Of Course Jin Xueli Had to Pay for Her Shopping

Beneath a mop of messy short hair, a smooth, featureless sheet of flesh met Jin Xueli's gaze.

She caught herself just before she gasped.

The shallow, smooth depressions beneath its eyebrows seemed to be its eye sockets; it had no nostrils or mouth, either. When it spoke, a patch of flesh beneath its sealed nose kept bulging outward with every word-making her worry that it would swell too far, then collapse into creases, with a dark hole sinking into the middle of those folds.

Sometimes, Jin Xueli really disliked her imagination.

"So many customers today," the sheet of flesh said, bulging in and out. "Don't rush. I'm almost done stocking. Lots of new products today."

As it spoke, it loaded several cans of drinks into the Vending Machine's dark belly.

When the gentle-faced female Hunter had said, "The Vending Machine is being restocked," Jin Xueli hadn't expected a Resident to be doing the restocking.

The four people had formed a semicircle just now, blocking the Resident crouched on the floor from view, which was why it had startled her. Only when Jin Xueli came closer for a careful look did she realize that the restocking process looked quite convincing: several boxes stood beside the Resident, some empty, some still half full. It was loading the Vending Machine one can at a time.

Sometimes, the Nest insisted on "realism" in very strange places-rather than putting drinks in one can at a time, couldn't it do something about that Resident's face first?

The baseball cap wearer's companion was a girl chewing gum, and now she even struck up a conversation with the Resident. "How often do you restock? How come I've never seen you before?"

"Depends on how well things sell," the Resident actually answered every question. "The stock from the past few months didn't sell well. It never needed replenishing, so I never came."

The past few months... Jin Xueli thought it over. She had come to look, and the selection really hadn't been very good. Mostly things of little use.

Every so often, Phantasms with different functions would appear in this subway station's Vending Machine-every can of drink and every packet of snacks was a Phantasm, each with its own function and expiration period. Finding something suitable depended a great deal on luck.

"What new products do you have today?" the gentle-faced female Hunter asked.

"Oh, plenty," the Resident said enthusiastically. "We've even changed suppliers. More than half the products are new! I'll put up the new product descriptions, too. Read those and you'll know."

The new product descriptions it put up covered an entire wall.

The five exchanged looks. The baseball cap wearer stepped forward first, saying, "We got here first," and went over ahead of everyone else, illuminating the product descriptions with a flashlight to read them closely.

The gum-chewing girl stood beside the Vending Machine, securing the first spot there as well; following the rules for buying soda Phantasms, the other three kept several paces away from the pair.

"All done."

Under the five people's expectant gazes, the Resident finally shut the Vending Machine. It not only took out a key and locked it but also picked up the empty cardboard boxes from the floor. "I'm leaving."

The gum-chewing girl gave it a sweet smile and waved. "Thank you! Bye."

It had been a while since Jin Xueli had seen Residents and Hunters treating each other with such courtesy.

Just as that thought crossed her mind, the Resident stopped halfway to the exit, carrying the empty boxes, and turned back to look at them.

It was still standing there after the baseball cap wearer finished reading the descriptions and the gum-chewing girl took over.

When Jin Xueli couldn't help darting a glance at it, the flesh on the Resident's face bulged.

"...Oh, I just remembered. The company has a promotion inviting lucky customers to try new products. You can get free samples."

Jin Xueli quickly looked away and moved a step closer to the gentle-faced female Hunter.

The gum-chewing girl seemed to have suddenly lost her hearing, her attention fixed entirely on the descriptions; not one person turned toward the Resident.

"Anyone want to come?"

Nobody moved, nobody looked at it, and nobody spoke.

"No one?"

The five Hunters seemed to have even suppressed their breathing; the baseball cap wearer stood before the Vending Machine with tightly braced shoulders.

"Really, no one? You know, opportunity knocks..."

With a soft puff, the flesh on the Resident's face bulged right beside Jin Xueli's ear. "...but once."

She swallowed the cry in her throat and stared fixedly at the floor, not knowing when the Resident had come closer.

Do not respond-any qualified False Image Hunter would realize, at this very moment, that they absolutely must not respond.

The other four, like Jin Xueli, probably hadn't encountered the Restocking Resident before and didn't know how to deal with it.

But in the space of those few brief exchanges, everyone had clearly reached the same conclusion and taken the same action-because Hunters needed to probe and make judgments in an instant, based on experience and intuition.

The silence that all five had independently chosen after its first invitation had been a "probe."

Waiting to see what happened was, in most cases, the safest way to probe.

Its next question, "No one?" revealed that the Restocking Resident took "no answer" to mean "not going"-a detail all five Hunters immediately picked up on.

Conversely, if the Resident's next question had been, "Is everyone interested?" all five Hunters would immediately have realized that it took "no answer" to mean "want to go." In that case, they absolutely couldn't remain silent and would have to refuse at once.

Although the Nest and its Residents were strange and unpredictable, it was precisely because there remained a sliver of possibility for analysis, thought, reaction, and action that Phantasm hunting had endured as a profession.

"Ah, what a shame."

Those words seeped through the flesh and sank deep into the hair on the back of the gum-chewing girl's head.

From Jin Xueli's angle, she could see the Resident standing directly behind the girl, its utterly featureless face thrust forward into her hair. She still had no idea when the Resident had moved over there.

"All right, I really am leaving this time. Doesn't anyone want to exchange phone numbers with me?"

An individual Resident would often display "consistency" in its behavioral logic as well.

A Resident that considered silence a refusal to one question was unlikely to suddenly consider it assent to the next-with the five people silent enough to suffocate, the Restocking Resident seemed deeply disappointed as it disappeared step by step into the shadows at the subway station entrance.

Only after several seconds did Jin Xueli finally release a long breath that had been trapped in her chest.

"That scared me."

The other four relaxed as well. The girl started chewing her gum again and said, "I thought it was one of the harmless Residents."

"How long have you been doing this?" The man who hadn't spoken until now immediately began lecturing her. "Don't you know Residents can be dangerous at any time? It's just a question of whether they want to come after you. And you kept talking to it!"

"And how long have you been doing this? A full year yet?"

The girl walked back from the product descriptions and stood beside her tall, thin companion, giving the man a sidelong look. "Do you know why I thought it was a harmless Resident? Do you know the characteristics of harmless Residents? You love lecturing so much-is some school paying you?"

"Wait, there's no need to argue," the gentle-faced female Hunter said. Seeing the two about to fight, she hurriedly raised both hands to soothe them. "It's not a matter of principle, and the danger's passed anyway. Didn't I talk to it just now, too?"

"You did, and you were wrong, too." The man wasn't giving his companion any leeway.

"Who died and made you the judge?" The girl swung her hand, and huge muscles suddenly swelled in layers along her left arm, filling out her sleeve. "You'd better be more polite next time."

"M&Ms?" The man looked at her arm and sneered. "Which house are you from? You think you're the only one who's ever bought M&Ms?"

M&Ms were one of the Vending Machine's products, an abbreviation of the product's full name, "Machine Muscle." As the name suggested, its general purpose was easy enough to guess; simple, but useful.

It was popular among Hunters, especially female Hunters, but unfortunately was rarely in stock. Its greatest inconvenience was that once taken out of the Nest, it would expire within twenty-four hours.

The fact that the girl had M&Ms on her at least indicated one thing: she also had somewhere inside the Nest to hide things-which was hardly surprising, since most houses had hiding places.

"Listen to me."

Jin Xueli stepped forward and stood between the two, feeling that she had no choice but to mediate-they had merely clashed over a few words and held no grudge. All they needed was a way to back down. Actually fighting somewhere like this would benefit no one.

"Neither of you is wrong, really. I only discovered tonight that the Residents have been acting a little strangely lately."

The others all looked at her.

The baseball cap wearer finished making a selection, pressed the product code, and asked, "What happened?"

"You know the Resident called Vulture, right? I just ran into it."

Her wish to mediate might have been only a pretext; Jin Xueli actually very much wanted to use the Vulture incident to test the other Hunters' reactions and see whether anyone had information to add.

What she wanted most was still to pour out everything she had experienced to companions who were likewise flesh and blood and could understand what she had been through-but she couldn't reveal the existence of the Candle Tears Phantasm, and she was afraid of facing others' suspicion.

"Impossible."

As soon as Jin Xueli finished speaking, the man delivered his verdict. "Vulture won't take on your appearance unless you die. That's common knowledge."

"That's why I said they're behaving strangely." Jin Xueli was getting a little annoyed, too. "If you don't believe me, go see whether there's a hopscotch grid drawn in chalk on Colorado Avenue."

The man fell silent and frowned.

"There really have been more changes and anomalies in the Nest lately than before, and they're happening more frequently."

It was the first time the baseball cap wearer had said anything so long. Only then did Jin Xueli suddenly realize that the person was a woman.

She was at least six feet tall, with broad, level shoulders and short hair; not only was it difficult to tell from her appearance, but her voice was also a register lower than an ordinary woman's.

"I assume none of you are buying things from the Vending Machine for the first time."

The baseball cap wearer lightly tossed the soda in her hand into the air, then caught it. "Generally speaking, how much would you expect this Phantasm to cost?"

"Five hundred dollars?" Jin Xueli guessed.

The Vending Machine's products tended to be like that: they had to be purchased with real-world money, weren't cheap, served a single function, weren't particularly powerful, and had astonishingly short expiration periods.

That was why False Image Hunters hadn't become soda couriers shuttling between Blackmoor City and the Nest.

"That used to be about right." The baseball cap wearer smiled, a long, narrow dimple forming in the sharply defined lower half of her face. "I just paid by credit card. This can of soda cost me over nine thousand dollars. But it was worth it."

As soon as she finished, the gentle-faced female Hunter strode over to the product descriptions; her flashlight swept around twice, and she drew a quiet, sharp breath.

Ever since getting home, I haven't had a single good night's sleep. Every day, I rely entirely on coffee and tea to keep functioning as a human being. Without caffeine, there would be no Xuwei Juqian in this world at all. Caffeine is my dad, caffeine is my mom. Without caffeine, there would be no new-

Fuck, that was close.

Oh, speaking of which, there's something I keep forgetting to mention. Friends, I finally know what flavor Puppet Master Chips are! (Yes, I didn't say before because I didn't think any flavor suited him.)

Want to know? If you do, please call the hotline at 25115222. Free consultation, five yuan per minute. Remember, 25115222.