As soon as Qin Huai entered the dreamscape, he saw a scene that he rarely encountered in his dreams.

Heavy snow.

And it was the kind of large, fluffy snowflakes unique to the north.

Everywhere Qin Huai looked was blanketed in thick, white snow, even the sky appeared bright and blue, accentuated by the snow. The world was vast and desolate; the snow on the ground was so clean with hardly any footprints, indicating it had fallen just last night, or perhaps continuous snowfall had covered any tracks.

Qin Huai, unaccustomed to seeing such heavy snow, tried to catch a falling snowflake with his hand, but to no avail, he could only watch as it passed through his hand and landed on the ground.

The surroundings were very quiet, no sound of insects, birds, or even people. Qin Huai surveyed the area and found himself likely on the outskirts, a familiar place where many spirits' memories had their beginnings.

Qin Huai felt he should be at the foot of a mountain, but it seemed all the trees here had been cut down, leaving the mountain bare. Not far away stood a dilapidated temple covered in snow, looking like it could collapse at any moment.

This time, the protagonist of the memory, possibly like Chen Huihong and Zhao Cheng'an, enjoyed burying themselves in such places. With no sense left in him, he hesitated briefly in seeking shelter from the snow in the broken temple, and eventually chose to head towards it.

The temple was small.

The small, broken temple was crowded with over 20 beggars, all of them adolescents, filthy and with unkempt hair, making it hard to tell their gender. Qin Huai guessed they were probably boys. An Youyou had once explained to Qin Huai that among the wandering beggar children, girls were rare; in an era where lives were as valueless as weeds, girl beggars were more valuable than boys and more worth the human trafficker's effort to abduct for two buns.

The beggar children were scattered throughout the broken temple, some buried in piles of straw, some hiding behind statues, some covered in tattered quilts, and others wearing layers of worn, dirty clothing. The scene resembled a mini-game where players had to find as many beggars in the picture within three minutes.

Outside, it was already bright, but inside the temple, all the beggars were asleep.

An Youyou also educated Qin Huai that Shanghai, being in the south, wasn't as cold in winter, but there were still a few particularly cold days. Northern beggars, however, had a sense of urgency to save up for a quilt or jacket at the pawnshop before winter, knowing that without warm clothes, surviving the northern winter was a hopeless endeavor.

The cold weather was unsuitable for begging; sometimes, it wasn't that the beggars were lazy, but rather that wealthy people didn't leave their homes in the cold, making it hard to get any offerings. Instead of braving the cold, traveling far, bowing, and risking a beating while depleting their energy for a morsel, it was better to find a shelter to conserve heat and have a comfortable day's sleep.

Begging was an art, and only those who mastered this skill could grow up safely. Those who didn't were often taken out due to improper methods or bad luck.

The 20 beggar children in the temple were obviously well-versed in this art, knowing when to sleep and conserve energy, and when to go out and beg to seek survival.

No, there was one who clearly wasn't skilled.

After scanning the small temple, Qin Huai quickly fixed his gaze on one beggar resting in the corner, covered in a lot of straw, seeming to recuperate. On closer inspection, one would notice that his limbs were exposed, showing no fear of the cold, and his clothing was very thin.

Beggars without warm clothes would try their best to wrap themselves in layers of whatever they could, even if it was just rags, to preserve heat. But this beggar clearly wore only two layers of thin clothing, making it clear he didn't even bother to pretend anymore.

The most crucial detail was, while everyone else was sound asleep, he was merely pretending.

Within less than a minute of entering the temple, Qin Huai noticed this one had impatiently opened his eyes twice to check his surroundings. Clearly a newcomer to Crossing Tribulation, he couldn't grasp the situation and had inadvertently slipped into the crowd of beggars, too afraid to make a move and expose himself. He could only awkwardly blend in.

For some reason, the more spirits Qin Huai saw, the less muddled Chen Huihong seemed to him.

Qin Huai started to closely observe the young beggar and found him increasingly unprofessional.

His clothes weren't tattered enough, his hair not dirty enough, and his face was even clean enough to be considered fair, clearly indicating a regular washing habit. In the world of begging, this was a grave mistake. An Youyou, before setting out to beg, would always smear mud on her face to turn herself into a mud ball. If one looked too clean, not in a pitiful state, and without a strong enough odor, how could they beg? How could they repel those hostile people who were disgusted by them?

The unprofessional young beggar couldn't keep up his act after 20 minutes of pretending. He simply opened his eyes, sat up, and stretched his limbs.

Then, he accidentally kicked his companion on his left.

The companion, already cold and hungry, sleeping fitfully, was awakened by the young beggar's kick. With some difficulty, he opened his eyes, reflexively tugged at his thin jacket, shivered in the cold, pulled the scarce straw back onto himself, and even took the opportunity to grab a few handfuls of the young beggar's straw. The young beggar didn't mind, he just sat there in a daze.

After being awake for about two minutes, the companion slightly opened his eyes and struggled to get up. He glanced at the condition inside the temple, then craned his neck to look outside, muttering, "Damn, it's snowing again."