What?

You want to buy shakima at this hour?

Lin Xu looked at the ten thousand yuan Shen Jiayue transferred over, both laughing and crying—he had a feeling one of her relatives got scammed again.

But actually, this was a rare lull in business right now.

Making some shakima was doable.

Just right to film and edit into a food vlog.

There were only nine days left to hit the 100k followers milestone, so he needed to get moving fast.

With that in mind,

he handed off the meat-cutting task to Niu Chuan, then went into the storage room to get the shakima ingredients, fit his phone onto the tripod, adjusted the height and angle, put on his Bluetooth headset, switched on the mic, and started recording.

For Lin Xu, this gig was a bit out of his comfort zone.

Because Carboy and the others around him were all busy working, while he had to explain things seriously to a phone clamped onto a tripod—it was pretty embarrassing, honestly.

But thinking about that perfect-level stir-fry.

He could only tough it out and keep recording.

Making shakima goes through five steps: dough making, rolling out, frying, simmering the sugar, and molding. Lin Xu shot it segment by segment.

When it got to the frying part, Shen Jiayue came back with Dundun.

"Dundun doesn't have any parasites at all, and all the blood test indicators are normal."

She let Dundun out of the cat carrier, and the little guy darted to the water bowl, sticking out his tiny tongue to drink some water.

Lin Xu kept filming.

To make the video look better,

after the sugar was ready, he took the syrup-coated crisp strips out of the pot, put them on a tray, and moved everything out to the dining table. He switched out the tripod for an octopus phone stand set on a neighboring table.

This way, he could capture the molding process clearly while also making it easier to explain.

All set up, he started organizing the crisp strips on the tray in front of the camera.

As he arranged them, he explained the key points.

Right as he was recording, Dundun, who'd been playing with Shen Jiayue, suddenly hopped onto the dining table, squeezed his big round face in front of the camera, and stared at the phone lens in confusion.

"Dundun, what are you doing? Don't block the camera!"

Shen Jiayue came over, scooped the little one up in her arms.

Lin Xu was in the groove, so he didn't redo that segment and just kept filming.

But it wasn't long before—

Dundun jumped back up on the table again, sneaking closer to the phone like he was hunting. When he got right up to it, he even flashed the claws hidden under his paw pads.

Just as Dundun was about to whack the phone, Yueyue Demon King scooped him up again.

Once the shakima on the tray set,

Lin Xu dumped them out and cut them into small pieces.

Black sugar shakima already looked great, and with this perfect-level method, it was especially mouthwatering.

"Take a look, everyone. Here's the finished black sugar shakima. It's super soft, and the syrup inside hasn't totally set, so if you pull gently, it'll stretch into threads."

Lin Xu held the shakima up to the camera for a close-up, while Dundun jumped from the next table onto his shoulder.

The little guy rubbed Lin Xu's face, then stretched his neck to sniff the shakima featured in the shot.

His little nose even twitched as he sniffed.

Looking super interested.

Lin Xu could only helplessly cradle the little guy in his arms, said a couple of closing words, and finished recording.

Thanks to Dundun's interruptions,

the shoot didn't turn out that well this time.

But just to have something,

Lin Xu did a quick edit on his phone and uploaded it to the short video platform.

Once that was done, lunch service started in the restaurant.

He washed his hands and sat down to eat with Shen Jiayue, sneaking glances at Wu Kexin and Old Mr. Gao's livestream at the Fishing Platform State Guesthouse.

Just as they were eating, the same group of old folks from the morning pushed open the door and came in.

"Young man, are you open for business now?"

Lin Xu put down his bowl and said,

"Yes, yes, we're open! What would you like to eat?"

"Two small bowls of noodles with braised eggplant and pork sauce, two small bowls of tomato egg noodles, and a plate of lotus root…and tiger skin… Young man, do you trim the talons off your tiger skin chicken feet?"

"Yes, they're all trimmed clean."

"Then give us eight pieces, please."

After paying at the counter, the old folks walked in and went straight to Dundun, gathering around to watch the little cat play up close.

"Kitty, we've come to see you. Do you still remember us?"

Dundun was playing with a toy made of cow bone and feathers. It was great for teething and could be rolled around for fun—the little guy was having a blast.

"Wow, what a cute cat."

"She's adorable—so cute and cuddly. Why don't we just have lunch here?"

"Let's eat here! We can pet the cat, too."

"…"

A few young women in mall sales uniforms saw Dundun playing through the window and nearly melted from how adorable he was.

Just like that, the shop got a few more customers.

When Yue Liyue and his roommates came for lunch, he, who always arrived early, was surprised to find the place already half full.

"What's going on? Is my watch broken?"

Usually, when he showed up at this hour, there were only a couple customers, sometimes even none.

What the heck happened today?

I've been the first one here for days, and now it's gone just like that?

Just as he was wondering, Panda walked over from afar.

"Whoa, why are there so many people in here?"

Panda was a little shocked too.

The group came into the shop together.

Then they realized a bunch of customers were watching Dundun play.

"Wow, this cat's even chubbier than in the videos, and honestly, pretty cute."

Yue Liyue snapped a photo of Dundun for his profile pic, while Panda shot a video and sent it to Wu Kexin:

"Boss Lin's adopted cat comes with its own talents and just brought in a crowd of customers for the shop."

After sending that,

he ordered a small bowl of tomato egg noodles.

Ever since he decided to lose weight, Panda had been super disciplined with his diet.

Plus, he spent every day at the gym, and now looked way less round than before.

Even his movements had become much more agile.

"Panda bro, have a beer with us to recharge!"

After Yue Liyue's little dishes and chicken feet arrived, he greeted him warmly.

Panda waved his hand and declined.

To him, slimming down to lightning speed was top priority right now—only then would he be worthy of Streamer Wu.

Otherwise, even if she said yes,

he'd always feel insecure, couldn't be confident.

"I'm full!"

After a morning of cat-cuddling, Shen Jiayue finished eating, played with Dundun for a bit, took tons of selfies with Geng Lele (each holding a cat), and then took Lin Xu's packed shakima home.

Had to swing by home before heading back to work.

So exhausting!

On the short video platform,

Lin Xu's video passed the system review and got automatically published.

The few thousand accounts following Lin Xu instantly saw the update.

"Perfect black sugar shakima recipe? Boss Lin, pretty efficient! Just called Xinxin about this yesterday, and now there's a vlog?"

Everyone clicked on the video.

To be honest, from a technical standpoint, Lin Xu's video footage was simple, the editing rough, his narration not super lively—pretty run-of-the-mill in the world of lifestyle vlogs.

But the moment Dundun's big round cat face appeared on camera, the whole video took on a completely different vibe…

——————

Bros, vote for monthly tickets and recommendations! I only hopped onto the trial after ten thousand words, and the rotation for recommendations still hasn't come around, and we're already at almost two hundred thousand words. So I'll have to cap the word count for now and bomb out updates after we launch. Please hang in there, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.