Serendipity Café

Located at no.19 Merchants Lane, the café is a quadrangle courtyard house (siheyuan), where a courtyard is surrounded by a side houses and a main house, and originally built in 1705. Being a larger residence, it has an outer courtyard with two side houses and a wall, and a smaller inner courtyard with two sides houses and a main house. Renovated as part of a district revitalization project, the café boasts a charming exterior with light gray stone walls, dark slate ceramic tiled roofs, and aged ivy. The outer courtyard buildings now serve as the heart of the café; the inner courtyard serves as the owner's residence. The once quiet streets now reverberate with the sneakered footsteps of customers flocking to the café, known for its “furry employees” of once-stray cats, and two rather lovely human employees. The number of stray cats has also gone up, and the café even serves as an adoption center, matching cats with humans in a secret invitation only group chat.
  Despite the cheerful façade, whispers of the manor’s past still linger. Rumors say the manor is cursed from the day it was built. The original builder was led to the site by a black cat, an auspicious sign of fortune and good luck. But he was implicated in bribery five years later, and met a tragic end. And no subsequent owner managed to stay in the manor for more than five years either, leaving early due to bankruptcy, sickness, war, death. Even after the house was redone as part of a larger district revitilization project five years ago, and the building was rented out to business owners, no store has lasted beyond five months. Up until it was purchased a year ago, many believed the place cursed and abandoned.
  So the neighbors are happy to see the manor bought, and a cat café that so far has lasted past five months. Perhaps no curse exists. What they don’t know is that the manor sits on land where the veil between the living world and the spirit world is thin. It’s perhaps for the better that they don’t know the ginko tree is actually a warding tree, that the maneki-neko figurines will change colors when evil is detected, nor question why so many charms are hung around like holiday lights. Better for their peace of mind to not know that the cat and human employees (other than Ceci) are actually Wardens from the spirit kingdom of Dominicus Felinus; or that the café is serving as a meeting place for Wardens and Summoners as potential war is brewing.