After making the Chicken Soup Noodles, Qin Huai didn’t even have time to eat.
He was too eager to see Qu Jing’s dream.
Other people’s dreams and memories were either in multiple segments or 0/?, but Qu Jing’s was uniquely 0/1, clearly indicating it was a single segment.
Moreover, the side mission hinted that completing the task and viewing the dream would awaken Qu Jing.
"Ah, I have a stomachache, need to use the restroom, you all eat first without waiting for me!" Qin Huai slipped away leaving these words.
His steps were quick, running urgently, just like Zheng Da after work every day.
With a flash, Qin Huai disappeared.
Tan Wei’an, holding a bowl of noodles, was deeply moved: "Even in such haste, Qin Huai made sure to finish the noodles before rushing to the bathroom."
Tan Wei’an felt he couldn’t slack off either and decided to practice the Mixed Fruit Filling, quietly working hard to surprise everyone.
Unaware of how much that simple sentence fueled Tan Wei’an’s imagination, Qin Huai walked briskly to the restroom, hesitated for two seconds, chose the middle stall, went in, shut the door, and opened the game panel.
[A Segment of Qu Jing’s Dream].
Following the normal procedure, Qu Jing’s side mission was completed, and the dream was obtained. Qin Huai should have first informed Luo Jun and Chen Huihong of the good news, then the three would go to Luo Jun’s house, eat some nuts and fruits, have a meeting to discuss it, and finally watch the dream.
What? You say that’s the procedure for viewing Luo Jun’s memory.
No problem, you can use this process for anyone’s memories.
But given the urgency, with Luo Jun and Chen Huihong not around, and Qin Huai being extremely eager, he decided to skip the process and jump right to it.
Clicked on [A Segment of Qu Jing’s Dream].
His eyes beheld a lush green scenery.
The trees couldn’t be called towering, but they were lush and verdant, branches growing wild without trimming, some straight, some slanted.
The ground was the most primitive undeveloped land, just rained upon, making the soil moist. The thick green grass seemed to have been trampled on, lying flat on the ground.
Qu Jing was easily recognizable.
In this secluded forest, within a hundred-meter radius, Qu Jing was the only living person.
Watching Qu Jing, Qin Huai couldn’t discern whether Qu Jing was a powerful Divine Beast with skill and boldness, or just a clueless Plant Spirit making a reckless choice.
At this moment, Qu Jing appeared as a child around 10 years old.
Considering both Luo Jun and Chen Huihong chose adult forms in their first lives.
For most spirits, undergoing tribulation in the human world was considered dangerous. Elders often shared stories with spirits who hadn’t yet undergone tribulation about the perilous world of humans, with wars, famine, plagues, and drifters... A mighty being like Bi fang could of course be fearless, but most spirits were weak, and in dangerous environments, both children and the elderly were absolutely disadvantaged.
Even Chen Huihong, a Plant Spirit without much common sense, knew to choose a strong-looking adult for the first life transformation.
In Chen Huihong’s first tribulation, she fought drifters with her fists, stamped out bandits with her feet. If it weren’t for being shot by a bandit, changing times of adults led to her untimely death.
Now, Qu Jing appeared as a scrawny girl around 10 years old, leaving Qin Huai uncertain whether to say Qu Jing was exceptionally skilled and brave, or fearlessly ignorant.
Qu Jing’s clothes were dirty and disheveled, also very thin. The clothes were filthy, likely because she’d been in the wild for days without means to clean. While traversing the forest, her clothes inevitably got snagged by vegetation and branches, leaving them covered in fine scratches, with exposed arms and ankles also having many small cuts, looking quite disheveled.
Judging by the mountain’s environment, Qin Huai surmised it was early spring, not cold, at most a bit chilly at night, making Qu Jing’s thin clothing not too unreasonable.
In the memories of the first life spirits Qin Huai had seen, Qu Jing’s introduction was the most normal.
Chen Huihong buried herself in the ground to sleep, Luo Jun lived in a world of gang conflicts, blood and carnage. Compared to these two, Qu Jing’s normal wilderness survival was a rare sight.
Qin Huai followed behind Qu Jing.
He discovered Qu Jing might really want to run into the deep mountains, and even as a child, spirits had decent physical capabilities. A child’s body was more nimble and flexible, making the rugged paths not too difficult for Qu Jing, who scrambled on all fours, at times forcing Qin Huai to quicken his pace to keep up.
Having had the dry-marathon experience in Chen Huihong’s memory, Qin Huai easily adapted the map to the deep forest, silently following Qu Jing while pondering what type of spirit Qu Jing was.
Qin Huai leaned towards Plant Spirits.
He recalled Chen Huihong mentioning that while Plant Spirits’ approaches to tribulation were typically confused, there was a particularly timid method to hide in a deep forest, lying low for years, observing the outside world’s situation before emerging to undergo tribulation.
Compared to such Plant Spirits, Chen Huihong, who feared crowds to the point of burying herself and avoiding groups, picking off stragglers to test her luck, was a radical.
Qin Huai had been following Qu Jing for a whole day.
Unfamiliar with the mountainous environment, Qu Jing tried to head deeper but got turned around, eventually heading outwards for a stretch. Adding all the time spent searching for edible wild fruits, much time was lost, rendering progress negligible.