🕊️ Complete Wiki & Strategy Guide
The Weeping Swan
Ten Days of the City's Fall
A dark fantasy visual novel set against the historical Yangzhou Massacre of 1645. Survive ten days inside a scholar's nightmare — evade Yaoguai, protect the fragile, uncover the truth of the drowned swan.
📜 About The Weeping Swan
Ten Days Inside a Scholar's Nightmare
The Weeping Swan: Ten Days of the City's Fall is a dark fantasy visual novel developed by Zerocreation Games, the studio behind the million-selling The Hungry Lamb. Set against the real historical backdrop of the Ten Days of Yangzhou (扬州十日) — a 1645 massacre during the Qing conquest of the Ming Dynasty — the game blends authentic historical tragedy with the mythology of Journey to the West.
You play as Fang Zhiyou, a grief-maddened scholar who awakens trapped inside the dark fantasy novel he has been writing — Lion Camel Kingdom, populated by the Yaoguai demons of Shituo Ridge. The city is falling. The Golden Winged Great Peng's forces are inside the walls. And Fang keeps seeing the face of Su Lianyan — the courtesan he loved, who died two years before the siege began.
Survival across ten in-game days requires managing resources, navigating stealth sections, and making choices with permanent consequences. Most crucially, it requires managing Fang's Sanity (清醒值) — because below 50%, the game starts lying to you.
🗺️ Start Here
Weeping Swan Guide — Where to Begin
Whether you're playing for the first time or hunting the True Ending (Ending A), use these core guides for The Weeping Swan.
Day-by-Day Walkthrough
Complete guide to all 10 days. Every key choice, item location, and death warning. Covers all three main ending routes simultaneously.
Read Walkthrough →Survival & Sanity Guide
Master the Sanity (清醒值) system, resource management priorities, and stealth mechanics before they master you.
Read Survival Tips →Choices & Consequences
Every permanent choice, what it locks in or locks out, and which endings each decision affects. No spoiler-free version — this guide assumes you want the truth.
Read Choices Guide →All Endings Guide
Requirements for Endings A, B, C, D, and the bonus Hungry Lamb chapter. Includes which missable items gate each ending.
View All Endings →🏁 Endings
The Weeping Swan — All Endings Overview
Ending A — The Truth of the Drowned Swan
The True Ending. All memory fragments collected. The mystery of Su Lianyan's death fully resolved.
Difficulty: HardEnding B — Scholar Wang's Sacrifice
Help Scholar Wang's family. Watch a friend choose duty over self. Escape with broken hearts and gratitude.
Difficulty: MediumEnding C — The Red Courtesan's Path
Trust Lin Pianpian completely. Follow her through passages no one else knows. Discover what she has been protecting all along.
Difficulty: MediumEnding D — Devoured by the Kingdom
Sanity reaches zero. Fang cannot tell the novel from reality. He stops trying to leave.
Difficulty: Easy🎭 Characters
Meet the Cast of The Weeping Swan
Fang Zhiyou
方志游
A grief-maddened scholar trapped inside his own dark novel, Lion Camel Kingdom.
Su Lianyan
苏怜燕
The celebrated Yangzhou courtesan whose death broke Fang Zhiyou's mind — and whose face haunts Lion Camel Kingdom.
Little Yan
小燕
A fragile girl who shares Su Lianyan's face but none of her strength — the first person Fang encounters in Lion Camel Kingdom.
Lin Pianpian
林翩翩
The most prestigious Red Courtesan of Twenty-four Bridges — pragmatic, resourceful, and in possession of escape routes no one else knows.
🎬 Gameplay
The Weeping Swan — Gameplay Videos
The Weeping Swan — First Look: Sieged City & Yaoguai Survival
An early no-commentary look at the game's atmosphere, world design, and the Yaoguai threat system from the demo version.
The Weeping Swan Demo Gameplay — Full Playthrough with Commentary
A full demo playthrough with live commentary covering the first chapter, key choices, and reaction to the sanity system.
🏛️ Historical Lore
The Real Ten Days of Yangzhou
In May 1645, Qing forces under Prince Dodo entered Yangzhou after a brief siege. The city endured ten days of systematic violence — an event documented in the eyewitness account Yangzhou Shiri Ji (扬州十日记). This account, suppressed for centuries under Qing rule, forms the historical backbone of The Weeping Swan.
The game layers the mythological world of Journey to the West over this tragedy. The Yaoguai of Shituo Ridge — the Golden Winged Great Peng, the Lion King, and the Elephant — stand in for the conquering forces. The scholar Fang Zhiyou's dark novel becomes the medium through which historical horror is processed into myth.
Explore Full Lore & History →"The city burned for ten days. I wrote it down so that someone would remember."— Fang Zhiyou, Lion Camel Kingdom, Chapter One
❓ The Weeping Swan — Common Questions
Do I need to play The Hungry Lamb before The Weeping Swan?
No. The Weeping Swan is a fully standalone experience with its own characters, setting, and story. You will enjoy it completely without any prior knowledge. However, players who completed The Hungry Lamb will unlock a special bonus chapter (Ending E) featuring characters Liang and Sui, and will recognize meaningful references woven throughout the narrative. Think of it as a spiritual successor that rewards familiarity but never requires it.
How long does The Weeping Swan take to complete?
A single playthrough of all 10 days takes approximately 6-10 hours depending on your reading speed and how much time you spend exploring. A full completionist run — seeing all three main endings, collecting all 7 memory fragments, and completing the bonus Hungry Lamb chapter — is estimated at 20-30 hours. The game uses a chapter-select system after your first completion, so you don't need to replay the entire game to reach different endings.
What are the supported languages?
The Weeping Swan launches with support for Simplified Chinese (full voice acting), Traditional Chinese (full voice acting), English, Japanese, and Russian. Note that Japanese voice acting was confirmed for a post-launch update — at launch, Japanese text is fully localized but uses Chinese voice acting. English and Russian have no voice acting and are text/subtitle only.
How many endings does The Weeping Swan have?
There are three main story endings (A, B, and C), one bad ending (Ending D — the sanity collapse route), and one bonus chapter (Ending E) for fans of The Hungry Lamb. Beyond these, the game has 28 distinct death scenes and several 'chapter bad ends' that restart from a checkpoint. For completionists, cataloguing all death scenes is a substantial additional challenge.
Is there combat in The Weeping Swan? What kind of game is it really?
The Weeping Swan is primarily a narrative visual novel with survival-adventure mechanics layered on top. There is no traditional turn-based or action combat system. 'Combat' in this game means the choice between running, hiding, using items to create distractions, or accepting that confronting certain enemies means death. The focus is on resource management, timed dialogue choices, stealth navigation, and psychological horror through the Sanity system. Think Higurashi meets a survival horror VN.
I missed the wine flask on Day 1. Can I still get Ending C?
Unfortunately, no. The wine flask in the scholar's study on Day 1 is a permanently missable item, and it is required for the Day 3 choice that unlocks Lin Pianpian's trust path leading to Ending C. This is one of The Weeping Swan's most discussed design decisions — the game wants you to discover this on a second playthrough. Use the chapter-select feature to replay from Day 1 and make sure you check the leftmost drawer of the top-floor desk.