Playing again I can't not stop thinking how Bailu is just a waste of time and pure padding.
Some thugs are beating people up, ok find them, lose. Know they are the ones that kidnapped Shenhua's father, doesn't matter the other stonemason is locked up so I guess he is fine. Find old master that knew iwao, don't ask him about Iwao even though he knows about them and Lan Di, Better learn about a bridge... The old lady won't talk to you, because reasons, so better find other old people, learn that the bridge was constructed for the emperors that wanted the mirrors done by shenhua's grandfather.
The thugs found out the location of the guy, get beaten, go with old guy to learn "the magic technique", learn that the other guy was Iwao's teacher, beat the thugs, interrogate them (with supernatural shenhua), learn they went away to Choubu, also the old lady make you do a puzzle, that gives you a scroll, that depicts Choubu... ok... Convenient.
It's a bunch of nothingburger, the whole chapter it was implied that Feng was "the master" even better than Sun, and he refuses to train you, I was expecting that we ultimately become his student and find out about Iwao and Zhao, but nothing, off we go with basically the same information we already had. I don't know how many times we have to "find out" Iwao and Zhao were friends, we learned it in SII, we already kinda knew with the photo. How many times we need to hear that Zhao died in "mysterious circumstances", why not fucking explain ? Did he commit suicide, did he had a stroke, was he never found, the body dissapeared, Iwao was beside him when they found the body, did he have a dildo in the ass and a chicken in his hands ? Really, can Ryo at least ask what Meng Cung is ? No, not even that. And it's treated like we are learning so much.
I agree that Sun kinda fell flat in some ways, it was supposed to be a Miyagi moment of doing banal things but that were the foundation of martial arts, coupled with the drunken master cliche, but it didn't feel like Ryo was actually doing anything different, or anything changed, you catched the chickens fine the first time, and kept catching them well. It's not like Ryo had a hard time the first time and had to learn a lesson from it.
It was a wasted opportunity, maybe he could have learned from Shenhua to read the chicken movements to know where they would run (concentrating to read opponents movement), or to walk calmly to not make them flee (freeing his mind), but nothing. They also missed the staple of the drunken master of training which is not to spill the wine, Ryo could have bought the wine the same way, but it didn't had a lid and had to bring it balancing even through the maze. It could also work as humor like in the game, Ryo could just have said to the guy: you made me buy this big jar because you know it was far away and it's difficult not to spill it right ?, and the guy just said "nope, just like good wine". instead they just made it a gatekeep of money.
Even, it's far better than the fisherman "training".
