Chapter 285: I Want to See Just How Bad It Tastes

“Hey guys, a few small trucks are coming this way. I’m guessing they’re here to donate supplies too. Let’s check it out—who’s got such deep pockets to donate that much stuff?”

Du Xiaoxiao spoke to her livestream audience, her eyes fixed curiously on the approaching trucks in the distance.

She had visited the Rescue Station many times, but this was the first time she’d seen someone donate so much in one go.

“Damn, that’s five trucks, right? Must be a big shot.”

“Xiaoxiao only brought one truck, right? This is five times her haul.”

“Xiaoxiao just got outclassed!”

“Xiaoxiao babe, quick—order a few more truckloads of dog food. We’ve got your back!”

“……”

As Du Xiaoxiao turned her phone camera toward the slowly approaching trucks, the comment feed exploded with scrolling messages.

Before long,

The trucks came to a slow stop at the entrance of the Rescue Station. Two young women stepped down from the vehicles.

The Rescue Station’s director had already come out to greet them.

After a brief exchange, the director led the two women into the Rescue Station, a smile on his face.

Seeing the director’s expression, Du Xiaoxiao was certain now—the trucks were loaded with donated supplies.

She thought for a moment, then picked up her phone and walked over.

“Xiaoxiao, let me introduce you. These two lovely ladies are from Nanhe Coffee. They’ve donated half a million worth of supplies to the Rescue Station,” the director said with a smile as Du Xiaoxiao approached.

He was already quite familiar with Du Xiaoxiao—she came by every few months to donate supplies.

“Hi, I’m Du Xiaoxiao, a livestreamer. I’m streaming right now—hope you don’t mind?”

Du Xiaoxiao smiled at the two women.

“Not at all. We do some streaming too, but we’re not very popular,” one of them replied with a wave.

“I’m Liu Meng, and this is my sister Liu Xiang. We’re both employees at Nanhe Coffee, and we’re here today on behalf of the company to donate supplies.”

Liu Meng and her sister were twins, among the first to be transferred to Beijing to handle office matters.

A few days ago, they received word from Jiangcheng that President Chen had transferred 500,000 yuan to the Beijing Nanhe Coffee branch account to support the local Stray Cat and Dog Rescue Station.

After two days of preparation, they had finally gathered all the supplies and hired a few trucks to deliver them today.

“‘Nanhe Coffee’? Sounds like ‘Nanhē Coffee’—‘Hard-to-Drink Coffee’?” Du Xiaoxiao asked, puzzled.

Was there really a coffee brand called “Hard-to-Drink Coffee”?

Liu Meng saw the look on her face and immediately understood the misunderstanding. But she wasn’t offended—after all, “Nanhe” and “nanhē” did sound pretty similar, and it wasn’t the first time someone had made that mistake.

She smiled and explained, “It’s ‘Nan’ as in ‘south’ and ‘He’ as in ‘peace’—Nanhe Coffee.”

“Oh, sorry, I misunderstood,” Du Xiaoxiao said with an awkward smile.

“No worries, it’s an easy mistake to make,” Liu Meng replied with a shake of her head.

“Xiaoxiao, you’re all around the same age—why don’t you show our guests around? Take them to see the cats. They’re planning to adopt a few,” the director said apologetically. “I’ll go arrange for the unloading.”

“Sure,” Du Xiaoxiao nodded, then turned to Liu Meng and Liu Xiang.

“Come with me. I’ve been to this Rescue Station many times—I know the place well.”

“Any idea how many cats you’re planning to adopt?” she asked, holding up her phone as she streamed and led them inside.

“Probably around twenty to twenty-five. We’ll pick them out today, and then adopt them officially in about a month,” Liu Meng replied, glancing around the Rescue Station as she walked.

“Twenty-plus cats? Just the two of you?” Du Xiaoxiao exclaimed in surprise.

She had thought they were just cat lovers planning to take home a few pets. She hadn’t expected them to adopt over twenty—how could they possibly manage that?

“Oh, no, not us personally. It’s for our coffee shop. Have you heard of Cat Cafés?” Liu Meng explained.

“I have! I heard they’re really popular in Jiangcheng. I’ve been thinking of visiting there myself,” Du Xiaoxiao said.

“The very first Cat Café in Jiangcheng was opened by our Nanhe Coffee. The others that came after only started making money because ours became such a hit,” Liu Meng said proudly, straightening up a bit at the mention of their flagship store.

“But I heard those Cat Cafés have lots of rare and expensive cat breeds. If you’re adopting from a Rescue Station, there won’t be many of those,” Du Xiaoxiao said, puzzled.

Lately, all the buzz she’d heard was about how Cat Cafés were booming, mostly because of their beautiful and rare cats.

She’d never heard anyone talk about adopting cats from a Rescue Station for that purpose.

Liu Meng sighed.

“Our first Cat Café used only cats from Rescue Stations. No rare breeds. Our founder’s original intention was to ease the burden on Rescue Stations and help more stray cats.”

“But as competition grew, people started bringing in rare breeds to attract more customers.”

“Even so, our boss insisted on sticking with stray cats from Rescue Stations,” she said firmly.

Du Xiaoxiao nodded in admiration, her curiosity piqued—not just about the Cat Café in Jiangcheng, but also about the mysterious owner behind it.

What kind of person would willingly give up profit just to help stray cats?

And the donation wasn’t small either—it was worth half a million in supplies.

What made it even more remarkable was that if she hadn’t stumbled upon it by chance, this whole thing might’ve gone completely unnoticed.

As Du Xiaoxiao was still marveling at the discovery, the live streaming chat exploded once again.

“Damn, I’m from Jiangcheng, and I’ve been to that Nanhe Coffee once. The cheapest cup was 51 yuan—super pricey. I felt awkward just walking out, so I ordered one. Tasted pretty good though, way better than Starbucks. But it was too expensive, so I never went back. Still, knowing the owner is this kind-hearted, maybe I’ll drop by once in a while to show some support.”

“Hahaha, I’ve been to that Cat Café with my partner. It was really nice. Later on, newer cat cafés opened up with rarer breeds, so we started going to those instead. But now that I know the owner of this one is so compassionate, I’ll definitely go back to the Nanhe Coffee Cat Café next time.”

“I’m not really into cats, but after hearing you guys talk, now I’m curious about this ‘terrible-tasting’ coffee. I kinda want to try it—see how bad it really is.”

“Not bad. The owner’s got guts—naming the place like that, not afraid it’ll scare off customers? But hey, I’ve always been a rebel. Now I really want to give it a shot.”

“……”