There’s nothing wrong with him, Wolfwood, it’s just that he and his brother were clever little Plants and read everything they found, so he accidentally got mentally traumatized by Franz Kafka
Yang Liu practising her 獨竹漂 (du2zhu2piao1; single bamboo drifting) skills. As it is a dying skill, she aims to promote it to the whole world so that it will not be forgotten.
(See my other post here for a bit more info on what bamboo drifting is)