The news that all electronic devices would malfunction if they were within two meters of Mai Xiaoshu spread quickly throughout the campus. From that day on, everyone would run away as fast as a meteor when they saw her, avoiding her like the plague.
Every time she came home, the internet was disconnected. Even Song Feifei couldn't stand it anymore and frowned at her in pain.
She understood everyone's situation. Young people would rather eat less than lose their internet access. After weighing the pros and cons, she buried her phone in a hidden pile of dirt at the corner of the community, some distance away from the residential buildings. Although she was reluctant to leave it behind, she knew that only by staying away from this "cursed" phone would she avoid being abandoned by the whole world.
From then on, Mai Xiaoshu began to live without a mobile phone.
Winter vacation soon arrived, but life did not become peaceful. There were always waves when she least expected it.
One day, after she washed all the dishes, mopped the floor, and had time to bathe all the cats, Boss Yu, who had been sitting by the window counting bills early in the morning, sighed and called her over: "Do you have any friends who like animals? Ask them to help take in these cats first?"
"Boss, are you planning to close the shop?"
"I just calculated that the store has lost a total of 20,000 yuan in the past two months. If I continue to run the business, I will go bankrupt, not to mention paying you."
The two men frowned as they thought about the bleak future.
"Everyone has a cat on their phone... I don't understand why so many people like cats on their phones when they can't touch them. Our cats are also very cute and so docile..."
There was endless complaints in Boss Yu's tone, but his words were like a wake-up call, making Mai Xiaoshu suddenly realize that the cats in the cat cafe were not docile at all, they were clearly aloof!
Many people like cats because they are not clingy like dogs, but most of the customers who come to cat cafes do not have cats. Many of them regard cats as cute animals and want to make them happy by amusing them. But if there is a cat on their mobile phone that is not clingy and can make them happy, and they don’t have to go to the store specifically, cat cafes will naturally become less popular.
“What if we do the opposite?”
"Do the opposite? What are you talking about?" Yu Shang frowned when he heard Mai Xiaoshu's sudden words.
"Boss, give me some time, I will find a way to get the business back to normal!"
"Stop messing around. What else can you do?" Yu Shang was just a working-class man who yearned for a petty-bourgeois lifestyle. The money he had previously invested in the cafe had almost used up half of his savings. He couldn't afford to pay for it if he continued to spend more.
Mai Xiaoshu knew Yu Shang wouldn't believe her, so she put her hands on the table and looked him in the eyes firmly: "Give me a month. If you fail, I will pay you back these months' wages to offset next month's rent."
Yu Shang was frightened by her aggressive look and trembled. He didn't believe it at first. But he thought that he would not lose out no matter whether it succeeded or not, so he agreed to her: "It's a deal! You can do whatever you want in the next month!"
After Yu Shang left, Mai Xiaoshu gathered all the cats and lined them up in a row.
They looked like soldiers in military training , each holding their heads high and chests puffed out with high spirits under Mai Xiaoshu's command. She was like a strict instructor, with her hands on her waist, and said sternly: "Do you want to become stray cats and go hungry or stay in this luxurious cafe and receive my service every day!"
"Of course I want you to serve me!" The cats meowed in unison.
"In that case, you have to listen to me for the next period of time!"
"What are you doing? Who provoked you? Do you want us to teach them a lesson?" asked one of the cats, licking his paw.
"We do have to fight a war, but it's not a physical fight, it's a business war! I will make you little belly|belly bags, and from now on the task of serving snacks to customers will be handed over to you. If we don't get good sales this month, we will all be homeless! Do you have any objections?"
The cats whimpered and groaned: "Ah... This is so tiring!"
Some simply sat down and said, "I don't want to be a waiter!"
"Yeah, you're treating us as free labor!"
"You guys!" Xiao Shu looked disappointed. "This is a critical period for the coffee shop. If anyone has any objections, find a way to fill your stomach later. If you don't have any objections, I will prepare more delicious cat food later. If you don't want to, please stand up now."
Sure enough, under her intimidation and inducement, no cat dared to make a sound.
The next day, her plan began to proceed in full swing. She even asked Song Feifei to help distribute flyers with an eye-catching slogan printed on them - the world's first cat-serving restaurant is now open!
At first, pedestrians on the street thought it was just an exaggerated gimmick of the merchant and ignored it.
Until a group of teenage girls saw the flyer with a cute cat wearing a bellyband, they couldn't help but become curious and came into the store.
When they saw the chubby Garfield cat walking towards them wearing a bellyband with cookies in the bag, they were immediately touched by its cuteness. They exclaimed that it was adorable and couldn't help but take out their cell phones to take various cute photos of the cats and upload them to the Internet.
After the internet fermented it, half a month later, when Yu Shang received a call from Mai Xiaoshu asking her to come and help quickly because she was short of staff, he thought she was exaggerating. Unexpectedly, when he went to check, he found that the cafe really returned to its previous bustling situation!
Half a month later, a man appeared in front of the bar of the coffee shop. He was dressed in a suit and looked completely different from the young people who often came to the coffee shop.
As soon as he entered the door, he accurately recognized Yu Shang, who was busy at the bar, as the boss. The business card he handed to him read: Dong Hao, agent of Lemon Film and Television Group.
Dong Hao said that the popular actress Zhong Na took a fancy to this cafe and wanted to rent it for a period of time to shoot a music MV.
Zhong Na is a singer who has recently become popular thanks to an idol audition program. If we can use her MV to create momentum, the coffee shop will definitely become an Internet celebrity store in the future, and there will be no need to worry about lack of business.
He nodded and agreed without thinking. When he mentioned this to Mai Xiaoshu, Mai Xiaoshu was overjoyed. Although she didn't watch TV much, Zhong Na's singing voice was particularly clear. She became a fan of her after she accidentally heard it while walking on the street one day.
They waited for Zhong Na's arrival with great joy these days. Finally, the day of the MV shooting arrived, and the behind-the-scenes team came early. When they were ready, it was already afternoon, and then they heard the news that Zhong Na was about to arrive.
Mai Xiaoshu and his friends thought that Zhong Na would make a big fuss when she came. Unexpectedly, she appeared in a very low-key manner, wearing an ordinary white T-shirt and trousers, followed by her manager Dong Hao and a person who shocked Mai Xiaoshu - An Chengye!