Mountain of Imprisonment Walkthrough: Bi Feng, Huangxing & the Yin Eye

Mountain of Imprisonment: the frozen road to the Lady’s shrine

The Mountain of Imprisonment is the game’s quietest region and its most punishing optional detour. Nothing here is strictly mandatory for the Normal ending, but this is where the True Ending’s second Crystal Eye waits — and where one of the hardest fights in the game stands between you and it. Treat the climb as a checklist run: ring the bells, clear the side bosses, then commit to Huangxing.

Story context

The Mountain is a frozen pilgrimage route leading to the shrine of the Lady of the Veil. At the summit, Huangxing, the Kunlun Renegade — once one of the Three Pillars of the Mandate, now a master of Perfect Transcension — holds court and denounces Moji as a traitor.

Huangxing is optional for a Normal run but required for the True Ending: he drops the Flying Guillotine, which you use at the Lady’s statue to obtain the Yin Crystal Eye. That eye is one of two Crystal Eyes needed for the mirror ritual in west Meigu.

Route order at a glance

The region is short — roughly 2–3 hours — and the route is largely linear with four optional bosses hung off it.

Step	Location	Boss	Type	Reward
1	The Lady’s Path	Iron Butcher	Optional	Iron Butcher Mask
2	Commander’s Platform	Bi Feng	Optional (True Ending)	Juggernaut
3	Shrine Outer Gate	Kui Yanyan	Optional	Missing Lift Crank
4	The Lady’s Shrine	Jade-Face	Optional	Seamless Death
5	Lady’s Shrine hall	Huangxing	Optional (True Ending)	Flying Guillotine

Step-by-step walkthrough

1. Ring The Lady’s Path. This is your entry bell for the region. Ring it before pushing on so fast travel anchors here.
2. Traverse Iron Butcher’s Camp. The camp sits on the path and is the first place you can pick a fight you do not need.
3. Clear Hanging Cage Cavern and Cavern Passage. These are traversal segments, not arenas. Move through and keep an eye out for anything you can pick up.
4. At Commander’s Platform, decide on Bi Feng. He is optional for the Normal ending but is on the True Ending checklist. If you are chasing the True Ending, fight him now.
5. Reach Shrine Outer Gate. Kui Yanyan waits here and drops the Missing Lift Crank.
6. Activate the lift. The crank from Kui Yanyan is what lets you operate it. If you skipped her, you will need to go back.
7. At The Lady’s Shrine, handle Jade-Face. Optional, drops Seamless Death.
8. Confront Huangxing in the Lady’s Shrine hall. Take the Flying Guillotine from him.
9. Use the Flying Guillotine at the Lady’s statue. This is the step that actually produces the Yin Crystal Eye — the boss alone does not hand it over.
10. Complete the Pillars of Kunlun and Whence the Weeping objectives while you are still in the region.
11. Take the Yin Crystal Eye and leave.

Mandatory bosses

There are none. Every source agrees the Mountain of Imprisonment has no strictly mandatory boss for a Normal-ending run. The region’s story beats — the bells, the traversal, the shrine — carry you through without a required fight.

That said, Huangxing is effectively mandatory if you want the True Ending, because the Yin Crystal Eye gates the mirror ritual. Treat him as required for your purposes even though the game does not force the encounter.

Optional bosses

Four optional fights sit on the route, plus Huangxing.

• Iron Butcher — The Lady’s Path. Drops the Iron Butcher Mask. Sidestep the axe and punish the downswing.
• Bi Feng — Commander’s Platform. Drops Juggernaut. Required for the True Ending. Dodge the red grab and stay off the spin.
• Kui Yanyan — Shrine Outer Gate. Drops the Missing Lift Crank, which you need for the lift. Stay mid-range and punish whiffs.
• Jade-Face — The Lady’s Shrine. Drops Seamless Death. Find the real mask and kill the doubles.
• Huangxing — Lady’s Shrine hall. Drops the Flying Guillotine. Watch for the red flash and punish his pole recovery.

Difficulty ratings from the boss compendium put Huangxing at the top of this group, with Bi Feng a step below. Iron Butcher, Kui Yanyan, and Jade-Face are the gentler fights.

Tales and collectibles

The Mountain’s collectible load is light compared to Meigu or Crimson Forest. The named pickups tied to this region are:

• Iron Butcher Mask — from Iron Butcher.
• Juggernaut — from Bi Feng.
• Missing Lift Crank — from Kui Yanyan.
• Seamless Death — from Jade-Face.
• Flying Guillotine — from Huangxing.
• Yin Crystal Eye — from using the Flying Guillotine at the Lady’s statue.

Two quest lines are explicitly tied to finishing here: Pillars of Kunlun and Whence the Weeping. Both are on the True Ending’s purple-quest list and must be completed before you enter Mirage Estate.

For the wider picture of what these feed into, see the True Ending checklist and the all Tales and side quests hub.

What is missable before leaving

Run this before you touch the Green Serpent House in Pangzhen.

• Ring The Lady’s Path bell.
• Defeat Iron Butcher and take the Iron Butcher Mask.
• Defeat Bi Feng and take Juggernaut.
• Defeat Kui Yanyan and take the Missing Lift Crank.
• Activate the lift with the crank.
• Defeat Jade-Face and take Seamless Death.
• Defeat Huangxing and take the Flying Guillotine.
• Use the Flying Guillotine at the Lady’s statue.
• Collect the Yin Crystal Eye.
• Complete Pillars of Kunlun and Whence the Weeping.
• Save manually before returning to Pangzhen.

The biggest single missable is the Yin Crystal Eye itself. If you fight Huangxing and walk away without using the guillotine at the statue, you have done the hard part and skipped the reward. The second is the region’s timing relative to the Green Serpent House — sources flag this as a cutoff, though the exact trigger is not fully documented.

Next region

From the Mountain you return to Pangzhen and the Green Serpent House, where the passage to Mirage Estate opens. Entering Mirage is the first major True Ending cutoff, so finish every purple-icon quest and every Lóng Pillar you still owe before you step through. If you are still short a Crystal Eye, the Yang Eye comes from the Puppet Scavenger and Acolyte Hansui at Crimson Manor — worth doing before Mirage rather than after.

For the wider route, the boss order and walkthrough pages track how the Mountain sits between Meigu Lake and Mirage Estate.

Sources & confidence

Built from the Phantom Blade Zero story walkthrough and region order report, the boss compendium, and the True Ending checklist, drawing on PowerPyx, Fextralife, KeenGamer, and pbz.gg. The biggest uncertainty is the Mountain’s placement in the route: data-mined tables put it before Meigu Lake, while PowerPyx’s played order puts Meigu first. This guide follows Meigu → Mountain, and the exact cutoff trigger for the shrine objectives at the Green Serpent House is flagged as medium confidence rather than confirmed.