Mistveil Forest in Where Winds Meet looks peaceful, but it hides one of Kaifeng’s more intricate Encounter chains: The Ephemeral Blight. Partway through, the quest asks for three “cures” for Mistveil, one of which is tied to a location called Hollow Abode. That name never appears as a clear map marker, so many players end up circling the forest without understanding what the game wants.
This breakdown focuses on how Hollow Abode works inside The Ephemeral Blight: where it is, what the game expects you to do there, and how it connects to the other cures in Mistveil Forest.
The Ephemeral Blight and the three Mistveil cures
The Ephemeral Blight is an Encounter quest that unlocks once you reach the Kaifeng region and step into Mistveil Forest. You are pulled into the story through a dense mist event and a cutscene where Zhai Xu drags you to safety in Wishing Cove, his secluded home.
| Stage | Location | Key action |
|---|---|---|
| Meet Zhai Xu | Wishing Cove (Mistveil Forest) | Wake up after the mist cutscene; receive Broken Jade Stone pendant. |
| Investigate his home | Zhai Xu’s house interior | Read “Thousand Wish Amendment” and “Mistveil Forest Cure: Wishing Cove”. |
| Read the Amendment | Outside Wishing Cove | Learn there are three separate cures to track down. |
| Cure 1 | Wishing Cove | Counts as the first cure once both notes are found. |
| Cure 2 | Hollow Abode | Stealth sequence inside a hidden house; cure is a document/clue. |
| Cure 3 | Aureate Pavilion | Outpost fight, then collect the cure from a building. |
After you leave Zhai Xu’s home and read the Thousand Wish Amendment, the quest log shifts to “find three cures.” Wishing Cove is already one, which is why some players see the counter jump to 1/3 immediately. The remaining two cures are tied to Hollow Abode and Aureate Pavilion.
What “Hollow Abode” actually is
Hollow Abode is not a labeled Boundary Stone or a named town. It refers to a specific safehouse-style location in Mistveil Forest that the quest uses for a stealth scenario. The quest marker sends you into an underground or enclosed complex where disciples of a hostile sect are stationed.
The key trait of this segment is that the Veil of Stillness Mystic Skill is required and auto-activates as you enter. That skill allows you to move through enemies’ vision more safely, and The Ephemeral Blight leans on it here to stage something closer to an assassination mission than an open fight.
| Hollow Abode element | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Region | Mistveil Forest, Kaifeng. |
| General area | Western side of Mistveil Forest, at a secluded house used as a hideout. |
| Quest requirement | Part of The Ephemeral Blight’s “three cures” objective. |
| Skill requirement | Veil of Stillness Mystic Skill triggers automatically on entry. |
| Core mechanic | Stealth and silent eliminations instead of open combat. |
| Quest item | Cure clue retrieved from inside the house (treated as the second cure). |
Several players also reach a similar “hollow house” on the western side of Mistveil, where they sneak in to steal a Healing Umbrella from the basement. That location lines up with the idea of a hidden abode used for illicit activity, and it sits in the same broad part of the forest that The Ephemeral Blight sends you into for the Hollow Abode cure.
How to find Hollow Abode in Mistveil Forest
The clearest way to reach Hollow Abode is to let the quest marker do the work once the Thousand Wish Amendment has been read. With The Ephemeral Blight tracked in your Encounter log, the game highlights the next cure location, and one of those markers leads into the Hollow Abode sequence.
When you are exploring manually, a few spatial cues help:
- The area lies on the western side of Mistveil Forest, away from the densest mist corridors where you first collapsed.
- You approach a single house or small compound rather than a large fortified outpost; it feels like a residence that has been quietly repurposed.
- The interior or basement hides what earlier players describe as a stolen Healing Umbrella, reinforcing the sense that this is a clandestine hub.
Entering that house during The Ephemeral Blight with the relevant objective active aligns it with the Hollow Abode step, and the game will automatically wrap it into your cure counter once the stealth section is completed correctly.
Completing the Hollow Abode stealth section
Hollow Abode’s gameplay is less about raw damage and more about staying unseen. The quest explicitly leans on Veil of Stillness, which activates when you cross the threshold into the interior.
| Phase | Player action | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Walk into the designated house/underground area with the quest tracked. | Veil of Stillness turns on automatically. |
| Infiltration | Move through rooms and corridors while disciples patrol. | Avoid detection with timing and positioning. |
| Assassinations | Use stealth takedowns to eliminate disciples one by one. | Clears lines of sight so you can reach the cure. |
| Collection | Interact with the quest item that represents the second cure. | Quest log advances to 2/3 cures. |
| Extraction | Leave the house once the game confirms progress. | Stage saves; you are free to move on to Aureate Pavilion. |
A few details matter for actually getting credit:
- Do not rely on fighting your way through. The sequence is built around assassinations. Triggering open combat risks failure and a forced restart of the section.
- If you are spotted, restart the stage. Being caught does not lock the quest; it simply pushes you back to the beginning of the Hollow Abode instance so you can try again.
- Wait for the progress confirmation. After you pick up the cure clue and the counter updates, leave the area. Exiting too early, or resetting while the notification is still in progress, can desync your expectations from the quest log.
How Hollow Abode connects to Wishing Cove and Aureate Pavilion
Hollow Abode is the middle leg of a longer arc that keeps pulling you back to Zhai Xu and deep into Mistveil’s politics.
The full cure chain looks like this:
| Cure | Location label | Gameplay focus | Story role |
|---|---|---|---|
| First cure | Wishing Cove (Zhai Xu’s home) | Exploration inside a house, quiet clue-hunting. | Reveals the Thousand Wish Amendment and the idea of three cures. |
| Second cure | Hollow Abode | Stealth infiltration with Veil of Stillness. | Shows how the blight is being exploited in hidden lairs. |
| Third cure | Aureate Pavilion | Full outpost fight, then a duel with Xie Xiuyu Gansui. | Highlights the Aureate sect’s direct involvement and gives the last cure document. |
Once all three cures are in hand, you return to Wishing Cove to hand everything back to Zhai Xu. The quest then jumps ahead in time: you skip two in-game days through the time menu, come back to his house to find an antidote note, and are routed into the later Mistveil segments in the northern wasteland, eventually reaching a Hidden Lair.
By that point, Hollow Abode has done its job. It introduced a more personal scale to the conflict (one house, a handful of disciples, a single cure) before the quest escalates into scenes with coffins, dawn-to-dusk blooms, sleeping puppets, and multi-stage investigations.
If the Mistveil Forest cure counter is stuck at 1/3 or 2/3 and nothing on the map is labeled “Hollow Abode,” the missing piece is that stealth house on the western side of the forest, tied to the Veil of Stillness encounter. Enter it with The Ephemeral Blight active, finish the infiltration without being caught, grab the cure clue, and leave after the quest log ticks forward. From there, the path through Aureate Pavilion and back to Wishing Cove unfolds cleanly, and Mistveil’s blight story finally moves on.
