Zheng the Frostwing (Zheng E the Frostwing) is a late-Kaifeng Campaign boss in Where Winds Meet, built around punishing over-aggression and rewarding precise parries. The fight runs across two distinct phases, shifts from fans to a snow lance, and mixes grounded melee strings with screen-wide ice waves.
Where Zheng the Frostwing appears
Zheng only shows up once you advance far enough into Kaifeng’s story.
- Quest requirement: Complete the Ever-Normal Granary Campaign questline. This unlocks the dungeon-style encounter that culminates in Zheng.
- Campaign boss location: After clearing that quest, his repeatable Campaign version is found in the Granary of Plenty area of the Kaifeng region.
- Challenge variant: Beating him once unlocks a Campaign Challenge node tied to Ever-Normal Granary where you can spend Energy for gear and materials.
Zheng the Frostwing’s weakness and recommended Arts
Zheng’s design pushes you hard toward counter-focused builds rather than pure DPS.
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | ★★★★★ Campaign boss |
| Primary weakness | Stonesplit (effects that help shred his Qi bar) |
| Recommended Martial Art | Inkwell Fan – excellent for ranged pokes and safe single-hit strings |
| Recommended Mystic Art | Meridian Touch – reliably cancels his hardest red attack and knocks him down |
Any setup that accelerates Qi depletion and rewards perfect parries will feel noticeably stronger here than raw damage builds.
Fight overview: why parries matter more than combos
Zheng is one of the rare Campaign bosses who can parry you back. If you spam long strings, he will frequently deflect and reverse the tempo. His own Qi bar is the real win condition: repeated parries exhaust him, opening Execute windows that chunk a large share of his health.
- Favor single hits or short chains, then immediately reset into a guard or parry stance.
- Think of your weapon as a way to force his next move, not as the main damage source.
- Use Executes whenever his Qi breaks; this drives the fight forward much faster than straight HP trading.
Visually, the colour of his attacks is a constant cue:
- Golden glow: treat as unblockable; dodge or reposition.
- Red glow: parryable threat or a moment for a specific counter like Meridian Touch.
Phase 1 moves and how to answer them
Phase 1 keeps Zheng grounded, fighting with dual fans and a mix of ranged pressure and close-range flurries. Almost everything here can be either dodged or parried if you focus on his startup animations rather than the hits themselves.
| Move | What it does | Best response |
|---|---|---|
| Ice Shards | Ranged fan swing that throws a spread of ice projectiles. | Time a single parry for the incoming volley; safe to dodge if unsure. |
| Twin Fang | Two ice “walls” that slide toward you in a lane. | Parry as they reach you, or sidestep between/around them. |
| Shockwave | Linear slash that skims across the ground. | Parry at the moment the wave arrives or dodge diagonally. |
| Homing Ice Shards | Series of icicles that track you one after another. | Walk in a curve and parry individual shards as they close in. |
| Echo Slash | Fan swing that leaves a delayed echo on the floor. | Parry the initial swing or move out of the echo zone after he attacks. |
| Triple Shockwave | Three consecutive shockwave slashes in a cone. | Parry each wave on rhythm, or roll through the gaps between casts. |
| Fan of Knives | Close-range knife barrage plus an underground echo hit. | Parry the first flurry, then immediately step to his side to dodge the echo. |
| Graceful Retreat | Leaping backstep with outgoing shockwaves and a ground-uproot hit. | Chase only after the ground effect resolves; parry if staying close. |
| Red Fan Attack | Signature red-glow fan swing; high damage and tight timing. | Either perfect-parry or cancel it with Meridian Touch for a knockdown. |
The main trap in this phase comes from ice thorns: several melee strings leave delayed spikes on the floor that trigger a beat after the visible attack. If you stay directly in front of Zheng, these aftershocks will repeatedly clip you even when you parry correctly.
- When he starts a melee combo, either circle to his back or disengage to medium range.
- Watch the floor for brief ice eruptions after fan swings and don’t rush back in too early.
Using Meridian Touch against the red fan
The red fan swing in Phase 1 is intentionally awkward to parry: the wind-up is a little slower, and the punishment on failure is steep. Meridian Touch turns that problem move into a free opening.
How to use it effectively:
Step 1: Slot Meridian Touch on your Mystic bar before entering the encounter. Make sure it’s comfortably reachable on your input layout so you can fire it without thinking.
Step 2: When Zheng’s fan and body take on a red glow, and he starts a broad swing animation, stop attacking and wait half a beat into the wind-up.
Step 3: Trigger Meridian Touch just before the hit would land. This overrides the red attack, canceling the swing and knocking him down for a brief window.
Step 4: During the knockdown, spend your full stamina bar on clean damage, but end with time to reset into a parry stance before he stands.
Repeatedly turning his red fan into a knockdown drastically shortens Phase 1 and makes the transition to Phase 2 far more controlled.
Transition: when Phase 2 starts
Once Zheng’s Qi bar breaks for the first time and you burn through a chunk of his health, he shifts into Phase 2:
- He restores some HP.
- An enormous ice pillar rises in the arena, and he perches on top of it.
- The fight temporarily becomes a ranged survival check with huge ice waves and javelins.
This transition is scripted; you can’t skip it with burst damage. The goal is to survive the opening salvo and then yank him back to the ground with a specific parry.
Phase 2: ice pillar, waves, and lance pressure
Handling the three Ice Waves
The first thing he does from the pillar is fire three enormous ice waves across the arena. These are telegraphed very clearly but punish hesitation.
- Wave 1 (gold): counts as unblockable. Dodge to the side just before it reaches you; do not attempt to parry.
- Wave 2 (gold): identical to the first; sidestep again, ideally in the same direction to build rhythm.
- Wave 3 (red): this one is a red attack. Perfect-parry this wave to shatter the ice pillar and send Zheng crashing back to the floor.
Missing the third parry means more pillar uptime and more incoming projectiles. Landing it is the quickest way to end the aerial phase and reset the battle to a manageable space.
Phase 2 ground moves with the snow lance
Once you’ve broken the pillar, Zheng fights with a snow lance and a heavier emphasis on rushdowns and vertical pressure. The parry logic stays the same: short punishes, then prepare to deflect.
| Move | What it does | Best response |
|---|---|---|
| Snowpiercer | Thrown ice javelin that explodes on impact, dealing damage in a small radius. | Parry the projectile at mid-range or dodge out of the landing circle before it hits. |
| Graceful Lance | Fast, traveling charge with his lance in front. | Parry the moment the lance tip reaches your hitbox, or roll sideways at the last second. |
| Frozen Touch | Direct flight toward you; if it connects, he tosses you into the air. | Purely a dodge check; sidestep as he closes the gap. |
| Lance Combo | Multi-hit melee string in close quarters. | Parry the first hit and watch for small pauses that signal follow-ups; don’t commit to long counter-combos. |
| Snow Fall | Calls down a rain of ice shards over your area. | Keep running and dodging in a loose circle; don’t stop to attack until the barrage ends. |
The lance phase also reuses the Double Wave-style projectile logic from Phase 1:
- Most ice projectiles can be safely parried for extra Qi damage.
- When Zheng launches two waves in quick succession that travel in a stacked pattern, treat this as the Double Wave. These cannot be parried and must be dodged sideways.
On higher difficulties, especially Legend, players report long strings of golden attacks with very few deflectable openings. In that context, staying alive comes from:
- Maximizing parries on the few red or uncoloured melee swings he does use.
- Respecting every gold flash with a dodge instead of gambling on blocks.
- Entering the fight with strong healing and a healthy HP pool, since some sequences simply force you to weather chip damage.
High-level parry habits that help for Zheng
Zheng is a stress test for the game’s parry system. Several general habits make him far more manageable:
- Parry the startup, not the impact. In most of his moves, the correct timing is near the beginning of the swing animation rather than when the hitbox visually touches you.
- Use the camera actively. In Phase 2, he moves off-screen often when flying or charging. Keep him centered so gold and red glows are always visible.
- Value Qi damage over HP trades. If you’re unsure whether to attack or wait, waiting for a parryable swing is nearly always better.
Rewards for defeating Zheng the Frostwing once
Clearing Zheng as part of the Ever-Normal Granary story and the associated quest “A Promise Fulfilled” pays out a mix of progression currencies, EXP, and unique items.
| Reward | Amount / Type |
|---|---|
| Echo Jade | 55 |
| Kaifeng Exploration | 105 |
| Enlightenment Points | 100 |
| Coin | 43,000 |
| Character EXP | 43,000 |
| Vendetta: Tome | x1 (Inner Way-related item) |
| Eagle Ring | x1 (accessory) |
| Medicinal Tales | x1 (lore/consumable item) |
| Oscillating Jade | x5 |
On top of that initial clear, his Campaign Challenge node in Ever-Normal Granary becomes a repeatable source of Ivorybloom-tier gear and other materials, with rewards scaling as your World Level and challenge level rise.
Campaign Challenge rewards by level
Each time you spend Energy to tackle Zheng’s Campaign Challenge, you receive a reward bundle tied to the current level of that challenge. Improving your World Level and character strength lets you access higher tiers with better loot.
| Challenge Level | Key rewards (summary) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Tier 16 Ivorybloom Set (Uncommon) x2, Ever-Normal Granary Cosmetic Chest, Crimson Leaves Chest, Silkbind: Deluge Tips x2, Oscillating Jade x2, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x4000 |
| 2 | Tier 16 Ivorybloom Set (Epic) x2, same chests and tips, Oscillating Jade x2, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x4400 |
| 3 | Tier 16 Ivorybloom Set (Epic) x2, same chests and tips, Oscillating Jade x2, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x4800 |
| 4 | Tier 31 Ivorybloom Set (Epic) x2, Ever-Normal Granary Cosmetic Chest, Crimson Leaves Chest, Silkbind: Deluge Tips x2, Internal Art Note: Custom Chest x1, Oscillating Jade x2, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x5200 |
| 5 | Tier 41 Ivorybloom Set (Epic) x2, same cosmetic and note chests, Oscillating Jade x2, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x5600 |
| 6 | Tier 51 Ivorybloom Set (Epic) x2, Internal Art Note: Custom Chest x1, Attunement Stone: Doom x1, Oscillating Jade x3, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x6000 |
| 7 | Tier 56 Ivorybloom Set (Epic) x2, Attunement Stone: Rhapsody x1, Oscillating Jade x3, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x6400 |
| 8 | Tier 61 Ivorybloom Set (Epic) x2, Attunement Stone: Gold Inlay x1, Oscillating Jade x3, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x6800 |
| 9 | Tier 61 Ivorybloom Set (Legendary) x2, same cosmetic and note chests, Attunement Stone: Gold Inlay x1, Oscillating Jade x3, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x7000 |
| 10 | Tier 71 Ivorybloom Set (Legendary) x2, Gear Echo: Fieryheart x2, Attunement Stone: Fieryheart x1, Oscillating Jade x3, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x7200 |
| 11 | Tier 71 Ivorybloom Set (Legendary) x2, Gear Echo: Fieryheart x2, Attunement Stone: Fieryheart x1, Oscillating Jade x3, Zhou Coin x3200, Character XP x7400 |
Energy is limited, so it’s worth pushing challenge levels only once your clear times and death count are under control. When Zheng goes from feeling like a wall to feeling like a dance, you can read that’s the moment to start farming his higher tiers for Ivorybloom sets, Gear Echoes, and Attunement Stones.
Zheng the Frostwing is less about raw reaction speed and more about reading patterns, trusting the parry window, and resisting the urge to mash. Once you adjust to single-hit pressure, aggressive counter-parries, and the three-wave pillar sequence, the fight goes from chaotic to tightly scripted — and turns into one of the more efficient midgame farms in Kaifeng.
