Where Winds Meet’s Ghostlight Market and March of the Dead, explained

The Ghostlight Market in Where Winds Meet is one of the game’s strangest spaces: an underground bazaar that doubles as a story hub, an exploration zone, and the stage for the Jianghu Legacy quest “March of the Dead.” It looks like a typical outlaw market by day, but at certain hours it turns into a lethal maze filled with Nether Mist and spectral soldiers.

How the Ghostlight Market fits into the main story

The Ghostlight Market first matters during the Chapter 2 main quest “Reunion.” In Kaifeng, the Young Hero is framed after the Gold-Making Vessel is stolen. Big Zhao believes the trail leads underground, to the Ghost Market run by the Nine Mortal Ways sect.

During “Reunion,” you work through a chain of clues:

• Wait until Chen Hour and meet Big Zhao in the Forsaken Quarter.
• Talk to a red-faced Little Beggar who gives you the phrase used to summon the Ferryman: “Raise the coffin, deliver the goods.”
• Track down the Ferryman, pay his “fee” by stealing a scroll with the Heavenly Snatch mystic skill, and escape with help from Granny Turtle and Little Fu.
• Back at Granny Turtle’s house, piece together clues in the deduction minigame and connect the sudden flood of Tang Coins to the Nine Mortal Ways and the Ghost Market.

By the time this arc ends, the Ghostlight Market is clearly established as the hidden base of the Nine Mortal Ways, and you have both a narrative and mechanical reason to return.

How to unlock Ghostlight Market access and March of the Dead

Once the story has pushed the Ghost Market into view, the game starts using it as a persistent location.

The market exists in two states that you can switch between by changing the in-game clock:

• Open market (day and evening hours): Normal merchants, cats to pet, exploration points, and access to a Divinecraft dungeon once you’ve cleared the Nether Mist version.
• Ghostlight/Nethereal market (Mao Hour): Thick poisonous mist, disabled Wind Sense, roaming spectral soldiers, and the March of the Dead quest flow.

Time changes do not wipe March of the Dead progress. Shifting away from Mao Hour temporarily dumps you back into the “normal” market, but reselecting Mao Hour returns you to your previous step in the legacy quest.

Starting March of the Dead in Ghostlight Market

With “Bounty Trouble” finished, go to the menu, open the time setting, and select Mao Hour while you are physically in Ghostlight Market. The scene darkens, Nether Mist floods the streets, and Wind Sense is locked out to stop you from simply tracing routes through the fog.

Near the stairs leading up into the main street stands Liu Changsheng, an elder figure who acts as your anchor in this altered version of the market. Speaking with him kicks off March of the Dead. He asks you to recover three items:

The catch: everything is buried inside the Nether Mist. You must navigate by green “Lanterns of Underground” scattered around the map. These lanterns do two things:

• Slow and reset the Nether Mist buildup that otherwise chews through your health.
• Visually mark safe paths that eventually lead to each item.

Stray too far from a lantern and a bar fills up; when it maxes out, your HP drops in chunks until you reach the next light source.

Mountain Armor location in Ghostlight Market

From Liu Changsheng’s position at the starting point:

• Face the street and travel right, hugging the line of green lanterns.
• Move forward until you reach a large stairway and spot a cat nearby; use this as a landmark.
• Turn left toward a voice calling out from the water. This leads you to the boatman Jin Yunhai, standing or sitting on a raft lit by a green lantern.
• Speak with Jin Yunhai to reveal the approximate location of the Mountain Armor; a quest marker appears deeper inside a nearby cavern.

From Jin Yunhai’s raft, swim toward the marker, staying close to lanterns floating on the water or on the cavern walls. At the end of this short swim, a chest on a rock inside the cavern contains the Mountain Armor.

Once you loot it, backtrack to Jin Yunhai and follow the same sequence of lanterns back toward Liu Changsheng’s gate to keep the Nether Mist from spiking again.

Battle Helmet location and Nan Lugong’s stall

To reach the Battle Helmet, you return to Liu Changsheng and head in the opposite direction.

• From Liu’s starting gate, go straight ahead and left, following the lanterns along a dim street.
• Continue until you see steps leading up to a gate decorated with ribbons and another hanging lantern.
• Beyond this gate, a woman’s sobbing leads you toward Nan Lugong, who is hiding behind a market stall on the right side.

Speak to Nan Lugong at the stall. He hints at the helmet’s location and indirectly points you to the correct path forward. From his position:

• Take the narrow path to the right of the stall and follow the string of green lanterns deeper into the mist.
• You will eventually see a group of spectral soldiers near the water. You do not need to fight them, and it is usually safer not to.
• Behind these ghosts is a pier with wooden platforms. On one of the rafts, a chest holds the Battle Helmet.

Iron Spear location in Ghostlight Market’s upper path

The Iron Spear is the item players most often get stuck on. The lantern guidance is weaker, and visibility is poor, so it is easy to loop around the same alleys without ever hitting the right path.

The most reliable route begins near Nan Lugong again:

• Return to Nan Lugong’s stall.
• Walk just past it and take the set of stairs on the side of the stall, moving upward into the higher section of the market.
• At the top of this first flight, keep to the left-hand side, follow the next lantern, and climb a second set of stairs.
• Once you reach the second plateau, turn left and run forward. You will pass an antique book store and then another staircase that continues upward, again marked by green lanterns.

At the top of these upper stairs, you enter a mountain path rather than the tight city alleys below:

• Turn left again, passing a tree dotted with candles.
• Keep going until you see a rope bridge with a single ghost stationed in the middle.
• Do not cross the rope bridge. Instead, follow the ground path that curves forward around the rock face.
• Ahead, a group of spectral soldiers stands between you and a chest. Behind them sits the chest with the Iron Spear.

One NPC, Xiang Gutong, waits near a lantern by a bridge along this upper route. Speaking with him also confirms that the spear lies beyond the cluster of spectral soldiers. The safest tactic is to sprint past the group, open the chest as quickly as possible, and then run back along the same path before they overwhelm you.

Once you have all three items, use the objective marker to return to Liu Changsheng through the mist, again chaining lanterns to keep your health intact.

Equipping ghost gear and following the spectral procession

Handing the Mountain Armor, Battle Helmet, and Iron Spear to Liu Changsheng triggers the next phase. He assembles them into a full Spectral Soldier Armor set and gives it back to you.

• Open your bag and look under the quest-related tab to equip the new armor set.
• Once the set is on, the game briefly shifts perspective: you pass out and wake up as a specter wearing the ghost gear.
• Spectral soldiers in the area turn non-hostile as long as you do not strike them first.

From here, you must wait in front of the starting point until a ghost procession walks past. Fall in behind the line of spectral soldiers and follow them up through the marketplace. The procession reuses parts of the route you took to find the Iron Spear, but keeps veering toward the mountain rather than the side paths.

The march ends near a stone gate set in the cliff. Step through this gate to reach a brightly lit cave—this is where the March of the Dead legacy culminates.

Zhu Yousheng boss fight in the Ghost Gate

Inside the cave sits Zhu Yousheng, founder of the Nine Mortal Ways. Defeating him completes March of the Dead and fully “cleanses” the Ghostlight Market of its Nether Mist overlay.

• Zhu fights with a spear and favors sweeping arcs and heavy overhead strikes that punish greedy attacks.
• The fight is built around basic defensive fundamentals: watch his wind-up, time your parries, and counterattack during recovery windows.
• Dodging to the side of sweeping attacks and stepping back from vertical thrusts keeps you safe while you wait for deflect opportunities.

Finishing the fight drops some immediate loot from Zhu’s body—coins and materials such as Wolframite Weight and Bluestone Lock—and kicks off the full quest reward payout once you talk to Liu Changsheng at the Ghost Gate.

When the sequence ends, you wake back in the market at You Hour, with the lanterns and Nether Mist gone. Spectral soldiers no longer patrol the streets, and the space opens up for normal exploration.

What the Ghostlight Market becomes after March of the Dead

With Zhu Yousheng defeated, Ghostlight Market changes from a self-contained horror maze into a long-term hub.

• The poisonous fog and strict lantern routing vanish, revealing the full layout of the underground city.
• Vendors return, including shady traders who require masks and other cosmetics to deal with you.
• The area fills with traditional open-world content: cats to pet, Sentient Being activities, and scattered chests that feed into your Kaifeng exploration total.

One notable landmark is an armor store identified by blades hanging from its facade. From the nearby teleport point, walking down the street toward this shop and then climbing into the upper section of the market leads to a Divinecraft dungeon entrance tucked into the cliffs. Clearing this dungeon yields additional loot and deepens the sense that the market is more than a one-off story backdrop.

The Ghostlight Market ends up serving three purposes: a lore anchor for Nine Mortal Ways, a one-time survival puzzle in March of the Dead, and an ongoing exploration zone with its own dungeon and merchants. Once you know how its time-of-day logic and lantern routes work, it stops feeling like an opaque, frustrating fog maze and starts feeling like one of the game’s more memorable spaces.