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Where Winds Meet’s Twelve Years of Grudges side quest takes place in Kaifeng, and is a dark, but wholly satisfying quest. In a way, it’s reminiscent of The Last of Us, only without the zombies. Just a lot of really gross mushrooms and mist. Tragedy once fell over Mistveil Village, and it’s going to be up to the player to sort everything out, defeat the bad guys, and see this tragedy through til the end.
The only downsides to this Wuxia side quest in Where Winds Meet, Twelve Years of Grudges will require you to be able to use all of your skills. You need to be a skilled fighter, you need to be able to steal keys, heal people, and be patient, sort of. If you’re struggling on this quest, we’re here to help.
Steps to complete Where Winds Meet’s Twelve Years of Grudges side quest
Once you arrive in Kaifeng in Where Winds Meet, and can explore the region, you can take part in Volume VI - Twelve Years of Grudges. You may see this quest as soon as you speak to the Wayfarer at Granary of Plenty. Before we tackled it, we had already completed New Guest at Kaifeng and Gathering of Heroes. You can see it right on the map in the image below. Once you head to the injured swordsman and assist him, the quest will begin in earnest.
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Steps to take to complete Twelve Years of Grudges
- Approach the injured swordsman in Mistveil Forest, Explore the Deserted village and examine the traces, Trace where the black shadow vanishes, The black shadow appears to be moving ahead
- Repel the vicious hounds blocking your way, Echoes of conversation rise from the shrine, explore under cover of night
- Climb onto the rooftops and eavesdrop on the conversation inside at night, Steal the Key without getting caught, With the key in hand, unlock the inner gate of the shrine
- Search for the suspicious areas within the shrine, Rescue the young boy who is tied up, Follow the boy, Head to the Town Academy
- Defeat He Yuezhi and his henchmen, Go to Zheng’s Main Residence
- Eliminate Bandit Leader - Shen Yiren, Check on the distressed young Zheng E, Ask the Tomb Keeper about the incident
You can see below that we completed this quest on the Early Access servers. However, when we did this, we had only completed New Guest in Kaifeng and Gathering of Heroes main scenario quests. None of the other side quests in this area were completed yet. That means it will likely also have no other requirement other than to potentially speak to the Wayfarer at Granary of Plenty.
1) Approach the injured swordsman in Mistveil Forest, Explore the Deserted village and examine the traces, Trace where the black shadow vanishes, The black shadow appears to be moving ahead
Upon arriving at the quest marker for Twelve Years of Grudges in Where Winds Meet, you’ll find an injured swordsman who you are meant to heal. I believe that even if you haven’t unlocked the Healer career, this quest will guide you through it so you can do it. In order to begin the healing, hold R3 or V on the keyboard to enter Wind Sense, and target the injured man.
Afterwards, he’ll explain the situation, and you’ll explore the Deserted Village and examine the traces. Along the road, you’ll see items like Fungal Clusters that you can examine/interact with. Just follow the road, and when you reach the checkpoint, the quest will change to Trace where the black shadow vanishes.
The path will lead you to a large house with a red door that you can’t get through. Just jump over it, and drop down into the courtyard. When you land, you’ll need to be immediately ready for a fight, because there are some very angry hounds.
2) Repel the vicious hounds blocking your way, Echoes of conversation rise from the shrine, explore under cover of night
When you land in the courtyard for this step of Where Winds Meet’s Twelve Years of Grudges, a small group of very powerful dogs will leap out and attack you. They’re level 38, and while there’s only three of them, they can deal a lot of damage if they surround you. Parry as best you can, and take them down.
I used the Noname Sword and Twinblades for their defensive and offensive capabilities. Once you’ve bested the dogs, the quest will continue. You’ll meet the shadowy man, Zheng Zhongxian, chief of this village (Sorrowfield). Ask him about the Plague’s Return if you can, and ask where the villagers went.
Afterwards, you’ll need to listen in on a nearby conversation. To your right in Where Winds Meet, you’ll be able to press the appropriate button to overhear a conversation. This is something you’ve done before, especially during Echoes of Old Battles. They will hint at a meeting that’s going down this evening.
Here’s where things can get a little tricky. You need to wait for nightfall in-game, which can be incredibly annoying. That is, of course, unless you’ve figured out how to fast forward time. You can enter the menu and click the Clock Icon to set the time to the evening. Ideally, set it between 21 and 23 on the clock, to make things nice and dark.
3) Climb onto the rooftops and eavesdrop on the conversation inside at night, Steal the Key without getting caught, With the key in hand, unlock the inner gate of the shrine
When you return to the village in the evening, you’ll need to jump to the rooftops for this section of Where Winds Meet’s Twelve Years of Grudges. There’s an icon on the screen that leads you to a rooftop with a hole in it. Jump on, and when you’re close enough, a cutscene will play.
There’s a key you need to get, and as long as you have Heavenly Snatch equipped, it’s a piece of cake. If you don’t, go ahead and equip the Mystic Art. Drop down off the roof and run to the nearby quest marker, and look through the person’s window.
Steal the key from Zheng Zongxian through the window, and you’ll be ready to move on. Remember the shrine from earlier, where we first met Zheng Zongxian? Return there, and you can just push the door open since you now have the key.
4) Search for the suspicious areas within the shrine, Rescue the young boy who is tied up, Follow the boy, Head to the Town Academy
When you’re in the shrine, you can interact with a tablet on the right side, as well as two tablets on the left side. The most important suspicious area in this Where Winds Meet quest, interact with the center tablet, the Mycelium-Wrapped Tablet, and you’ll black out.
When you wake up for the next part of Twelve Years of Grudges, untie the boy who is sitting in the snow, and then follow the boy. He feels terrible for the fire raging off in the distance, so keep following him. When you come to the end of the path, you’ll need to highlight an icon off in the distance, before finishing this cutscene.
Use the command prompts to leap from tree to tree, until you land on a roof with a Hero’s Tomb checkpoint. Drop down into the first area you come to, if you want to grab some treasure. You’ll have to defeat a few bandits, but they aren’t especially powerful.
Follow the road for this section of Twelve Years of Grudges in Where Winds Meet, and you’ll come across another trio of bandits, standing in front of an open fire. This group has a larger, stronger axe wielder, as well. Take them down, and you’ll want to go through the fire on the right side, where it’s weakest, so you take no fire damage. At the end of the path, you’ll find another Hero’s Tomb checkpoint.
Pan the camera up and follow the command prompt to jump into the building, and you’ll need to fight your way through a few enemy packs. They aren’t particularly strong, but you’ll want to conserve as much life as possible, since a boss is coming up in Where Winds Meet. I took the right path, went downstairs, and fought the second group.
5) Defeat He Yuezhi and his henchmen, Go to Zheng’s Main Residence
When you get to the open courtyard, you’ll have to fight a boss, He Yuezhi, and his group of henchmen. He Yuezhi is a polearm wielder, but I recommend dealing with his flunkies first. There are a few archers in there, and they’ll just keep popping shots at you until they’re defeated. An interesting note though, if you do die in this encounter, any defeated henchmen remain defeated.
Take care of the archers, then the large dual-axe wielder, and then you can focus on He Yuezhi proper. Just stay mobile and deal with the minions. I did die in this fight, but when I spawned back in, the lone archer wasn’t looking at me, so I was able to use Meridian Touch to one-shot him.
He Yuezhi has a lot of aggressive, broad-swinging slices, but you can really pressure him, especially with Infernal Twinblades, to combo him with attack skills and knock him down. You definitely want to parry his charging strike.
He also has a jumping strike that needs to be parried, if you want to avoid damage. Truthfully, he’s not a very powerful boss, compared to some of the others you’ve already fought so far. Just stay on your guard, parry whenever possible, and bully him, knocking him down often.
Defeat him, loot the bodies, and then head to the Zheng’s Main Residence up the path ahead. You’ll have to defeat another group or two of enemy bandits as you run up the path. The first group has an explosive barrel you can ignite with fire arrows, so I recommend that for maximum damage in this Where Winds Meet side quest.
There’s an archer after this, and they’re conveniently standing next to some explosive barrels; repeat this again, and you’ll sort them out in no time. There’s a reason the last boss was easy though: he’s not the final one.
6) Eliminate Bandit Leader - Shen Yiren, Check on the distressed young Zheng E, Ask the Tomb Keeper about the incident
When you arrive at Shen Yiren in Where Winds Meet, you can press a command prompt to immediately kill all of his allies. This makes the fight a one on one, which is ideal. This is the final battle of Twelve Years of Grudges in Where Winds Meet.
He’ll almost immediately dash at you with his spear, so make sure you’re ready to parry. He can also quickly swap to a bow and arrow to do a jump shot, which you can parry or dodge. A lot of his attacks can be blocked, but watch out for his melee spear combo which must be parried.
Shen Yiren can roll and jump into a variety of powerful spear attacks, so if you’re not sure of how good you are at parrying, there’s nothing wrong with playing on Story Mode. That way, you’ll get parry prompts for the stronger attacks.
This is a longer fight in Where Winds Meet, so you really just need to whittle away at him, stunning and executing anytime you can. When under 50% health, Shen Yiren will jump away and rain down AOEs of arrows, but as long as you keep moving, you won’t get hit by them. You don’t have to dodge or run, just keep moving. Another thing you can do in this fight is occasionally hit him with fire arrows, to keep a dot on him.
Once he’s defeated, check on the distressed young Zheng E, and watch the last cutscene play out. It’s a particularly tragic moment that we won’t spoil. Once that ends, you’ll awaken in a new place. Ask the Tomb Keeper about the incident, and you will wrap up Twelve Years of Grudges in Where Winds Meet. As a reward, you’ll also get the recipe to make a bundle of toxic arrows.
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