After a brief chat, Mi Cai and I entered the café, where the warm air from the air conditioner gave us a sense of entering a different world. At that moment, the owner, who had been watching a movie on her computer, noticed our arrival and stood up to greet us. I introduced Mi Cai to her. As with everyone else, the owner was surprised upon first seeing Mi Cai, amazed at how delicate her features were and how uniquely elegant her demeanor was.
The three of us sat down near the window and didn’t immediately get into serious conversation. Instead, we talked about CC, who was known by the alias “Rose Patient.” The owner told us that the Rose Patient had sung a song at her café, and she had kindly recorded it and played it for Mi Cai and me to listen to. This made both of us feel a wave of sadness because the song was exactly the one Mi Cai had sung the first time I took her to the restaurant in Kongcheng. This time, however, she sang it very sorrowfully and painfully. In the middle part, she didn’t even sing in a musical style but rather spoke, as if narrating her feelings. From this, I deduced that after leaving Suzhou, her first stop must have been Xuzhou, the place where she felt the most heartbroken.
I thought again about Roben and Wei Manwen… It seemed that their tragedies were all caused by mistakenly believing in the lie that giving up is noble. After giving up, neither of them found happiness again.
After a moment of silence, I finally recalled the purpose of coming here in the morning. I finally got to the point and sincerely said to the owner, “Let’s talk about the café now. After going home last night, I discussed with my girlfriend and we think we might actually be able to manage this café well. So today we came to talk with you. First, I want to state clearly that we can accept your asking price of 100,000 yuan. We don’t plan to negotiate the price further. However, we only have 50,000 yuan in savings right now, so we’d like to know whether you could possibly accept installment payments…”
Before the owner could respond, Mi Cai added, “If you can accept this, it would be a great help to us. If you feel it’s inconvenient, we will try to find other solutions. We really want to take over this café.”
After a brief moment of consideration, the owner smiled warmly and said to us, “I believe in fate. Since we have met like this, I’m naturally willing to help with such a small favor as installment payments. Also, my husband has lost confidence in this café and keeps telling me to close it down. Whether we transfer it or not doesn’t matter much to him. He just wants me to focus on taking care of the children. Now that you are willing to take over, you are helping me out. I hope you can make this café successful again, continuing my little dream. Then, in the future, I can still come here and enjoy a cup of coffee in a café that I poured my heart into creating.”
Mi Cai and I looked at each other, both seeing joy in the other’s eyes, and together we assured the owner that we would definitely manage the café well.
The owner also seemed relieved to have this matter settled. She said to us, “How about this: you pay me a deposit of 20,000 yuan first, keep the remaining 30,000 yuan as operating capital for the café, and then pay me 5,000 yuan monthly until the total of 100,000 yuan is reached. Does that sound acceptable to you?”
I had been worried about the operating costs after taking over, and now she had given me such a generous arrangement. I sincerely thanked her again, as did Mi Cai. We hadn’t expected her to trust us so much. Perhaps she was also a woman with dreams of her own, but lacked the ability to realize them. Thus, she placed her hopes on us to continue her dream, and to her, these small sums of money weren’t that important anymore.
In the afternoon, we drafted the transfer contract, then took out 20,000 yuan in cash and gave it to the owner. From that moment on, the café’s management rights were officially transferred to me. However, I didn’t feel any sense of relief. Sometimes, turning ideas into reality requires strong execution ability. There would be many unexpected risks along the way, and management is indeed a discipline that cannot be taken lightly or assumed.
I decided to temporarily close the café for five days to make some minor modifications, including changing the café’s name, replacing the signboard, and recruiting a barista since I didn’t know how to make coffee or other beverages. Moreover, I needed a significant amount of time to contact various photography studios in the city, trying to get them to accept my ideas and help promote the café’s visibility.
The business situation was quite severe because the 30,000 yuan the previous owner had left me would barely last two months. That meant I had to make the café profitable within two months—a challenge that was self-evident. I needed to be fully aware that I was racing against time…
That night, I worked on the café’s cost budget and sales plan for the next two months on my computer while Mi Cai worked on editing the photo shoot from that afternoon. Before we knew it, it was already late at night, and we temporarily stopped working. We ate the late-night snack my mother had sent over while chatting together.
I asked her, “Actually, I’m quite curious—why did you choose to become Xiao Yun’s assistant, even though I know it’s only temporary?”
Mi Cai smiled slightly and said, “You know, I’ve always been at the top management level of Zhuomei. My usual work style can’t be changed overnight. I understand that it will be difficult for me to adjust to accommodating my superiors in a short time. I’m afraid they might even have to accommodate me instead, which wouldn’t be appropriate, right? But Xiao Yun is someone I know well, so we don’t have to be too concerned about hierarchical relationships at work, making it easier for us to get along. I hope that in this situation, I can quickly adapt to my current work environment and change my fixed mindset… Most importantly, isn’t this exactly what you hoped for?”
After Mi Cai said this, I realized why I had so readily supported her decision in the first place—it was a decision that gave me a strong sense of security. If her superior had been an unfamiliar man, there would always be the possibility that he might develop feelings for Mi Cai beyond the professional realm. But with Li Xiaoyun, I had absolutely no concerns in that regard. Moreover, having Li Xiaoyun accompany her at the company meant she wouldn’t feel so lonely. As she herself had mentioned, she was used to being in a high position and found it difficult to actively accommodate others.
Her temporary choice was beneficial for herself and gave me peace of mind, which was a rare and valuable quality about her. Her thoughts were more delicate and strategic than those of ordinary women. Yet, seeing this, I thought again about my past mistakes in Suzhou. It was because I didn’t trust her judgment and repeatedly obstructed her that Fang Yuan and Xiang Chen had the opportunity to take advantage, ultimately leading to the loss of Zhuomei. As for the life I was living now, I couldn’t even be sure whether it was what she truly desired or whether she was genuinely happy.
As if seeing through my thoughts, Mi Cai asked, “Zhaoyang, what are you thinking about?”
“Nothing, nothing… By the way, the café has been successfully taken over, so I should return the car key to you now.” I said, opening the locked drawer and handing the key to the Audi Q7 back to Mi Cai.
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