Chapter 92: Vending Machine

Vending machine.

The team walked to the next intersection and saw a vending machine with a red light in a side alley. 

That alley was very narrow. 

On both sides were the concrete walls of office buildings, without a single window, and the space between was just barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. 

The alley ended in a dead end, yet there was a vending machine. It had a silver-white metal shell, with a large glass panel on the upper half. 

Behind the panel were six rows of shelves, neatly stocked with drinks, snacks, and instant food. The LED strip on top of the machine was still lit, casting a cold blue light on the words “Automatic Vending,” flickering on and off. 

Below the front of the machine were the coin slot, bill slot, and a scanning area.

 At the very top was a small screen displaying red letters: “Please select a product.” There was no other light in the entire alley; only this machine glowed in the darkness.

The group stopped in front of the vending machine and looked at the glass panel. 

The products inside were absurdly new, each one a common type from before doomsday, with intact packaging and clear labels, as if the doomsday had never happened.

Mu Yingying was bewildered. She turned to look at White Peace.

“This…”

“Object Weirdification,” White Peace said calmly, standing beside the vending machine.

“It’s not possessed by a Weirdness; it woke up on its own.”

“Machines can wake up too?” Su Shuang’er asked.

“When the doomsday happened, this alley gathered a huge amount of Resentment Energy. The nearby office buildings collapsed badly. Many people weren’t completely dead and struggled in the ruins for days before finally dying. That kind of death built up the densest Resentment Energy. The resentment had nowhere to go, so it all gathered in this alley. At that time, the only electrical appliance still working in the alley was this machine, so the resentment drilled into it, and it woke up.”

“And after it woke up?” Mu Yingying’s voice paused.

“It’s now doing trades. You give it something, and it gives you something in return. Equivalent exchange,” White Peace said. 

“Every time it completes a trade, it becomes a little more awake. Once it’s fully awake, it will stop trading and start Predation.”

“Has anyone bought from it before?” Su Shuang’er asked again.

“Not many living people pass through this alley, but other Weirdnesses have traded with it. Its inventory is now mixed with some weird things.”

Upon hearing that, Mu Yingying leaned in to look closely at the glass panel. 

In an instant, her skin crawled. The juice in the corner of the second row glowed a glaring blood red, not at all the color of a normal drink. 

The shrimp crackers in the third row were shriveled and twisted, looking exactly like dried human fingers.

The preserved eggs in the sixth row had an ashen gray egg white that was clearly a human eyeball.

Mu Yingying abruptly stepped back and muttered a curse under her breath.

“What did you see?” Su Shuang’er immediately asked.

“Don’t look,” Mu Yingying shook her head. “If you see it, you’ll have nightmares tonight.”

White Peace spoke up: “Half of the stuff inside is real, and half is weird stuff. The machine can’t tell the difference. To it, these things are all the same.”

White Night hesitated, then took a piece of Eerie Crystal Shard from her bag. She looked up at White Peace. 

Seeing that the other didn’t stop her and even nodded, she floated over to the machine and stuffed the Eerie Crystal Shard into the coin slot.

The machine immediately let out a low hum. The red letters on the screen flashed: ‘Payment received. Please select a product.’

White Night was startled, steadied herself, and pressed the button corresponding to the cola on the first row. 

A mechanical click came from inside the machine, and the product fell into the delivery chute at the bottom with a crisp sound.

She bent down and picked up the item. Instantly, she froze. It wasn’t cola. It was a piece of meat forcibly compressed into the shape of a cola bottle, wrapped in intact beverage packaging.

Where the cap should have been, a section of finger bone with a joint was exposed.

White Night almost threw the thing in her hand away.

Fighting back her nausea, she placed it on the ground and turned to White Peace, her voice trembling.

“This…”

“You gave it an Eerie Crystal Shard. To it, it will only give you something of equivalent value,” White Peace’s voice remained steady. “You wanted the shape of a cola bottle, so it pressed the meat into the corresponding shape.”

“Then what do you trade to get the real thing?” White Night was curious.

 This was her first time using a vending machine.

“A complete Ghost Crystal,” White Peace replied.

“I can’t waste that,” White Night said.

“But I have a way to trick it.”

White Peace raised her hand, and a bottle of intact mineral water fell out. 

She twisted open the cap and took a small sip. It was clear, cold, real water with no abnormalities. She handed the bottle to White Night. White Night took a sip and immediately nodded.

“It’s real. I can drink it too.”

White Peace then pressed the button corresponding to potato chips. 

The bag that fell out was perfectly packaged. When opened, it was genuine potato chips with nothing unusual.

Mu Yingying looked at the machine and suddenly asked, “Where exactly does this machine’s inventory come from?”

“Its physical inventory is what was originally inside when the doomsday happened,” White Peace said. 

“It uses Resentment Energy to keep these things fresh. Over the years, some Weirdness have traded and taken away part of the inventory, so it filled the gaps with those weird things.”

Mu Yingying was silent, then asked, “How much longer can it maintain this?”

“The corresponding shape.”

Mu Yingying said, “Then get more for Little White Night.”

“Right,” White Peace nodded.

Mu Yingying grabbed instant food, ham sausages, juice, and snacks, and stuffed them all into her backpack.

Finally, White Peace raised her hand. 

Black Light extended from her fingertips, spreading out and slowly enveloping the entire vending machine.

The machine let out a piercing whine. The screen began to flicker wildly. The red letters scrolled halfway before becoming completely distorted. 

The metal hooks inside started moving erratically and frantically, and the bottles and cans on the shelves were knocked about and shattered everywhere. 

Then, the machine emitted a scream mixed with the sobs of countless people. That was its last moment of consciousness, struggling madly.

A human finger slowly extended from the delivery chute, reaching straight toward Mu Yingying. But before it could fully come out, it completely dissolved in the Black Light. 

The entire metal shell of the machine began to twist and collapse, letting out one final, prolonged, suppressed hum, and then fell completely silent.

The entire alley was instantly plunged into darkness, with only a faint light remaining in White Peace’s palm. 

She raised her hand and withdrew it, and a crack opened in the machine’s shell. 

Inside, an Eerie Crystal shaped like a coin slot had condensed.

Su Shuang’er walked over, picked it up, and handed it to White Night.

The group walked out of the alley.

White Night sat in the bike basket, happily munching on snacks. This was the first time she had eaten other food besides that bun.

The group moved on to the next section of road. 

The street outside the alley split into a three-way fork. 

To the left was the residential street they had just passed. 

The middle was a narrower path leading deeper into the ruins. 

To the right, there was a shop that was open.

It was on the first floor of a small building. 

A wooden sign hung crookedly but hadn’t fallen. 

The characters on it were hand-carved, each stroke particularly careful, reading ‘Doll Hospital.’

Below the sign hung an opening hours sign. 

Next to the characters was a simple line drawing of a little bear missing one hand.

Su Shuang’er stopped. She looked up at the sign, and her brow slowly furrowed.