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Chapter 23: The Unexpected Guests (1/2)

Time quickly approached closing time, a period when, under normal circumstances, no more customers would arrive. But…

“Ding-ling—” The wind chime on the store door rang. Shen Cheng, seated at the front desk, glanced over instinctively. The next moment, he furrowed his brow slightly.

A man and a young girl entered, both dressed in casual attire.

The man had a jade-like face, his eyes constantly squinted, never fully opening, with a perpetual smile at the corners of his mouth, resembling a fox.

The young girl wore a casual hoodie, her hood covering her head. A few strands of jet-black hair hung over her shoulders, revealing part of her delicate yet slightly cold face beneath the hood. She seemed to have a serious, unsmiling personality.

Shen Cheng felt something was off about these two, especially the girl, who gave him an eerie yet familiar sensation.

Following the café’s rules, the two washed and disinfected their hands carefully and put on shoe covers before officially entering the Cat café.

“Welcome nya!”

“Welcome!”

Two cat girls approached to greet them. The pair silently stared at the cat girls for a long moment, then exchanged a serious glance before walking straight toward Shen Cheng.

The moment the two stepped into the shop, Xiang Long, sitting in the corner grooming a cat, suddenly had a sharp look in his eyes beneath his glasses. He discreetly shifted his body closer toward Shen Cheng, keeping a close watch on the pair rapidly approaching him.

Unlike Shen Cheng, Xiang Long felt an inexplicable sense of repulsion the moment he saw the two, as if their very presence clashed with his own nature.

Inside the Cat café, apart from Shen Cheng and Xiang Long, no one else paid any particular attention to the pair. To everyone else, they were just regular customers like them.

It wasn’t until the two reached the counter that Shen Cheng greeted them with a faint smile, “Welcome, would you like to order?”

“…” The girl suddenly leaned over the counter, stopping only a few inches from Shen Cheng’s face, staring intently into his eyes with her pitch-black gaze, as if trying to uncover something within him.

Shen Cheng, confident in his integrity, met her gaze calmly, the smile never leaving his face.

“Why did you take them in? What’s your purpose?” the girl whispered in a voice only Shen Cheng could hear.

Upon hearing this, Shen Cheng’s pupils contracted sharply, but he still responded with a faint smile, “And what’s your purpose in asking?”

Although Shen Cheng maintained a smile, the girl felt an inexplicable chill run down her spine.

The chill made the girl’s heart tremble slightly—she could tell that the man in front of her wasn’t capable of withstanding even one of her moves, yet the chill brought an overwhelming sense of threat!

It was astonishing. She had the distinct feeling that if she spoke ill of those two cat girls, even though the man couldn’t defeat her, he would stop at nothing to make her pay dearly!

“Protection…”

Was it because he wanted to protect them, to protect his “family”?

Understanding Shen Cheng’s stance, the girl nodded in satisfaction before straightening up and putting some distance between herself and him, leaving Shen Cheng somewhat puzzled.

Afterward, in a silent gesture visible only to Shen Cheng, she lifted a corner of her hood, revealing something underneath, before quickly covering it again.

What Shen Cheng saw beneath her hood for just a brief moment left him utterly shocked, his cautious expression turning to disbelief!

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