The General's Shrine in Where Winds Meet is one of the first places where the game quietly tests how well you pay attention. There’s a dungeon hidden directly under the shrine, a puzzle statue guarding a treasure box, and a cluster of 20 chests scattered in and around the area and nearby camps.
This breakdown focuses on three things: how to get into the ruins beneath the shrine, how to move the General’s statue to reveal its treasure, and how the 20 shrine-area chests are laid out so you can clean the place out in one sweep.
How to unlock Echoes in the Shrine and reach the underground dungeon
The treasure “under” the General’s Shrine is tied to the Echoes in the Shrine exploration quest. You encounter this very early, around the Merchant Caravan Gathering, while chasing Ruby during the introductory main mission in Qinghe.
| Step | What to do at General's Shrine |
|---|---|
| 1. Arrive with Ruby | Follow the main story to Qinghe and meet Ruby near the dancing horse by the General's Shrine. |
| 2. Start Echoes in the Shrine | Talk to the man bowing at the shrine entrance to trigger the Echoes in the Shrine quest. |
| 3. Note his hint | He talks about “bowing to the General a thousand times” — this is a clue for the statue puzzle later. |
Once the quest is active, the real entrance to the treasure isn’t through the doors of the shrine. It’s through a broken rocky slab to the left of the main stairs.
- Stand on the cracked or broken stone slab next to the shrine entrance on the left side.
- Jump into the air, then use your ground slam (Power Slam / Might Drop) with
Qwhile airborne. - The slab breaks and opens a shaft into the ruins labeled “Under the General's Shrine”.
Drop down and you land in an armory-like room filled with arrows and armor racks. There’s also an investigation point that hints at a sect operating in the area. Loot the quivers here; they provide a large bundle of Fire Arrows you’ll need for almost every puzzle in the dungeon.
Using Fire Arrows to progress through the shrine ruins
The dungeon beneath the General’s Shrine is built around Fire Arrows. If you rush in without grabbing the quivers from the first room, you’ll constantly run short.
| Obstacle | What to shoot | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Overgrown hedges blocking doors | Vines/hedges on walls and doorways | Burns away, opening new passages and chests. |
| Enemies near red jars | Red explosive jars at their feet | Explosions clear groups of enemies quickly. |
| Broken bridge over chasm | Hedge on the dark ceiling above the gap | Releases the mechanism so a wooden bridge drops down. |
To use Fire Arrows:
- Equip a bow.
- Hold the bow-draw button.
- Use
Alt+ mouse scroll to switch from normal arrows to Fire Arrows.
Past the first hedge wall and corridor, you’ll find a section with three enemies chatting near three red jars. Ignite a jar with a single Fire Arrow, and the blast usually wipes them out instantly, preserving your resources and health.
A little further in, you hit the main traversal puzzle of this first half: a chasm you can’t clear with a normal jump, even with sprint. Look up, and you’ll spot another overgrown hedge in the darkness of the ceiling. Burning that hedge frees the suspended platform or bridge, dropping it into position. Cross carefully — if you fall, you’ll respawn at the last checkpoint and lose health.
Key chests inside the dungeon under the General's Shrine
The dungeon floors beneath the shrine hide multiple chests, some in plain sight, some tucked behind vines or breakable walls. On the map, this area is labeled “Under the General's Shrine”, with chest locations spread across floor 2 and floor 3.
| Floor | Chest clue | How to reveal it |
|---|---|---|
| Floor 2 | Chest in a small nook | Follow the main route; check side alcoves near corridors and corners. |
| Floor 2 | Chest behind a destructible wall | Detonate a stack of explosive barrels or jars by shooting them. |
| Floor 3 | Chest behind burnable vines | Burn wall vines with Fire Arrows to open a small side room. |
| Floor 3 | Chests in the large statue room | Search ledges, behind secondary statues, and upper balconies. |
| Temple (surface) | Hidden side-room chest | Unlocked during the Echoes in the Shrine sequence after exiting the dungeon. |
There is also a smaller reward box immediately behind the main General’s statue once you solve its puzzle. Some players treat that as a distinct “treasure” rather than one of the 20 region chests because of its size and context. Either way, you should open it; it is the thing most NPCs mean when they talk about a treasure under the shrine.
Cloud Steps manual and the mid-dungeon boss
After crossing the chasm and using the lever to open the next heavy door, you eventually reach a chamber with enemies around an investigation point. Clearing them lets you inspect a corpse and pick up the Cloud Steps manual, a Mystic Art that functions as a quick dash or multi-step jump.
- Learn Cloud Steps from the manual.
- Equip it on an unlocked Mystic Skill slot in your combat loadout.
- Use it both for platforming gaps and for stunning enemies in fights.
Climb the nearby stairs, push through the next door, and you drop into the biggest space in the dungeon: a multi-level hall studded with explosive jars, balconies, and a central statue of the General. Enemies populate the floor and the upper walkways.
Here’s the efficient way through:
- Use Fire Arrows on explosive jars to thin ground enemies fast.
- Shoot the archer or elite foe on the balcony to knock them down and formally start the “boss” phase.
- Watch their telegraphs: dodge when their attacks glow red, and parry the yellow attacks to stun them.
Once the boss goes down, check both balconies thoroughly. Each side holds a chest that counts toward the shrine area total and gives solid early loot. Only after you’ve looted both should you go back down to deal with the statue puzzle in front of the praying mat.
How to move the General’s statue and claim its hidden treasure
The General’s statue puzzle is simple but easy to miss because the game doesn’t highlight it strongly. The hint comes from the bowing man outside, who talks about bowing to the General an exaggerated number of times. In practice, you only need three.
| Action | Effect on statue |
|---|---|
| Stand on the mat directly in front of the statue | Positions you in the trigger zone. |
| Bow once using the emote | No change; first bow is registered but silent. |
| Bow a second time | Still no visible reaction. |
| Bow a third time | The statue rotates or moves, revealing a small chest behind it. |
Use the bow emote three times in a row while standing on the central mat. On the third bow, the statue shifts position and uncovers a treasure box tucked behind its base. Open it immediately; this is the “General’s treasure” the dungeon builds up to, and the one NPCs like Fu Lushou are usually obsessed with.
From here, you can climb back up to the balconies, push open the final door, follow a winding corridor, and climb a ladder that takes you out of the ruins. At the top, the game flags the dungeon as complete and returns you to the surface-level temple spaces where several more chests are accessible as part of Volume II of Echoes in the Shrine.
All 20 chest locations around the General's Shrine
The wider General's Shrine area in Verdant Winds is packed with loot beyond the underground dungeon. Counting the surface and temple zones plus nearby bandit camps, you can pull in 20 separate chests tied to this landmark.
| # | Area | Location clue |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Outside shrine | Behind a pile or stack near the main shrine courtyard. |
| 2 | River/shore | On a patch of grass or shallow water near the shore below the shrine. |
| 3 | Cliff above shrine | On top of a cliff overlooking the water near the shrine. |
| 4 | Bear puzzle | Inside a large rock, revealed by throwing a nearby bear into the stone pile with Tai Chi. |
| 5 | Shrine courtyard | Inside an inner yard close to the main entrance checkpoint. |
| 6 | Temple interior | Inside a side building off the shrine complex. |
| 7 | Temple interior | Directly behind a statue inside the temple building. |
| 8–12 | Under the General's Shrine | Various rooms, behind vines, destructible walls, or after combat encounters during Echoes in the Shrine. |
| 13 | Upper temple area | On a higher ledge or balcony in the shrine structure, reachable once the dungeon path loops you back. |
| 14–16 | Antique exploration route | On upper floors and ladders connected to the shrine’s antique exploration volume. |
| 17–20 | Nearby camps | One chest in each of four small bandit or mercenary camps within sight of the shrine’s checkpoint pillar. |
The exact order you pick these up doesn’t matter, but it is efficient to start at the shrine’s main checkpoint marker, clear the immediate courtyard and buildings, run the underground dungeon, then fan out to the four nearby camps at the end. Each camp requires you to defeat all enemies before you can safely loot its chest.
What Fu Lushou means by “the treasure hidden in the General’s Shrine”
Fu Lushou, a nearby NPC, often asks about the treasure hidden in the General’s Shrine and can become hostile if he thinks you’re lying. His line refers to the treasure beneath the shrine — the dungeon you enter through the broken slab and, more specifically, the reward behind the statue that moves when you bow three times on the mat.
Some dialogue paths let you talk about the hole in front of the shrine, mark it for him, or describe heading underground with his brothers or the dog Fu Luwa. However, you handle the conversation, having actually cleared Echoes in the Shrine and taken the statue chest is the cleanest way to make his obsession feel grounded: you’ve seen the hidden space under the shrine, you’ve solved the bowing riddle, and you know exactly which box he’s talking about.
Once you have that treasure and all 20 nearby chests, the General's Shrine stops being a mystery and becomes what it really is: an early-game loot fountain that quietly teaches you how Where Winds Meet hides its best rewards behind environmental hints, emotes, and a willingness to look up at the ceiling.
