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I was rewatching the donghua and noticed that they put a weird amount of emphasis on his legs. They looked bandaged up to me, like he had been trying to fix some kind of wound from when he was alive.

To start off, we know for a fact that traits from a ghosts life carry over when they die. We see this sort of thing happen with both Hua Cheng and Xuan Ji. One without an eye and one with a limp. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for the same thing to happen to Qi Rong.

Based on how the Yong'an people are depicted in the book and in the (in a very limited amount) donghua, it wouldn't be out of place for him to be tortured or killed by them. If they were hunting down what was left of the royal family of Xianle, Qi Rong would be included.

Plus, everyone kinda wanted him gone or at least disliked him so it wouldn't help him in any capacity that people were after him.

Upon further research, a popular method of torture during the Ming Dynasty was the ankle crusher.

Quote from 'The World of Chinese' (2024)

"The secret police would force the suspect’s legs between the planks and then pull on the rope at both ends so the wooden boards squeezed tight against the suspect’s feet and legs. The torture would often result in broken ankles."

The kind of damage described here sounds somewhat connected to how they drew Qi Rong here, like he was trying to fix his wounds.