Leng Tu.

The puppets swarming Village of Lu and Pangzhen come from experiments run by the puppet-maker Leng Tu, who is called the Herald.

Herald is the title of the Merciful Lady of the Blossom Veil's envoy; her worship only started two or three years back and caught on among people who had no other refuge. He distributes her red flowers and propagates her teachings, and he also manages the puppet workshops of the Thread-Binding Sect in the eastern Wulin.

Through most of the game Soul wanders amid the aftermath, meeting the man behind it only at the end. Villagers are now made of wood, and warriors from the major sects have become his guinea pigs. Notes from the lab, ledgers and letters lying around explain what he has been up to, and Soul is followed through Mirage Estate by his voice.

Why he counts in the plot: his aim extends past mere sadism. His vessel is meant to return the Lady to the Waking Realm, and the game's last chapter is spent trying to prevent this.

Beyond-the-Pass Sect

Beyond the Pass, among the foreign sects, the Thread-Binding Sect arose, earning the worst name of all. The Twisted Master who led it was infamous: he tortured captives and handled living humans as puppets. Following an attack by the righteous path, it finally yielded to the Lóng Clan.

Defining the sect is the Soul Displacement Art, a technique that pulls a fragment of someone's living mind into a puppet. Once shifted, that mind cannot come back, and the emptied body turns into a husk. In the sect's own records, early outcomes were rated good enough only for ordinary fighters, and the Herald was expected to refine them.

Two Poisons, One Antidote

Records of the sect link the name Leng Tu with medicine. The Viper of Seven Venom is credited there with a pair of poisons that resemble each other: Silence Poison is deadly, whereas Still Poison seals the meridians, mimics death and fades after four hours. The Herald Leng Tu is credited with the Sevenfold Antidote, which counters both. Another antidote, nearly identical in texture, merely postpones the effect of Silence Poison.

Silk Sect Leader Si Wuya, at Mirage Estate, talks about the Twisted Master arriving to square a debt, resolves to go along with Leng Tu's plan and orders the Viper to fetch the medicine.

Village of Lu Under Red Flowers

Soul sees the results of his handiwork before learning who he is. Village of Lu's ancestral hall was turned into a temple for the Merciful Lady, red flowers began to be given out by the Herald, and villagers fell asleep only to wake up as wood. One of his agents wrote a report confirming that Soul Displacement Powder was put in the wells and rivers of Village of Lu and Pangzhen alike.

The operation can be traced through ledgers. To establish a puppet base, his people drove out the thieves in the Smuggler's Tunnel; after one thief got away, several dozen people were turned into puppets as punishment. All of Lu's villagers had been converted by winter, and the base required additional space.

Other people tried to put an end to it and did not succeed. The cries of the puppets made Master Bi Yuan hesitate, and he was snared in the strings. To purchase the release of hostage villagers, Master Bi Hai entered a trap he knew about. Dusk and Firefly attempted to work from within, Dusk pretending to be loyal, until Dusk stole the pipa head and Village of Lu was shut off to catch him.

Three Hundred Days Spent on the Perfect Yin Vessel

The days are tallied in his experiment notes. By about day 158 the villagers prove inadequate as raw material, so he moves on to the heroines of the Mandate. From day 194, research moves faster thanks to Vessel Zero, a skilled illusionist supplied through a plot by someone he refers to as Master Bai. On day 283 the Radiant Heart experiment begins.

Day 360 sees the seventh candidate named as the Perfect Yin Vessel and sent off to Mirage Estate for union with the Radiant Heart. He and the High Elder settle the ritual on the next day, and he is pleased that the gate will open one sixty-year cycle sooner thanks to a Sacred Infant. Distrusting someone from the Order as a possible traitor, he ships a spare vessel to Soulrend Mountain's summit on day 362.

A Deal With the Order

Where the Order stands regarding him is tangled. Lei Dang came to Pangzhen at Zuo Shang's command in order to thwart the Herald, yet he also tells Soul of a pact Zuo Shang holds with the Herald who made the Heart, and a sect letter records that the Order was handed every puppet fit to fight.

Using Yu'er's Voice

Major story spoiler: upon meeting Yu'er again in Pangzhen, Soul finds that she no longer controls the body. Leng Tu inhabits it as a stand-in and talks through her to fool Soul, and the Flesh Lily offered to her father is counterfeit. Her mind remains inside and can hear. What rescues her father is the genuine flower from Soul.

His Voice in Mirage Estate

Mirage Estate is where he holds sway. Soul hears him in the first area after the Estate Rear Gate, again on the upper floor of a house beyond the Training Grounds, and a third time at Willow Pavilion. By now he had victimized Flame and Senior Mo: Perfect Transcension preserved their lives, but under the lion skin he sealed them. Qiu Feng, too, takes his orders here, though without any loyalty.

Near the estate's end, the earlier scheme he aimed at Lei Dang pays off. Spoiler: the Order's envoy was poisoned through a swap of Still Poison and Silence Poison, and by the time Lei Dang realizes how deep the plot went, it is too late. Yu'er, at the Perfect Vessel Pond, has barely enough strength to say that Leng Tu is on his way to Soulrend Cliff.

The Man Behind the Borrowed Name

Spoiler of major importance: the man is not the real Leng Tu. He borrowed the name and the garments, and in the beginning had only to copy how the original spoke and carried himself. One lie led to the next, and as the disguise wore thin, he killed anybody who had known the true Leng Tu. Over time he grew used to the cruelty, and the mask turned into his own face. According to the codex, he turned out crueler than the original.

Formerly he was the Viper of Seven Venom. Through a plot revolving around the very same pair of poisons, that man was condemned to misery inside a lightless illusory cell while his gifts, gentleness and fidelity were ground down. He restages the plot by poisoning Lei Dang likewise, using the name of the man he replaced, and the puppet subjects are meant to suffer just as the Viper once did.

Soulrend Cliff

Soulrend Cliff was picked by the High Elder as the site for opening the Rift and lowering the Lady into the Perfect Vessel. Soul ascends Mount Soulrend beyond The Last Chance bell, battles Leng Tu, and moves directly on to Meng Hua in her puppet vessel. The bodies of the High Elder's group are also destroyed by Soul, and since nothing keeps the Rift open from a distance any longer, it shuts permanently.

A Researcher Who Relishes Outcomes

Reading his notes feels like going through a lab log from someone who cannot see people as such. Subjects are listed by number and not by name; he grumbles that Lu's people make poor material and gets excited about a gifted captive. One monster is called an interesting pet, and he muses about its next meal. His codex entry adds that he enjoys watching his subjects struggle within the puppets.

He has scant patience for failure. After a single thief got away, dozens of people were converted into puppets on his order. Yuzan was singled out from countless shells and still left him unsatisfied.

Unreserved Devotion

Once he writes about the Lady, adoration pours out, and he rages against the laws confining her within the Discordance. In a line credited to him, he describes the outcome he wants, a Wulin with every bond of love and hate erased, and he finds it beautiful.

Beneath it lies a dread of being useless. Whatever fails to serve the Lady she has no use for, and he demonstrates his worth to her through cruelty.

The Battle Preceding the Lady

Because the game's closing sequence requires him as a boss, you face him beyond The Last Chance bell, where progress cannot be undone. Save manually at that bell and check your Tales before continuing. His base HP is 4,500 and his Sha-Chi 1,200; higher difficulty settings and later playthroughs raise both. Elemental weaknesses and resistances do not apply to him.

Nothing drops from this fight itself. Defeating Meng Hua afterward provides The Lady's Fan, The Lady's Crown and Herald's Lingering Threads. Likewise, the ending gets decided once Meng Hua is dealt with, not by how you handle him.

Memory Flowers and Books Worth Gathering

Leng Tu's Memory Flower has six parts. Around the White Serpent House at Meigu Lake you will find Discordant Shard, Sharing and Radiant Heart, while Rift of Bones is on the ground at the Perfect Vessel Pond directly following the scene with Yu'er.

Pages of The Herald, a book of 12 pages, are scattered across Weeping Creek Valley, Village of Lu, Mandate Encampment and Mirage Estate. Seven further pages come with The Herald's Experiment Notes. The Tale The Herald's Illusion counts among the ten purple Tales needed for the true ending, and it has to be completed prior to entering Mirage Estate.

His Workshops and Lairs

The Smuggler's Tunnel in Village of Lu hosted his earliest experiments; the entrance was moved under the well and puppets guarded it. Beneath Crimson Manor he kept chained the Puppet Scavenger, which was an unsuccessful experiment. Strict rules governed his Radiant Heart workshop, and anyone entering had to swallow Still Poison first.

Words attributed to Leng Tu

“If the Twisted Master's feud is with you, why not deceive him...”

A proposal for handling the grudge of the Twisted Master.

“If I ever find a way to make a Perfect Vessel for Her, I'll make one for you too!”

A vow that links his ambitions with the Lady.

“Her beloved daughter was gravely ill... so she transferred the girl's consciousness into a puppet.”

Talking about a mother who put her ailing child's mind inside a puppet.

“This rotten Wulin... and all those pitiful ties of love and hate... erased without a trace. Wouldn't that be beautiful?”

The kind of world he longs for.

• No other boss on Mount Soulrend has less HP than his base 4,500; theirs run between 10,000 and 13,000.
• His 204 voiced lines exceed those of Inanis (182) and Zuo Shang (180), with Soul alone speaking more.
• Dusk, his former subordinate, is the source of the Puppeteer's Bell Phantom Edge, and Herald's Lingering Threads, a drop from Meng Hua, is what tempers it.
• His Radiant Heart workshop tolerates no exceptions. A letter to Master Bai insists that Master Bai too must take the dose, with double for any subordinate dispatched as a replacement.