and only then would their true coat pattern be settled, making it easier to judge.
But thinking about Miss Wei's colleagues in her phone who were eyeing the kittens covetously—these people had stayed up most of the night just to see the cats, you could imagine what kind of determined folks they were—and considering Miss Wei's soft-hearted, not-so-good-at-refusing personality, Shopkeeper Lin decided it was best to act swiftly.
First, she ruled out the solid black, solid white, and orange ones, as she already had cats of those colors at home. Her gaze shifted between the gray tabby, the gray-and-white, and the tortoiseshell, finally settling on the gray-and-white kitten.
Hmm, when the final form couldn't be determined, clearly picking a kitten with the same coloring as its mother was the safer bet. After Niannian ended her stray life and received careful grooming, she was quite beautiful herself. Otherwise, she wouldn't have captivated so many men... ahem, so many two-legged creatures, making them stay up late caring about her giving birth.
The more she thought about it, the more she felt she couldn't delay any longer. Shopkeeper Lin quickly made her move.
"I want this kitten, the one with the same coloring as Niannian." Gently tapping the head of the gray-and-white kitten still nursing, Lin Lan said to its "cat grandma," "Wei Yan, I'm claiming this one in advance, okay?"
Miss Wei, who was chatting with her colleagues on the phone, was taken aback and instinctively turned to reply, "Ah, the gray-and-white kitten? Okay."
Instantly, the group video call exploded.
["You said you weren't giving away any kittens! Wei Yan, you liar!"]
["Yeah! We guys stayed up all night waiting for them to be born. If we're not their biological grandpas, we're at least their honorary ones. How could you bear not to give us a kitten!"]
["After all our hard work staying up late together, swapping snacks and midnight snacks—is our bond really so fragile? Wei Yan, I misjudged you. Give me a kitten and I'll take that back!"]
["Grandma Wei, raising so many cats alone is actually very hard work. Bring them to the company, and we'll help you share the burden!"]
"Shut up! Be quiet! You shameless lot!" Miss Wei erupted with a triple rebuke. "I'm giving a kitten to someone because it was agreed upon before Niannian gave birth! I couldn't handle the delivery alone, so she specifically stayed up late to help. Compared to her, you all just added noise! You're nothing!"
It wasn't until they left Miss Wei's apartment that Wang Jiayi finally burst out laughing, as if she had been holding it in the whole time.
"I really couldn't tell. Wei Yan usually seems so mild-mannered and nice, but she's actually quite the force at the company. Those male programmers didn't dare talk back at all."
Her laughter echoed in the quiet hallway, startling the young lady herself. It was already 3:30 AM, pitch black outside. Having never been outdoors at this hour before, she felt a bit spooked.
Fortunately, the hallway and stairwell had motion-sensor lights, and she had someone with her. Otherwise, Wang Jiayi really wouldn't have dared to walk alone.
Lin Lan, long accustomed to walking around her own small building, felt no fear. She picked up on the previous topic: "In tech fields, gender often doesn't matter much. The fact that Wei Yan can get along with those male colleagues and even have a bit of an edge shows her skills are no less than anyone else's. Most importantly... she holds the ownership of the kittens right now. If they don't butter up the 'cat grandma' now, do they still want a cat?"
"That makes sense." Wang Jiayi understood, then a new question arose. "But Lanlan, why didn't you take the kitten with you right away? Why leave it with Niannian?"
"Take it back now? Jiayi, are you joking?" Shopkeeper Lin instantly made a horrified face. "Newborn kittens can't defecate on their own for the first month! If the mother cat doesn't lick their bottoms to help them excrete, someone has to manually help every day. And before they can eat cat food, they need to drink milk to grow. It's no different from raising a baby. Taking care of Sapphire when he was less than two months old and sick was almost the death of me, let alone kittens whose eyes aren't even open yet?"
"It's that much trouble?" The young lady's mouth fell open. "...Sorry, never mind." That thoroughly dashed any thoughts she had of raising a kitten from infancy in the future.
"You," Lin Lan advised, seeing Wang Jiayi's budding interest, "even if you find kittens cute later, it's best to listen to the professionals. Getting a three-month-old kitten from a reputable cattery is ideal. By then, kittens have learned what they need from their mother, like being comfortable with people and using the litter box—basic socialization skills. Our feline masters look adorable, but they're not that easy to serve. Alright, we're on the second floor. You go back and rest. I'm going upstairs to sleep too."
Only then did Wang Jiayi realize they had reached the second-floor stairwell. Blushing a little upon realizing her earlier timidity had been noticed, she awkwardly wanted to say something thankful, but Shopkeeper Lin was already yawning and heading upstairs.
Leaving the young lady slightly touched.
Lanlan is really a good person.
With the shopkeeper and one employee having stayed up late, the Cat Tea House, which only had a staff of three, logically opened late the next day. They didn't open until the afternoon.
Employee Xiao Song, forced to take a half-day off: "..."
It was a good thing he already knew the shopkeeper hadn't been primarily focused on making money from the start and seemed to have found a more profitable new path. Otherwise, with such capricious business hours, the teahouse's closure would be imminent.
But perhaps because they didn't open in the morning, leading customers to think the tea house was closed all day, very few people came in the afternoon either.
So, for now, the shop was left with just the employees and a bunch of cats with nothing to do.
At that moment, Wang Jiayi sat behind the water bar, frantically sending videos and pictures of the kittens from last night into a group chat. This was for Tang Xiaoya, who couldn't stay up, and wanted to see. The two women were constantly discussing the kittens' coat patterns in the group and mentioned the shopkeeper reserving a gray-and-white kitten.
Song Xinmin looked at the kitten photos in the group for a while, then glanced around at the bunch of cats in the shop who were bored out of their minds. Suddenly, he noticed a particular aesthetic preference of the shopkeeper's.
—The shopkeeper seemed to really like cats with a "bib" or "ruff" on their chest.
Take the star attraction, the Ragdoll Sapphire. Blue bicolor, sapphire blue eyes, with a thick, beautiful ruff of fur around his neck.
Then the largest cat in the shop, the Maine Coon Mercury, silver tabby fur, also with a large pure white ruff on his chest, looking majestic whether sitting or lying down.
The Chinchilla Persian, Silver, not only had a large ruff but also a big, feather-duster-like tail. During his winter coat blowout, he was absolutely stunning.
Even among the short-haired cats, the orange tabby Gentleman had an inverted triangular bib of white fur on his chest, paired with white paws—"gloves"—also dignified and charming.
Every single one of the cats mentioned above was a stray personally chosen and brought back by the shopkeeper herself. Now, adding a little kitten with the same color distribution as its mother, Niannian, it was impossible to say this preference wasn't obvious.
...However, she herself seemed completely unaware of it.
Song Xinmin's video search found Shopkeeper Lin leaning against the back door, lying prone.
Yes, lying prone.
Because the weather had warmed up, the kotatsu used in winter had been put away again, reverting to the original bed-style soft cushion. Lin Lan was comfortably lying face down on it. Moreover, a Maine Coon cat was standing on her back, its two front paws pressing on her lower back, kneading back and forth.
"Right there, that's the spot. Keep kneading." Shopkeeper Lin, who was using the large cat as a masseuse, played with her phone while directing her feline employee without even turning her head. "Put more force into it, Mercury! Out of all the cats in the teahouse, you eat the most and poop the most. Where's the strength you use to snatch the dried fish and cans? Bring it out!"
The large cat, now over a meter long, didn't make a sound and continued kneading, giving the shopkeeper a massage. Song Xinmin thought the cat really understood her words; the pressure from its paws did indeed increase.
But the wicked shopkeeper didn't let the poor debt-ridden cat off, still muttering incessantly: "Sigh—back then, we agreed you'd work at the teahouse to pay off your debt. You could leave once you'd paid back all the canned food money. But now, months have passed, and not only have you not paid back a single can, you even owe me more cans. Tell me, what are you going to do in the future?"
The majestic and handsome-looking large cat hung its head even lower. That look of knowing it had done wrong nearly made Song Xinmin die laughing. Besides the good benefits, one reason he liked staying at this teahouse was the shopkeeper, who was practically fluent in cat language, and her interactions with the kittens.
However, his professional instinct was faster than his consciousness this time. He raised his SLR camera and snapped a picture of this scene with a click.
Right, he, also idle, had taken out his own equipment. While reviewing the photos he had taken, he kept adjusting the camera settings for reference.
That click of his also startled the resting shopkeeper and the nearby cats. The person and several cats all looked at him in unison, their highly synchronized bewildered expressions making Song Xinmin press the shutter again involuntarily.
"Xiao Song..." The shopkeeper was squinting and glaring at him now.
Song Xinmin immediately explained with a laugh: "Because it's interesting. You'll understand when I develop the photos, Shopkeeper."
Lin Lan imagined the third-person perspective of herself getting a back massage from the Maine Coon and suddenly thought it might be quite amusing too, so she didn't press the matter further. But she didn't continue lying down either: "Xiao Song, go get the ear mite drops and cotton swabs from behind the counter. I need to clean Gray."
Unlike the other cats who had been here for months or even over half a year, Gray, the new arrival, still had some minor issues because it wouldn't let people get close. Deworming was on a regular schedule, and ear mites were one of the problems, but it was nearing the end and almost cured.
Song Xinmin promptly accepted the task and left to fetch the medicine for the shopkeeper.
Meanwhile, Lin Lan got up to find the cat.
The Bengal cat Gray wasn't in the main hall of the shop but in the narrow backyard by the back door. When Lin Lan found it, the rascal was sharpening its claws on the support pillar of the wooden round table. The sharp little hooks of its recently trimmed but regrown claws left crisscrossing marks on the pillar.
Suddenly, the scruff of its neck was grabbed firmly by a hand. Instantly losing all ability to resist, the Bengal cat was lifted into the air and turned around. A pair of cat eyes met the sinister face of Shopkeeper Lin head-on.
"Gra... ay..." The terrifying two-legged beast drew out the syllables, staring intently at it. "I've told you before, right? Little cats shouldn't scratch and claw on the furniture. There's a special scratching post for you to use, yet you come back here to cause damage? No dried fish for you this month!"
"Miaow—ao—!"
The Bengal cat let out a shriek, but not only did it receive no sympathy from any other cats, it also garnered the gleeful laughter of the other two-legged beasts.
"Miaow—!" (Don't deduct my dried fish!)
Carried into the shop by Lin Lan, Gray's thought wasn't to resist but to fight for its fish. Ever since those other cats gave it a piece of Old Zhou's grilled dried fish, the Bengal cat had been conquered by that flavor. Although it remained aloof, sometimes it would compromise a little for the sake of getting dried fish. For example, letting the other two employees in the shop hold it, or even helping groom it a bit—it was gradually learning to tolerate it.
But it was limited to the temptation of dried fish; for other things, it still wouldn't budge.
Lin Lan was now leveraging this temptation to make the cat gradually obedient.
"Want some? That's fine too." Shopkeeper Lin sat back on the soft cushion, placed the cat on her lap, then picked up the ear mite medicine Song Xinmin had brought over and waved it in front of the cat. "You know what to do next, right?"
Cleaning a cat's ears for mites isn't exactly a pleasant job, especially since the cat itself is quite uncomfortable. When they first started deworming Gray, if Lin Lan hadn't had Momo and Mercury keep watch and continuously issue warnings, the cat would have lashed out and hurt someone long ago.
It was only later, when the cat itself realized its ears were feeling more and more comfortable, that it gradually reduced its struggles. But it still really hated the feeling of having its ears pinched, poked around, and filled with medicine.
"Last time. After this application, no more." Half coaxing, half persuading, the little Bengal cat finally obediently lay on Lin Lan's lap, letting her pinch its ears and apply the medicine.
Lin Lan poured the glycerin mixed with medicine into both of the Bengal cat's ears, then pinched them shut and carefully massaged for a while before letting go. The first thing the cat did upon gaining freedom was instinctively shake its head wildly, quickly flinging out all the medicated liquid used to clean the ear mites.
Much better.
Feeling its ears become clear and refreshed again, Gray glanced back at Lin Lan, then fled as if chased by a dog, afraid she might catch it again and do something else.
"This timid cat..." Muttering with an amused shake of her head, Lin Lan was about to screw the cap back on the medicine bottle when a cat suddenly jumped onto her lap and sat upright.
It was the Russian Blue, Huihui.
"What's wrong, Huihui?" Lin Lan was surprised. Wasn't it just lying in the sun with Gentleman and the others in the display window area earlier? Why suddenly come here to act spoiled?
"Miaow!" (Lanlan, Gray got some, I want some too!)
The little cat answered her confusion, but Shopkeeper Lin was even more baffled after hearing it.
But, Huihui, you're not sick; you don't need medicine.
However, the little kitten wouldn't listen. It insisted that if Gray had it, it should have it too. As a future special agent cat, it needed to prove it was stronger than Gray.
Shopkeeper Lin: "..."
Okay, little kitten, no problem, little kitten. The cat-spoiling Shopkeeper Lin indicated that all requests could be accommodated.
So, Song Xinmin, who had been observing from nearby, saw the shopkeeper actually unscrew the medicine bottle cap again, actually dab some liquid on a cotton swab, and then start wiping the pointed ears of the Russian Blue cat she had pulled over.
Is that okay? Song Xinmin was a bit nervous. Anyone knows medicine shouldn't be used indiscriminately.
But when he subconsciously moved closer to look, he realized the shopkeeper was using just a simple cleaning solution, which could also be used for daily care even if the kitten wasn't sick, and he immediately felt relieved.
Song Xinmin originally thought that would be the end of it, but Huihui, very cleverly, used its paw to pat the bottle of glycerin that Gray had used last, meaning it wanted the same treatment for that too—no skipping out.
He: "..."
It felt like the cats the shop owner raised had all become spirits—they were understanding of human nature and clever to an excessive degree.
"Alright, alright, you get that too, you get it," Lin Lan agreed readily, picking up that bottle.
Then, without even opening the lid, she started "pouring" it into the cat's ear. Once one ear was "filled," she moved on to the other, and then, just like with the Bengal cat, she gave both a good rub.
"Wow, Huihui, you're amazing!" Finally, the shop owner lavishly praised the blue cat. "You're braver than Gray! You're the best little kitty!"
Huihui, who had been habitually shaking its head because of the itch, initially felt something wasn't quite right. But with such praise, the kitten immediately forgot everything, puffed out its chest proudly, and happily ran off, returning to the window display area to sit up straight once more, resuming its role as a beautiful fake cat.
Having watched the entire process of the kitten being fooled, Song Xinmin: "..."
The shop owner was indeed still the shop owner, always full of new tricks.
Lin Lan paid no mind to her employee Xiao Song's complex inner thoughts, humming a little tune as she put the medicine back in the cabinet behind the counter.
Just as she straightened up, the doorbell jangled violently as the door was pushed open forcefully. A little girl ran in, heading straight for the window display section.
"Meow, Yellow Meow!"
