Chapter 18

Changning Community is the closest residential area to Little Sun Rescue House, with the two neighborhoods right next to each other. As a result, most of the stray cats here have been neutered—many residents are familiar with the rescue house staff, and when new stray cats appear, they usually call the hospital to have them picked up.

Therefore, Chu Tingwu chose this community as her first pilot location.

Since the stray cats here are actually registered at Little Sun Hospital, she can directly compare her work with the hospital's records after completing today's task to determine if she missed any cats or made any mistakes.

After releasing the white cat, Chu Tingwu randomly caught a passing orange tabby and gave it a deworming treatment. The little orange cat lay in her palm, neither struggling nor meowing, just unable to resist lifting its upper body to lick its fur.

Meanwhile, Three-Five-Five, wearing a collar, slowly sauntered over with a robust calico cat following behind.

[Just noticed Three-Five-Five isn't around, did she go for a walk?]

[That cat behind Three-Five-Five hasn't been photographed! Quick, Chu, take a picture!]

The calico cat looked up at Chu Tingwu with a slightly puzzled expression. Chu Tingwu took out a thermos and some cat treats she had prepared in advance. She tore open a packet of treats for the calico to smell, then opened the thermos—inside was cat food she had made earlier.

The calico cat took the treat in its mouth, sat on it, then ate a couple bites of the cat food, meowed twice, and then buried its head in the thermos.

Chu Tingwu explained to her fans: "Even stray cats have their own territories. They leave their scent in places where they frequently move about, and the stray cats in the community know best where other cats are active. This one is a relatively high-ranking community cat."

This calico cat was quite old, and many of the stray cats in the community were its descendants.

[Task: Collect data on all stray cats in Changning Community]

[Task progress: After photographing some of the active cats, you've found a local community cat and are asking if it's willing to exchange information about other cats for treats and food...]

In the live stream, the calico cat was still eating, so the task progress bar was slowly charging. Although the audience wasn't present, they were on edge, as if they had stepped into Chu Tingwu's shoes, waiting for the calico's evaluation of the cat food.

The calico finally licked the bowl clean, raised a front paw to pat Chu Tingwu's calf, then swept its tail across her ankle before running off with the treat in its mouth.

[Huh? Is that a yes or a no?]

[Don't tell me it just tricked her for the treat and ran?]

Chu Tingwu meowed a couple of times after it, and the calico stopped, responding with a thin "meow" before jumping onto a flowerbed, running and calling out at the same time.

Chu Tingwu: "She agreed. I'll go prepare some materials."

She called Hang Ling and headed to the community's central activity area with Three-Five-Five.

These community activity areas usually have simple exercise equipment and playground facilities, as well as benches for resting. Changning Community was no exception, with benches not far from a sandbox, and unlike other communities, it had a small running track with a circular mini-plaza in the center.

When Chu Tingwu arrived, some elderly people were exercising and chatting on the equipment, while other residents were sitting on benches playing with their phones and enjoying the breeze. Perhaps because the sun was quite strong, there weren't many people at the sandbox and slide—the children were probably staying indoors.

Noticing Chu Tingwu approaching with a cat on a leash, someone sitting in the shade under the slide glanced at her, stood up to make way, and gestured with their eyes:

"Little one, you can play."

Chu Tingwu, who considered herself too old for slides, replied: "...Thank you."

Her fans sent a flood of teasing comments.

The person watched from the side as Chu Tingwu checked her phone, realizing that the others wouldn't arrive for a while. She looked down and picked up Three-Five-Five.

Three-Five-Five: "...?"

She placed Three-Five-Five on the slide, and the tortoiseshell cat, like a lump of black glutinous rice cake, slowly slid down.

Three-Five-Five: "......"

When Chu Tingwu reached out again, the cat mom dodged to the side.

She climbed up the ladder to the top of the slide, where there was a big-mouthed Mickey Mouse. The tortoiseshell cat perched on Mickey's head, looked at her kitten, and meowed once.

The kind resident who had made way exclaimed, "Wow, your cat is quite smart. Looks like it's telling you to play, right?"

He raised his phone and started snapping photos of Three-Five-Five. Ignoring the laughter in the comments, Chu Tingwu gently meowed, telling Three-Five-Five:

"It's okay, I don't want to play."

The cat mom yawned, shook her head, then suddenly darted off. Soon, she was chasing the little orange tabby that Chu Tingwu had just dewormed, herding it onto the slide, then looking at her kitten:

"Come play push-push meow, don't you like playing push-push?"

Push this orange cat down.

Chu Tingwu: Three-Five-Five... are you really not getting revenge?

Is it because the orange tabby had just been lying on her leg?

Soon after, Hang Ling, the photographer, Lizi, and several others arrived at the activity area carrying bags, accompanied by property management staff.

They had expected to find Chu Tingwu waiting in the shade, but instead found a crowd gathered around the children's play area. Soon, there was a burst of cheers, applause, and photo-taking. Undoubtedly, Chu Tingwu and Three-Five-Five were at the center of the crowd.

—Occasionally, there were even shouts of "One more time!"

Hang Ling: "...Is Chu Chu making Three-Five-Five do backflips or something?"

Weren't they supposed to be making cat food? Why are they putting on a show?

They didn't try to squeeze through the crowd, but instead busied themselves for a while, setting up a folding cart that looked like a night market stall. Prompted by the system, Chu Tingwu learned that Hang Ling and the others had arrived. She emerged from the crowd, followed by several stray cats.

The stray cats lined up, and when they realized Chu Tingwu wasn't going to pick them up, they scattered in small groups nearby, grooming each other, while some approached to sniff the food bowls Hang Ling was setting out.

An elderly person approached, asking the property management staff curiously:

"What are you selling?"

The staff shook their head: "They're preparing to make cat food on-site to feed the cats."

The old man looked around and recognized Hang Ling: "Little Hang, what's going on with your hospital? Not catching cats anymore, just feeding them directly?"

He seemed a bit displeased: "We feed the stray cats in our community ourselves. The food containers are mostly full most of the time. Why do you need to come here specially to feed them?"

Was this distrust or what?

Hang Ling smiled apologetically: "No, uncle, we're not here to feed the cats. We want to record some data about the cats—"

She explained the purpose of the app to the elderly residents, and immediately some of the older women wanted to download it:

"This app won't randomly delete photos, will it? Is there a limit on how many photos you can upload? Oh, let me download it. My phone is already full of cat photos I've taken. My daughter told me to transfer them to a computer or some kind of cloud storage, but I don't know how to use those things!"

Now there's an app specifically for uploading these cat photos, and it even automatically identifies and matches them. No need to create albums and categorize them manually!

Hang Ling: "Auntie, this app isn't really for... um..."

The older woman asked: "Can't it be used like that?"

Hang Ling: Well, I suppose it's not impossible...

She quietly asked Chu Tingwu: "There should be a limit on how many photos of the same cat, right?"

Chu Tingwu was silent for three seconds: "The system will automatically identify and display the five clearest photos and the five with the most likes, showing only ten in total. But for photos you've taken yourself... they can be stored in your personal interface and can also be displayed."

—In those three seconds, this function was added to the app's system.

As Hang Ling went to relay this information, Chu Tingwu also realized: "The app does need to be tested. There are many functions we couldn't have thought of on our own."

The details from various aspects still needed users to experience and provide suggestions.

As soon as she said this, her fans became excited:

[Master Chu, how do you distribute the beta codes? Is it a lottery? Pick me, pick me! I've been your loyal fan for ten years! I grew up watching your videos!!]

[Master Chu, I can pay for beta testing! There are so many cats where I live, I encounter a bunch every day when I go for a run. Please let me take photos, I'm begging you, meow—]

[Step aside! I've won gold awards in photography competitions, my cat photos will be clear and beautiful for sure!]

Chu Tingwu: "==" Sёarch* The nôvelFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

She explained, "I've arranged for local university students to help me with testing, so we should have enough testers..."

Moreover, the elderly folks in the community also seemed eager to download and try it out. They had money and free time, loved cats, and often went out for walks and exercise. Their photography skills might not be top-notch, but they were good enough.

However, the photographer sister had mentioned that more interaction with fans could increase fan loyalty, so she said, "My current goal is to collect data on all the cats in Fallen Phoenix City. How about this... local residents can send me private messages, and after the livestream, I'll randomly select ten people to receive one-time download codes."

The private messages were constantly flooding in, with many non-locals trying their luck, but they were mercilessly filtered out by the system.

Meanwhile, the nearby community residents had the advantage of proximity. Hang Ling added them to the testing group and directly shared the app. Even the property management lady couldn't resist downloading it—of course, this was more because Little Sun Hospital had always maintained a good reputation in their area.

Just then, someone sniffed the air and couldn't help but say, "This smell..."

It smelled delicious.

Simple ingredients with minimal seasoning, but carefully combined, the natural aromas of the ingredients blended together, emitting an enticing smell of cooked food. Because of the "human cat," the system's recipe was suitable for both humans and cats... The cats playing nearby were attracted by the smell, meowing and some even trying to jump onto the small table, but were shooed away by Three-Five-Five.

The property management lady hung up a banner between the trees as a barrier, then said, "Everyone please step back a bit, thank you for your cooperation, let's clear the small square."

Someone asked in confusion, "For the cats?"

They had heard that this young lady was going to make cat food for the stray cats, but there were only a few strays here, so it didn't seem necessary to clear the whole area.

The property staff member shrugged helplessly, "Let's just make some room, be careful not to step on them. Stray cats aren't very friendly to humans, they might run away if we get too close..."

Her words weren't very convincing, as the usually aloof strays were already crowding in front of the small cart, playing cat-stack, all trying to get closer to the pot of cat food.

Hang Ling helped serve the food, Lizi helped set up the barrier, and the photographer... helped by taking photos.

Hang Ling set out ten bowls on the ground in a row, half filled with food and half with water. Then, the elderly residents heard Chu Tingwu let out a long cat call. The noisy cats responded with "meows," and the imposing tortoiseshell cat jumped down from the table, occasionally raising a paw to swat at the stray cats.

Some residents were saying, "Is she bringing outside cats to fight with our local cats?" But before they finished speaking, they noticed that the cats had been divided into several rows. Five lucky cats were allowed to approach the food first—while the other cats were separated from these five by the tortoiseshell cat, like an invisible boundary. Although they were all meowing back and forth, no cat crossed this line.

Some people were amazed and started taking photos with their phones, while others simply used the newly downloaded [365 Cat Census] app to snap pictures. After taking a photo, they pressed the match button, and all the cats in the photo were automatically matched—

"Oh my, why is Big Meow's name 'Trash Can'? Although it does love to crawl into trash cans—is this photo from when it was just pulled out of a trash can? It's so dirty!"

"Little Blue is so cute, why is it baring its teeth in this photo? No, I have to take a new picture of it!"

"Who named all these cats? They're all so strange, I can't even read some of these characters... Huh? This is an 'emoticon'? Oh my, only Big White's name is correct!"

Chu Tingwu, who was behind them but could hear everything: "..."

The fans who could also hear everything due to the good sound equipment: [...]

[Uncles and aunties, please listen to our explanation first...]

[Actually, this cat, as soon as it was born, insisted on calling itself that name, we really couldn't stop it... We tried our best to prevent it!]

[The cats don't mind! If they had any objections, they could have raised them on the spot. They're all fine with it, right, Master Chu?]

Master Chu said in a low voice, "...I didn't ask them either."

The fans were making a commotion in the comment section, unanimously deciding to push all responsibility onto the content creator. The content creator remained expressionless, not bothering to respond.

Suddenly, a cat's meow was heard from outside the flower bed. This meow was louder and had a rhythm to it, as if someone was saying a long sentence—

Cat owners often hear such long meows when their cats are scolding them, but this one was definitely not a scolding. Any normal person could tell the difference in the rhythm.

Chu Tingwu explained, "The calico cat is back."

The crowd let out a gasp of surprise.

The calico cat emerged from the middle of the flower bed but didn't jump down from the platform. Instead, it called out towards the back, and then...

One cat, two cats, three cats... Tabby, tiger-striped, ginger, mixed breeds, short-legged tabby, American Shorthair, black and white... There were even mother cats herding their kittens, leisurely mixing in with the stray cats that had already arrived. When a kitten fell behind, she would turn back to pick it up in her mouth, but the kittens were mewing and scampering all over the place.

The surrounding cats maintained a not-too-close, not-too-far distance, not paying attention to other cats' offspring, but also not attacking each other. Most of them turned their heads towards the direction of the enticing cat food smell.

The humans in the community were taking photos and inhaling deeply, unsure if they were amazed by this rare scene of a cat gathering or trying to capture the aroma in the air with their noses.

The calico cat lay on the flower bed, surveying the cats here with its gaze, then turned to exchange a few words with Three-Five-Five.

Three-Five-Five moved aside a bit but growled twice, signaling the stray cats to come one by one and not crowd—

She was teaching the cats to queue up.

...Of course, not all cats listened to her.

While cooking, Chu Tingwu kept her ears pricked, distinguishing the sounds of cats quarreling.

Most stray dogs tend to be more aggressive, while cats are more self-centered animals. They rarely gather in groups, marking their territories with scent. Now, the smells here were mixed, but the aroma of cat food overpowered all the unfriendly scents emitted by the cats.

And their voices, if simply translated, were actually saying:

"Stay away from me!"

The system controlled the drone, flying it around the cats at close range for two rounds, eliciting a series of exclamations in the comment section.

[This shot! This shot!]

Some people were so excited they couldn't speak because the camera was so close.

[Actually, I've seen this many cats on other pet content creator channels before, but it's either in homes or cat cafes. I've almost never seen this kind of outdoor footage—oh my goodness, Master Chu, I knew following you would give me something amazing to see!]

That statement seemed to have a double meaning?!

[This is too wonderful... How many names can we give... Wait! Master Chu isn't filming anymore, now it's the photographer sister and the uncles and aunties taking photos of the cats! My heart is broken, does this mean we can't name any of them? Photographer sister, can you start a livestream—]

Someone recognized from the two shots taken by the system that the photographer using the app was "BuBu," the photographer for Tea Meow. Coincidentally, the neighboring "Tea Meow Goes Home" channel was also livestreaming and reading fan comments, so Tea Meow's livestream suddenly saw a wave of remote call comments.

Cha: "BuBu is in Fallen Phoenix City... About the app news? Chu will respond to that, you can follow Chu, if you follow now you'll be considered an old fan."

Chu Tingwu's fans will definitely exceed 200,000, so her words seem to be correct?

Among the group of cats, a black and white cat eagerly wanted to fight with Three-Five-Five, but as soon as it hissed, it was bitten on the rump by another cat with an old grudge. The cat group became slightly agitated due to these two cats—

Some backed away half a step, while others made space, allowing the two cats to fight in the middle.

Fight, fight hard.

Three-Five-Five: "..."

She let out an irritated growl, but because she had to maintain a nonexistent boundary line, she was momentarily unable to advance or retreat.

The calico cat on the flower bed swished its tail. Having done its job of driving the cats over, it now completely ignored the young ones fighting, its face exuding a peaceful contentment as if it had eaten and drunk its fill.

Chu Tingwu hadn't reacted yet, but the people behind her were heartbroken. The elderly men and women looked as if they wanted to cross the barrier to help their supported cats fight.

Chu Tingwu had already prepared food according to the number of cat heads. She silently sighed and put on her gloves.

She stepped into the group of cats. The cats showed no reaction to a human approaching, all continuing to do their own things. Only a few female cats raised their heads to look at her.

Hang Ling, holding her phone, murmured:

"Although it's not the first time I've seen it... but how does Chu Chu manage to do it?"

How does she manage to not be treated as an outsider... or rather, an outside cat by unfamiliar cats?

The human-cat Chu Tingwu skillfully pulled the two cats apart, picked up the black and white cat that looked fierce but couldn't fight well, and weighed it in her hands. The cat's gaze immediately changed from anger to confusion. When Chu Tingwu put it down, it immediately darted to the back but didn't run away or continue fighting.

It seemed to be saying with its eyes: "Where did this oversized kitten come from, with such strength?"

Chu Tingwu chose to ignore it.

On the other side, the cat it was fighting with turned out to be a familiar one... it was the foul-mouthed gray tabby she had photographed at the beginning. At that time, to demonstrate the app's features to her fans, she had casually named it "Gray Tabby."

The tabby shook its mouth, preparing to scare away the kitten in front of it, when it saw this "kitten" - emitting a kitten scent but not too milky, and slightly larger - approach and pin it to the ground with one hand.

Gray Tabby: "?"

Then, the kitten seemed to hesitate for a moment before patting its bottom.

Gray Tabby: "Mee—meow?"

Chu Tingwu released her hand, but it remained lying on the ground. Then, slowly, it raised its bottom high, its tail also rising, swaying back and forth in the sun.

Hmm... perhaps she could add another line to the individual cat tags in the household register: "Likes bottom pats."

Chu Tingwu's livestream continued from noon until after four in the afternoon. The sun hung in the sky like an egg yolk. Hang Ling and the others were starving, licking their lips and asking Chu Tingwu if she could cook something for them to taste—

After all, they had both tools and ingredients here.

Hearing this, the elderly man next door couldn't help but say, "Do you have enough bowls? I live nearby, I can lend you a few bowls."

It wouldn't be too much to ask for a bowl for himself, right?

Chu Tingwu smiled and said, "Sure."

She then told her audience, "I'm ending the livestream now."

In the blacked-out livestream room, a series of question marks flashed by. There were new viewers and fans who had come specifically to watch the "cat meeting," and they asked:

[Is this how UP usually livestreams? What's so secretive about eating that we can't see? Can't we just watch and satisfy our cravings?]

[Be content, she said something before ending the stream. She's thinking of us!]

[???]

Five seconds later, the livestream room began to automatically replay the UP's recorded stream. The number of viewers dropped a little, then stabilized again. Many viewers... began to eat their meals while watching the replay.

Come to think of it, watching Master Chu's videos really does make one hungry.

-

The system distributed the ten lottery spots and reported today's livestream results to Chu Tingwu—

[Today's peak viewership was 23,000, with a total of over 56,000 people watching the livestream for more than ten minutes. You streamed for four hours, and the number of viewers hardly dropped towards the end. The livestream popularity value, well, don't worry about that, it's inflated... but you gained 30,000 followers after the stream ended, and you're not far from 300,000 now.]

For a new UP, this was almost a rocket-like growth in followers, although UPs with similar data had appeared before.

Although Chu Tingwu's videos were high quality, their theme wasn't particularly eye-catching, nor were they the kind of makeover or special effects content that easily attracts followers quickly. They were more suited for steady, long-term growth.

Currently, the UP with the highest number of followers for pet-related videos on the Fenghua platform had 3.2 million followers—Fenghua Network was one of the largest comprehensive video platforms in the country, with quite a few UPs in other categories having millions of followers, though not too many.

Chu Tingwu clapped her hands: "Let's withdraw the livestream earnings and divide the loot among us."

—Three-Five-Five had worked today, and according to their agreement, she should get a share of the earnings too.

Three-Five-Five understood Chu Tingwu's words and gestured for her to lower her head. They touched foreheads, and she softly meowed.

Chu Tingwu: "Then I'll keep it safe for you. If you ever get sick or need a check-up, it can be used as a medical fund."

Three-Five-Five meowed again.

Chu Tingwu: "...Alright, if I get sick, we'll use it too."

System: "Use mine, use mine! I have money too!"

Chu Tingwu was silent for a moment: "...We'll keep yours as a startup fund."

Both the calico cat and the system were satisfied.