Where Winds Meet Homestead Guide: Retainers, Production & How to Make Money
Where Winds Meet Homestead arrived for global players on June 25, 2026, as part of Version 1.8, Companions Make Home. It is the most in-depth lifestyle system WWM has added since launch, and it touches everything from restoring Blissful Retreat to its former splendor to building up your private island called Beyond Mundane. Homesteading isn’t just different than regular player housing in Where Winds Meet. It’s an entirely different system. If you’ve found yourself asking how Retainers work or why your tavern is not selling anything, this guide walks through the entire system from unlock to running a self-sustaining estate.
Where Winds Meet Homestead - Level 4 Inn
How to Unlock Homestead
First, make sure you have completed the Exploration Side Quest Building: One Last Job. It becomes available at level 25 and introduces you to building and unlocks Construction mode. If you have already built a home in the open world before 1.8, you have already completed this.
To unlock Homestead, you will need to complete two Exploration Quests in Qinghe, and both function as the tutorial. You will not see the Retainers menu, the building tools, or any Homestead activity until you complete both.
Travel to Qinghe and complete the Exploration Quest “Where Bamboos Remember,” which takes you back to Bamboo Retreat to relive your childhood with Uncle Jiang and Aunt Han. This introduces the basic loop of working the land.
Complete the second Exploration Quest, Childhood Reverie. Finishing both opens Homestead management at Blissful Retreat.
The Two Homestead Spaces
Homestead splits into two connected but distinct areas. Blissful Retreat is the Inn Management side. This is where you restore Aunt Han’s inn businesses, assign Retainers, run production chains, and generate money.
Beyond Mundane is a standalone private island, separate from the open world, where you build and decorate a residence without a fixed layout. Beyond Mundane unlocks when your homestead level reaches 4. You can assign retainers to your private island so they can relax.
You will be able to share your home’s build with other players when Beyond Artistry arrives July 3, 2026. If you are building an elaborate residence specifically to show off later, keep working on it now so it is ready when sharing goes live.
Overlooking Blissful Retreat at night
Cloudrest Retreat, your personal island
How to Set Up Blissful Retreat and Your Production Chain
Blissful Retreat runs on a chain, not a single activity. Each stage feeds the next, and production happens in real time, so some items finish in minutes while others take hours.
The full chain looks like this: crops grow on farmland, harvested crops become dishes, the Porcelain Kiln produces vases and dishware, the Aromas Brewery turns kiln goods into wine, and the inn sells finished dishes and wine to customers for Bounty Gourds. Anything you do not sell through the inn can be traded directly for profit instead.
Homestead levels 1-2 guide you through the process of setting up your kitchen, inn, porcelain kiln, farmland, and brewery. They are fairly easy if you follow the guided tutorials.
You will set up the stove, assign a retainer as a Cook, set up the inn by placing two dining tables, assign two retainers as Caterers, then assign food for the cook to prepare and assign dishes for the caterers to serve. You will begin to make Bounty Gourd.
Reaching level 3 is where players, me included, found they had the most trouble. To reach Homestead Level 3 you need to raise Blissful Retreat’s Prosperity to 1500. That means furnishing your place. However, purchasing furniture costs Bounty Gourd. Trade Goods unlocks at Homestead Level 3. So, what do you do to make Bounty Gourds? Be patient.
Homestead - The Qinghe Shop
To access the Qinghe Shop, open the Homestead menu. The Qinghe Shop has three different tabs and accepts four different currencies.
The Personal Shop tab exchanges outfits, accessories, and other personal use items like emotes for Golden Grain currency.
The Homestead Shop is the second tab, and it takes Bounty Gourd in exchange for homestead items like seeds, Companion’s Call (Retainer invitations), Artisan’s Training (Retainer training manual), furniture, and facility items.
The Construction Shop is the last tab and takes Timber in exchange for construction items like walls, bridges, etc. It also has a furniture tab selling rare furniture for Celestial Harvest. The furniture bought with Celestial Harvest requires recruiting specific retainers or completing specific quests (I haven’t unlocked them yet, but I’ll update when I do).
For example, Big Zhao gifts you a super luxurious the Agarwood Bed as a housewarming gift when you recruit him to work for you.
How to Unlock Retainers
Restoring Blissful Retreat to its former glory and building a profitable business will take a lot of help. You will need to hire workers or recruit retainers beyond the guided tutorial. To unlock a retainer, make sure you have at least one Confidant’s Invite to invite one of your confidants to be a retainer. You can purchase them from the Qinghe Shop in the Homestead Shop tab. One Confidant’s Invite costs 200 Bounty Gourd.
You can also use the Companion’s Call to invite a passerby. You can also purchase the Companion’s Call from the Homestead shop tab, and it costs 20 Bounty Gourd.
Once you have the Confidant’s Invite, go to the main menu and click on Homestead. On the right side of the page, the second option is Retainer. You will see all of the retainers you currently have. Click on Recruit on the bottom right of the page.
You will see that the recruits are divided. The top batch of selections are your confidants, and they require the Confidant’s Invite to recruit them. Below them are the Mortals/Sentient Beings or passersby and they require the Companion’s Call, completing an interaction such as convincing them with Gift of Gab, or specific item to gift them to recruit.
To run your enterprise smoothly, you need to keep ingredients stocked. You can assign a retainer to gather, hunt, mine, and fish regularly.
Recruited Retainers Menu
Retainers Menu with Retainer List to select from on the right
How to Assign Retainers
Each industry requires someone to operate it. To assign a worker to a facility, you can open the Homestead menu and look for the facility you want to staff. Click on that facility. I’ll use the Kiln as an example. Where it says idle and an empty box with a plus sign and man’s silhouette next to it, click it. The options for a retainer will pop up. Select a retainer that is available, then select Continue. Your retainer should be selected in the box. Select the product you want the retainer to produce in the box to the left. Finally, select Start Production.
Taking Care of Your Retainers
Before you can assign a worker to a task, they have to have an assigned bed. That means they will need a residence. Open the Construction menu to enter Build Mode. Make sure you go to the Homestead Tab, then Building. Select the Basic Residence and place it where you want. You can now fast travel to that residence.
If you do not like where you placed your residence and you want to move to a different location, you can delete the residence.
To delete the residence, look at the top right of your screen and go to Details. Make sure you select the building you want to delete. Then at the bottom, press delete. It will delete the residence, all components, and the fast travel location. Now, you can find a better location for your residence.
Once you have the Basic Residence placed, you can place a bed in the residence. If the bed is not already on your quick bar, go to Facility and select bed and place it where you want.
To assign a retainer a bed, select the bed out of Construction Mode. Choose the retainer you want to assign to the bed. Make sure you select Continue before leaving the screen. The bed should now be assigned to the retainer you want.
Assigning a retainer to a bed
Retainer Provisions in the Warehouse
How to Increase Retainer’s Vigor
Retainers need adequate living quarters, food and drink, and rest.
Rations: Food and drink replenish workers’ vigor. You can auto-add food to the Retainer’s warehouse slot so that you do not have to manually add it. To set up the auto-add feature, go to the Homestead menu, then Warehouse. Scroll over to the Retainer Tab and then scroll to Retainer Provisions. At the bottom, select Auto Add and set the parameters you want, i.e., what level food and wine you want to auto-add and how you want it to be organized.
Rest and Relaxation: Make sure there are plenty of seats around for your workers to sit and rest. If their vigor bar is dipping, you can unassign them. You can even send them to your private residence to relax and recuperate by assigning them the same way you assign them to a facility.
How to Set Up Blissful Retreat's Inn
Setting up your Inn (Restaurant) is one of the first things the guided tutorial walks you through, and it is straightforward once you know where everything is. The number of structures and staff you can use scales with your Homestead level, so do not stress about having a small operation early on.
Open the build menu (F4) and construct the Basic Inn. Place your stoves (I placed my stoves in the smaller building), and your serving tables (I placed mine in the larger building, mimicking as best as possible the original restaurant before it was destroyed). Per the instructions, you will start with one stove for cooking and two dining tables for guests to sit at.
Once you have placed the structures, open the Homestead menu and navigate to Retainers. Assign one Retainer as a Cook and two as Caterers. From there, assign the dish(es) for the Cook to prepare. You will only have Potato Stew starting out. Next, when the dishes are finished, assign the finished dishes to your Caterers to serve.
Check which dishes are flagged as the week's "hot dishes" (they will have a thumbs up icon in the corner) and prioritize cooking those. They earn more Bounty Gourd than your standard menu rotation. When you mouse over a dish or any product, you can see how much they sell for.
How to Set Up the Kiln
Setting up the Kiln is fairly easy with one exception: placing the Porcelain Kiln Shed. In the area you’re supposed to set up the Porcelain Kiln, you’re unable to clear out the old kiln and shed, so you have to place it somewhere else. I placed mine just across the road and placed the kiln next to it. It’s literally the best spot to place it. Next, you’ll be directed to recruit Hao Jiu to work the kiln.
How to Set Up the Aromas Brewery
Honestly, this feels like such a tight squeeze because, again, you cannot clear out the existing buildings in the designated area to place the Aromas Brewery. Find the least cluttered spot and place your Basic Brewery there.
The Qinghe Homestead Menu Screen
How to Earn Bounty Gourd
It’s very easy to deplete your Bounty Gourd early on by spending money purchasing unnecessary items. You can run through Bounty Gourd just as soon as you make them, so be careful how you spend them. Luckily, you have quite a few ways to make money in Where Winds Meet Homestead.
Complete the “Young Master’s Routine” quests.
The Young Master’s Routine is one of the easiest ways to make Bounty Gourd. It’s a questline that takes you through your daily routine of running a business as the young master of Blissful Retreat.
How to Start Young Master’s Routine
To access the Young Master’s Routine quest, go to the Homestead menu. On the left side of the menu, look for Young Master’s Routine and click it. Then, press Go.
Your routine will consist of a full day broken into four events: Morning, Noon, Dusk, Evening. In each event, you are given three missions to choose from. They are all fairly easy to complete. At the end of each event, you are compensated with 600 Bounty Gourd, Artisan’s Manual, 5 Echo Jade, 250 Golden Grain, 2132 Coin, and Player XP. Complete one full day in order to complete the Young Master’s Routine. Then start another one.
Complete Qinghe Homestead Chapter Goals
Each time you complete a goal for setting up your Homestead, you are rewarded with at least 1250 Bounty Gourd and 125 Golden Grain. You can access your goals at the bottom of the Homestead menu screen.
Cook hot dishes and sell them.
As mentioned earlier, some dishes will have the “thumbs up” icon meaning it’s a hot item. Cook the hot dishes and assign them to the catered tables to maximize your inn’s profits. You can also cook them and sell them in bulk to the Touchstone Vessel NPC.
Trade for Profit.
On the Homestead main menu, you will see “Trade for Profit” in the top center. Click on it to see which items are in demand for the Weekly Touchstone Orders. Also, in-demand items to Trade for Profit will have a golden vessel icon on the bottom of the item’s image.
Standing with Old Jin and Tang Bo at the entrance to Blissful Retreat
Trade for Profit Menu at Old Jin for the Touchstone Vessel
How to Use the Touchstone Vessel
Once you reach Homestead Level 4, you will unlock a quest called Fortune’s Fool. Look on your map in Blissful Retreat and you’ll see the quest location with our favorite scammers we keep running into everywhere Old Jin and Tang Bao. Completing this quest will unlock the Touchstone Vessel.
Go to the location to catch them scheming on how to scam with the Touchstone Vessel. After a brief conversation, you will be asked to test it out and are given two options: Draw vessel with eyes covered or Trade for Profit. Choose Trade for Profit. Your Warehouse inventory will open. Select something to trade and submit. You will trade the item for Bounty Gourd. And that’s essentially how the Touchstone Vessel works. You can trade items from your warehouse for Bounty Gourd. Also to note, when producing items for the Trade for Profit Weekly Touchstone Orders, you do not have to go to Old Jin to make the trade. You can submit the completed orders from the Trade for Profit Weekly Touchstone Orders screen.
What's coming next
Beyond Artistry launches July 3, 2026, and adds the social layer to Beyond Mundane: uploading your build, browsing other players' residences, and claiming rewards tied to sharing. The Jianghu Martial Games second edition follows on July 10. If you are mid-build on a residence, this is the window to finish it before the sharing tools go live.
For more on Where Winds Meet, including the full housing and construction system in the open world, check our player housing guide and the complete Where Winds Meet guide hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you make money in the Where Winds Meet Homestead?
Bounty Gourd is the primary currency you earn at Blissful Retreat, and there are several ways to build it up. The most reliable methods are completing the Young Master's Routine daily, cooking and selling hot dishes through your Inn (Restaurant), and using the Touchstone Vessel to trade warehouse items for profit. Once you unlock Trade for Profit at Homestead Level 3, you can also fulfill Weekly Touchstone Orders for additional income.
How do I raise Blissful Retreat's Prosperity?
Prosperity goes up every time you place a building or piece of furniture at Blissful Retreat. To reach the 1,500 Prosperity required for Homestead Level 3, focus on furnishing your spaces as consistently as you can. Furniture is purchased with Bounty Gourd from the Homestead Shop tab in the Qinghe Shop, so keep your Inn (Restaurant) running and your Young Master's Routine going to keep that currency flowing.
How do I reach Homestead Level 3?
You need to raise Blissful Retreat's Prosperity to 1,500, which means placing buildings and furniture consistently. The catch is that furniture costs Bounty Gourd, and Trade for Profit does not unlock until Level 3, so your income sources early on are limited to the Inn (Restaurant) and the Young Master's Routine. Be patient, prioritize those two income streams, and spend deliberately rather than burning through Bounty Gourd on items you do not immediately need.
Do I need to spend real money to access Homestead?
No. Homestead is part of the free Version 1.8 update. You do not need to spend any premium currency to unlock or play any part of it.
What are hot dishes, and why do they matter?
Hot dishes are flagged with a thumbs up icon in the corner of the dish image, and they sell for more Bounty Gourd than your standard menu rotation. Prioritizing hot dishes when assigning your Cook's production queue is one of the simplest ways to maximize your Inn (Restaurant)'s daily income. You can mouse over any dish or product to see exactly how much it sells for before committing.
What is the Young Master's Routine, and how do I start it?
The Young Master's Routine is a daily questline that walks you through running Blissful Retreat as its young master. To start it, open the Homestead menu, look for Young Master's Routine on the left side, and press Go. Your day is divided into four events: Morning, Noon, Dusk, and Evening. Completing all three missions in each event rewards you with 600 Bounty Gourd, an Artisan's Manual, 5 Echo Jade, 250 Golden Grain, 2,132 Coin, and Player XP.
What is the difference between a Confidant's Invite and a Companion's Call?
A Confidant's Invite is used to recruit one of your existing confidants and costs 200 Bounty Gourd. A Companion's Call recruits a passerby or ordinary NPC and costs only 20 Bounty Gourd; some passersby can also be recruited through conversation or a specific gift instead of the Call. Both are available for purchase in the Homestead Shop tab at the Qinghe Shop.
Why can't I place the Porcelain Kiln or Brewery in the designated area?
The existing structures in those areas cannot be removed, so you will need to find alternate spots. For the Kiln, placing it just across the road from the designated area works well. For the Brewery, find the least cluttered open space nearby and set it up there.
When does Beyond Mundane unlock?
Beyond Mundane, your private island building space, unlocks when your Homestead level reaches 4.
What is the Touchstone Vessel, and when do I get it?
The Touchstone Vessel lets you trade items from your warehouse directly for Bounty Gourd. It unlocks at Homestead Level 4 through a quest called Fortune's Fool, which involves Old Jin and Tang Bao in Blissful Retreat. Once it is active, you can also submit completed Weekly Touchstone Orders directly from the Trade for Profit screen without making a separate trip to Old Jin.
When does Beyond Artistry launch?
Beyond Artistry launches July 3, 2026, and adds the social layer to Beyond Mundane: uploading your build, browsing other players' residences, and claiming rewards tied to sharing. If you are mid-build on a residence, now is the time to finish it.
