Where Winds Meet leans hard into the fantasy of a living wuxia world. Two quiet systems make that world feel less like a quest hub and more like a place: the Jianghu Friends AI-chat NPCs, and the broader social rules that sit around them. The NPC Li Laizuo sits inside that first system, and understanding how it works explains why players are excited about “chatting” with characters instead of clicking through dialogue wheels.
Where Winds Meet’s Jianghu Friends system, in plain language
Jianghu Friends — also called Old Friends — are a specific subset of NPCs spread across regions like Qinghe and Kaifeng. They’re flagged in-game because they support a free-text chat interface instead of the usual prewritten choice list.
Every Jianghu Friend follows the same basic loop:
| Element | What it means in play |
|---|---|
| AI chat window | You type what you want to say instead of choosing from a menu of responses. |
| Personal issue or concern | The NPC introduces a problem, worry, or life situation once you approach them. |
| Conversation-driven resolution | Solving or easing that issue via dialogue raises your reputation with that NPC. |
| Ongoing relationship | As reputation climbs, that NPC sends occasional gifts to your character. |
| Collection layer | The more Jianghu Friends you befriend overall, the better the aggregate rewards. |
Mechanically, Jianghu Friends are marked with different “types” such as Gift of Gab, Pitch Pot, Fishing Contest, Sparring Match, or simply by their role (refugee, monk, merchant, ferryman, and so on). Those types signal the context you’re stepping into: a debate, a drinking-and-throwing game, a fishing challenge, or a martial test.
What “no more multiple choice answers” actually looks like
In standard NPC conversations you tap through fixed options. With Jianghu Friends, the UI shifts into a chat pane: you write what you want, in natural language, and the NPC responds in character.
That structure supports a few concrete behaviors:
- You can ask clarifying questions about their situation (“Why are you afraid of ghost stories?” to a Tiger Fort Thief, for example).
- You can offer advice or comfort that matches their role — pragmatic talk with a ferryman, poetry with a scholar, scripture with a monk.
- You can probe for extra lore or rumors beyond the initial prompt, because the system is not limited to a handful of preauthored branches.
Reputation gain is tied to how successfully you engage with the character’s stated issue. Comforting a grieving refugee, humoring a drunk martial artist, or debating a doctrinal point with a monk can all move the needle, and the game then tracks that relationship over time.
Li Laizuo’s place in the Jianghu Friend network
Li Laizuo appears in the Qinghe Friends roster as one of many named NPCs in the Jianghu Friends table. The entry is minimal — only the name is listed, with no visible in-game description or title yet — but its presence confirms a few things:
| Field | Li Laizuo |
|---|---|
| Region list | Qinghe Friends |
| System | Jianghu Friends (Old Friends, AI chat NPC) |
| Type | Not specified in the current table |
| Title | Not listed |
| Description | Not yet filled in |
Because Li Laizuo is explicitly categorized under Jianghu Friends, you can expect them to behave like any other Old Friend NPC:
- They will have a problem or personal situation introduced when you first engage.
- You will use the AI chat interface to speak freely instead of clicking choices.
- Successfully navigating that conversation should increase your reputation with Li Laizuo.
- At higher reputation levels, Li Laizuo can contribute to your pool of Jianghu Friend rewards.
What is not currently documented is Li Laizuo’s exact role — whether they are a monk, bandit, merchant, or villager; whether they are linked to a mini-game type such as Pitch Pot or Fishing Contest; or what specific rewards they grant. Those details sit in the game data but are not exposed in the current table, so the only safe assumption is that Li Laizuo is one more thread in the larger Jianghu relationship web rather than a special boss or major storyline character.
What you actually get from befriending Jianghu Friends
Jianghu Friends are not just chat toys. The system plugs into the progression economy in several ways:
| Reward type | Where it shows up |
|---|---|
| Character experience | Gift of Gab characters like Aunt Liu, Wang Gouzi, or Old Fisherman list Character EXP as part of their reward bundle. |
| Intelligence / attribute growth | Some Jianghu Friends grant Intelligence or similar stat growth, reinforcing the “talking and debating” fantasy. |
| Career notebook entries | Conversations can unlock notebook entries tied to specific careers or paths in Qinghe. |
| Regional collectibles | Qinghe Exploration items appear in multiple reward lists, tying the system into exploration completion. |
| Currency | Treasure Coins and Zhou Coins can arrive from certain Old Friends, making social play a minor income source. |
Not every Jianghu Friend has a filled-out reward row yet, but the pattern is clear: talkative NPCs double as soft progression nodes. You are incentivized to seek them out, learn their stories, and check back as they send gifts over time.
Li Laizuo does not presently list a reward bundle in the table, but being part of this system means any reputation you build with them still contributes toward the “more Jianghu Friends, greater rewards” rule that sits above individual NPC payouts.
How this fits into the broader world of Where Winds Meet
Where Winds Meet is built as an open-world action RPG rooted in classic wuxia. You play a young swordsman during China’s Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, free to wander between cities, rivers, temples, and wilderness while picking sides in political struggles or ignoring them entirely.
The game’s structure is less “theme park MMO” and more “sandbox with jobs.” You can fight as a traditional martial hero, but you can also live as a doctor, merchant, judge, entertainer, or other in-world role, each with its own questlines and mechanics. One player might roam cliffs looking for bandits; another might teleport to injured wanderers who fell off roofs and need medical help.
In that context, Jianghu Friends are one of the social layers the world runs on. They sit alongside:
- Dynamic events and world bosses.
- Career quests for professions like doctor, merchant, or artist.
- Leagues and sects with strict behavioral rules, like the idol-style Li Yuan league that bans romance and dictates how performers behave in public.
The through line is that the game tracks how you move through jianghu — the community of wanderers, sects, and commoners — not just which boss you’ve killed. Chatting with Li Laizuo is one more way to leave a mark in that network.
Finding and using Jianghu Friends like Li Laizuo
The Jianghu Friends list is already dense, especially in Qinghe: refugees uprooted by the Khitan invasion, woodcutters suspected of being hidden masters, monks chasing enlightenment in different ways, drunk swordsmen who fight better while singing, poets looking for inspiration in Pitch Pot games, and more.
They fall into a few broad buckets:
| Category | Example NPCs | Typical interaction style |
|---|---|---|
| Gift of Gab | Aunt Liu, Wang Gouzi, Old Fisherman, Lotus Vow, Serene Flow, Jia Ren, Liang Dayou, Xi'er | Debates, comforting, persuasion, doctrinal talk; strong link to conversation-based rewards. |
| Pitch Pot / drinking | Elder Hu Zhong, Li Chengdao, Drum-Smashing Madman, Yue Renchu, Xun Siye, Lu Yichao | Talk intertwined with throwing arrows into pots, often while drinking heavily. |
| Fishing Contest / anglers | Lanxi Boatman, Wang Duoli, Yuan Yuzang, He Xiaoer, Wen Ling | Chat framed around fishing skill and small competitions. |
| Sparring Match | Fang Wanjian, Yao Lingling, Yuan Hao, Min Hong, Luo Boli | Martial philosophy and testing, sometimes discussing victory, defeat, or enlightenment. |
| Everyday wanderers | Refugees, ferrymen, scholars, monks, woodcutters, street performers | Grounded, small-scale problems — housing, family, faith, fear, ambition. |
Li Laizuo is currently listed without a type label, so they likely sit in the “everyday wanderer” slot rather than being a minigame anchor. Practically, that means you should expect a conversation about their personal situation more than a structured contest.
Once you encounter any Jianghu Friend in the world, the process to engage is simple:
- Approach the NPC and trigger their introductory line or quest hook.
- Enter the AI chat window when prompted and start speaking in-character.
- Follow the cues in their responses to steer toward a resolution of their issue.
- Revisit them later to collect gifts or see if new lines have opened up.
Because Jianghu Friends are tied into exploration and regional progression (for example, Qinghe Exploration rewards), hunting them down becomes part of clearing a map, not just flavor text on the side.
Li Laizuo is only a small name in a long table, but that’s the point. Where Winds Meet isn’t just selling a story about legendary sects and world-threatening villains; it’s building a web of minor characters you can actually talk to in your own words. The Jianghu Friends system turns NPCs like Li Laizuo from quest props into ongoing relationships — and if you care about games where chat windows matter as much as combat loadouts, that’s where the wind really starts to pick up.
