The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

Lin Yuwei didn't answer, but she could feel the light from the cloak beside her distort slightly. A few seconds later, the communicator vibrated: "No monsters around. Not a single one. Not even a corpse. But there are many drag marks on the ground, as if something dragged the corpse away."

Su Mu waited for another two minutes to make sure there was nothing wrong before walking out from behind the tree and to the machine.

It was truly broken. Not just bad, but utterly rotten. The metal casing was deformed from being crushed, and the internal parts protruded from the cracks. Rusty wires and shattered circuit boards were tangled together, like a crumpled pile of plastic waste.

The metal panel of the coin slot was raised, and Su Mu pried it off with his hand.

Lin Yuwei emerged from behind him, tilting her head to look at the broken machine with a puzzled expression.

"You came all this way just to find this?" Her tone implied, "Are you crazy?"

Su Mu remained silent.

He didn't know why the system had given him a broken coin machine in the daily intelligence report. If you called it a treasure chest, it wasn't even a chest; if you called it a spinning wheel, it wasn't even worthy of a spin. It was just a pile of junk, the kind of thing no one would even glance at if left in ruins.

He stood in front of the machine and remained silent for a moment.

Then he remembered the two ancient coins.

Su Mu took an ancient coin out of his backpack and examined it in his hand. It was rusty and severely worn, with nothing special about it. He glanced at the coin slot... it had been flattened, but the square hole was still there, just the right size to fit an ancient coin.

Trying it won't hurt you.

He stuffed the ancient coin inside.

"Click".

A crisp, metallic clanging sound came from inside the broken machine. Su Mu was stunned... He thought the machine was completely broken, but he didn't expect its internal mechanism to still be working.

Then, an ancient coin fell out of the retrieval opening.

It was exactly the same as the one that had been inserted. Rusty and heavily worn, it showed no distinguishing features.

Just as Su Mu was about to put the ancient coin away, six more coins fell out of the mouth with a "whoosh".

He was stunned.

Six coins, plus the previous one, make a total of seven. One coin is inserted, and seven are dispensed.

Su Mu looked down at the ancient coin in his hand, then at the broken machine, and then turned to look at Lin Yuwei.

The meaning in his eyes was very clear... Didn't you say that you found this ancient coin in the ruins?

How can it spit out something from this broken machine?

Lin Yuwei was also stunned. She squatted down, picked up an ancient coin from the retrieval slot, and examined it closely. It was exactly the same as the one in Su Mu's hand; the degree of rust, the wear patterns, and even the shape of the chipped edges were roughly the same. This was no coincidence... these ancient coins came from the same source.

She was certain that the ancient coins she retrieved from the ruins were taken from a tray on a stone platform.

The stone platform was located deep within the ruins, surrounded by no mechanisms or traps. The ancient coins were brazenly displayed in the most conspicuous position, even more noticeable than the Contract Box and the substitute puppet. She found it strange at the time... that something so conspicuous made her think it was worthless, so she just picked it up without giving it a second thought.

And now, this broken machine can also spew out the same ancient coins.

A very unsettling thought popped into Lin Yuwei's mind... Could the ancient coins in that ruin have originated from this machine? Or perhaps, that ruin was actually set up by someone who knew about the machine, using the ancient coins as a key to unlock something?

But no matter how you look at it, one thing is certain... The ancient coin she brought out of the ruins was worth several times more in Su Mu's hands, and Su Mu did nothing but stuff an ancient coin into a broken machine.

The machine's screen lit up again. The garbled text and fragmented words scrolled for a few seconds, then stabilized, and new content appeared:

[Ancient coin detection in progress...]

[Current number of ancient coins: 7]

Option 1: Insert 1 ancient coin to draw an unknown item.

Option 2: Insert 2 ancient coins to draw an unknown item.

Option 3: Insert 3 ancient coins to draw an unknown item.

[Note: The machine is damaged, and the extraction results are unpredictable. Users assume all risks.]

Su Mu glanced at the screen, then at the ancient coin in his hand. He didn't follow the options on the screen... He counted out a coin and put it in.

"Click".

Three coins fell out of the retrieval slot. He put one back in. "Click." Five coins fell out. He put one back in. "Click." Three coins fell out. He put one back in. "Click." Two coins fell out. He put one back in. "Click." Four coins fell out.

Su Mu squatted in front of the retrieval slot, repeating the process seven or eight times, accumulating a growing pile of ancient coins in his hand. He counted them one last time... one coin went in, producing three, five, three, two, four coins, plus the initial amount he had, totaling eleven. He made a net profit of eleven coins, losing not a single penny.

Lin Yuwei stood by and watched for a long time before finally unable to resist. She took out the last ancient coin she had left from her backpack and, imitating Su Mu, put it into the coin slot.

"Click".

The machine made a dry, stuck sound. Then nothing came out of the retrieval slot. She waited a few more seconds, but still nothing.

The ancient coin was swallowed.

The machine's display screen flickered, and a new line of text appeared:

The ancient coins have run out. The machine has stopped operating.

Lin Yuwei stared at the words, her face expressionless. She turned to look at Su Mu, who was slowly stuffing handfuls of ancient coins into his backpack, his movements unhurried, without even glancing at her.

She took a deep breath.

She finally understood. These ancient coins were indeed valuable. Where they came from, where they went, and what they were used for, she still didn't know. But one thing she was certain of... Su Mu was able to earn money on this broken machine not because of his talent or his strength, but simply because of good luck.

He was so lucky that he could even find a bug in a broken machine.