Pip Rat is one of the more fragile pieces in Where Winds Meet’s Jianghu Friends system. He is a child NPC tied to both AI-powered dialogue and an encounter chain in Mercyheart Town, and the way his story is wired means it is very easy to lose access to him if you move the wrong quest forward at the wrong time.
Who Pip Rat Is and Why He Matters
Pip Rat is a Jianghu Friend based in the Qinghe region. He belongs to a group informally known as the “Five Rats” and is described as a loyal, justice‑minded child hiding in a place called Rat Den with his siblings. In Mercyheart Town he appears as a boy collecting poisonous bugs to brew potions that can both harm enemies and heal villagers, following medical knowledge passed down from his mother.
Reaching Revered status with Jianghu Friends unlocks weekly gifts: small packages of materials or items that drop into your inbox. Pip Rat is part of the Mercyheart Town “Old Friends” checklist, so missing him used to block 100 percent completion of Qinghe’s Sentient Beings objectives for some players.
Where to Find Pip Rat in Mercyheart Town
In everyday free exploration, Pip Rat can be found in Mercyheart Town:
- Region: Qinghe
- Town: Mercyheart Town
- Position: On the ground in the northern part of town, near the path that leads up toward Mercyheart Monastery
You will often see him crouched down, scanning the dirt for bugs. This is the version you talk to through the AI Chat interface. There is also a separate appearance for him during the “Underworld Uprising” encounter chain around Mercyheart, where he shows up in a cave; that appearance is tied to quests and is not where you befriend him.
How to Befriend Pip Rat in AI Chat
Pip Rat is one of the AI Chat Jianghu Friends. You are not choosing between pre‑written lines; instead you write messages and get freeform replies. To earn a big Affection boost and push him straight to Revered, you need to steer the conversation toward two core beats:
- Respect and understand his plan to protect his siblings and villagers using bug‑based potions.
- Offer to train him in combat without dragging him away from his self‑appointed post.
The exact wording does not have to match any script word‑for‑word, but the structure below shows the logic that works reliably.
Step 1: Start by engaging with what he is doing. When he asks where the bug went, give it back to him and ask why the bugs matter. The goal is to get him to explain that he is brewing both poisons and medicines to deal with Buddha‑Flower Emissaries and heal villagers.
Step 2: Compliment his intelligence and offer support. A line like “You’re smart; let me help you get better at combat and medicine” frames you as a mentor rather than a replacement.
Step 3: When he worries about leaving his siblings, do not insist that he come with you. If you suggest “Come with me, let’s train somewhere else,” back off as soon as he refuses.
Step 4: Explicitly agree to train him on the spot. Pivot to something like “Then we’ll train right here while you keep working.” This reassures him that his duty comes first.
Step 5: Time‑skip the training in your message. A short narrative line such as “We train here for a few weeks until you can handle combat and brewing on your own” signals to the system that his growth arc has completed.
If you hit those beats, he responds with firm, confident gratitude, says he knows what to do next, and the system grants a large Affection bump (shown in game as Affection +100 and a jump to Revered).
AI Chat responses are not perfectly deterministic, so you may see some variation, but the underlying pattern—respect his plan, train him in place, then describe his progress—remains the key.
General tips for AI Chat with Pip Rat
Pip Rat follows the same rules as other AI Chat friends, and the interface gives you a few tools to keep the conversation on track.
Reset when the conversation drifts. If the talk starts circling or you can’t push him toward training and resolve, click the Refresh icon at the top of the AI Chat window to reset the dialogue history. It is usually more effective to commit to one strategy from a clean state than to spam different approaches in one muddled conversation.
Use the hint as your north star. Pip Rat’s AI Chat entry has a short hint text summarizing his unresolved issue. Treat that as the victory condition: you win when he clearly expresses readiness to act with his brothers rather than just being momentarily happy. If he sounds upbeat but the chat does not end, your answer probably hasn’t aligned with the hint yet.
Back out if combat breaks out. Sometimes AI‑driven NPCs can flip hostile during a failed conversation. If Pip Rat (or any other chat‑enabled NPC) suddenly attacks you mid‑dialogue, open the menu and return to the login screen. When you load back in, he resets to his previous, non‑hostile state.
Note: NPCs that support dialogue can respawn if killed, but this behaviour is not well documented. Avoid attacking any Jianghu Friend unless the story clearly demands combat.
How Pip Rat Connects to the Underworld Uprising Encounter
Mercyheart Town has an encounter chain often referred to as “Underworld Uprising,” shown in game as a two‑part encounter involving a cave, oddities, and Pip Rat’s family. To make that chain appear on your map, you first interact with Pip Rat lying on the ground in town and “poke” or kick him twice, which triggers the encounter marker.
The problem is that this chain eventually kills him off as part of the story. Once you finish the related encounters, the version of Pip Rat used for the Old Friends checklist vanishes from Mercyheart Town. For many early players, that meant:
- Pip Rat’s Old Friend slot stayed unfilled.
- The Mercyheart Town Old Friends entry remained stuck (for example, at 5/6).
- The Qinghe region Sentient Beings completion achievement could not be earned.
More recently, the requirement for Old Friends in Mercyheart Town has been adjusted in some builds (for example, to 5/5 instead of 6/6), and there is anecdotal evidence of a replacement NPC filling the gap. But if your version still shows Pip Rat as an Old Friend requirement, the safest route is to handle his friendship before you finish the encounter chain that removes him.
Safe order: Befriend Pip Rat without breaking Qinghe 100%
If your goal is long‑term completion, treat Pip Rat like a missable quest flag and plan around him.
Step 1: In Mercyheart Town, find Pip Rat in his normal daytime spot on the ground in the northern part of town near the road to Mercyheart Monastery.
Step 2: Open AI Chat and work through his conversation until he hits the “trained and ready” resolution and jumps to Revered. Confirm that his portrait in the Jianghu Friends view is now lit and marked as a friend.
Step 3: Only after he is safely a friend, go back to the town and interact with the version of him lying on the ground to “poke” him twice and kick off the Underworld Uprising encounter marker.
Step 4: Play through Underworld Uprising Part 1 and Part 2 as normal. If Pip Rat dies in those events, his Old Friend status is still locked in from AI Chat, so you retain your progress for Qinghe’s completion.
Tip: If Pip Rat is missing from his usual spot, adjust the in‑game time and recheck the area, since some NPC appearances are time‑gated. Failing that, verify in the Friends tab of the map which Jianghu Friends you are still missing in Mercyheart Town.
What to do if Pip Rat is already gone
Many players only discover Pip Rat’s importance after finishing the Mercyheart encounters and watching him disappear. Depending on your build, several outcomes are possible:
- The game still shows Mercyheart Old Friends as 6/6 with Pip Rat unfilled, blocking 100 percent Qinghe completion.
- The requirement has been patched down to 5/5, effectively removing Pip Rat from the checklist so you can still complete the region.
- A different Jianghu Friend in Mercyheart takes the sixth slot, though this is not clearly documented.
If you are in the first camp and the requirement has not yet updated on your server, the only hard fixes rest with the developer: hotfixing the requirement, adding a replacement NPC, or restoring Pip Rat post‑encounter. Players have already sent bug reports through in‑game support and email channels; if you are locked out of completion, submit a ticket through the support form on the official NetEase site so your account data is on record.
If your checklist now reads 5/5 in Mercyheart Town but you still see forum posts about Pip Rat, you are likely on a build where the requirement has been adjusted and you no longer need him for 100 percent.
Pip Rat’s place in the wider Jianghu Friends system
Pip Rat is a good example of how Jianghu Friends tie narrative flavor to repeatable systems in Where Winds Meet. As with others in this category, the key traits are:
- Conversation‑driven bonding. You gain Affection primarily through AI Chat, not combat or gifting.
- Revered status for weekly rewards. Once Revered, he contributes to your weekly gift pool, although the exact item set for his Friend Gift has not been fully cataloged in every version.
- Overlap with other content. His story crosses into an encounter chain, which in turn affects exploration and achievement tracking.
That overlap is what makes him fragile, but it also shows why talking to Jianghu Friends early and often is a good habit. Characters that look like minor village kids can end up wired into progress checks, bugged quests, and achievements in ways that are not obvious at first glance.
If you are just starting out in Qinghe, take a slow lap through Mercyheart Town, chat with everyone flagged as a potential friend, and clear any AI Chat arcs that clearly point toward “taking the first step toward justice” or similar turning points. Pip Rat’s story resolves cleanly if you give him that space before the rest of the town’s drama catches up with him.
