General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Candle in the Tomb

Candle in the Tomb (鬼吹灯, also translated Ghost Blows Out the Light) is a Chinese tomb-raiding adventure franchise that began as a suspense novel series published in 2006 by Zhang Muye (张牧野), writing under the pen name Tianxia Bachang (天下霸唱), and has since been adapted into web dramas and theatrical films.¹^•² The title comes from the saying "A human lights the candle and the ghosts blow it out": in the stories, tomb raiders place a candle in the southeast corner of a chamber, and if the ghosts blow it out they must stop and leave.³

Key fact	Detail
Origin	Novel series Ghost Blows Out the Light (《鬼吹灯》) by Zhang Muye, pen name Tianxia Bachang, published from 2006 and continuously bestselling¹
Central trio	Hu Bayi, Shirley Yang, and Wang Kaixuan ("Fatty Wang"), tomb raiders who join archaeological expeditions³
Title ritual	"A human lights the candle and the ghosts blow it out"; the candle in the tomb signals whether the raid may proceed³
First major drama	Candle in the Tomb: The Ancient City of Jingjue (鬼吹灯之精绝古城), 21 episodes, premiered 19 December 2016 on Tencent Video²^•⁴
2016 cast and crew	Jin Dong (Hu Bayi), Joe Chen (Shirley Yang), Zhao Da (Wang Kaixuan); directed by Kong Sheng, Zhou You, and Sun Molong; producer Hou Hongliang²^•⁵
Debut performance	The first six episodes reached 170 million views within 12 hours of going online⁶
Later seasons	A continuing series starring Pan Yueming, Zhang Yuqi, and Jiang Chao, with seasons The Wrath of Time, The Lost Caverns, The Worm Valley, Kunlun Tomb, and South Sea Tomb⁷

The novel series

The suspense-adventure novel series Ghost Blows Out the Light began publication in 2006 and sold continuously for years, making its author, Tianxia Bachang, a prominent figure in Chinese popular fiction.¹ The story follows Hu Bayi, a demobilized soldier versed in feng shui and tomb configuration through an antique book inherited from his family, the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret (《十六字阴阳风水秘术》). Together with his friend Wang Kaixuan, known as Fatty Wang, and later the archaeologist Shirley Yang, he joins expeditions to legendary sites, including the ruins of the ancient city of Jingjue in the Taklamakan Desert and its underground "ghost cave".³^•⁴

The narrative blends reality and fiction, tomb-robbing and adventure, and is structured like a traditional Chinese supernatural tale, with the candle ritual of the title governing the raiders' conduct underground.³ In 2015, Penguin Pictures announced it had bought the web adaptation rights to the series' eight novels.¹

The 2016 web drama

The first adaptation. The novel was first adapted for the screen as The Ghouls, a 2015 theatrical film starring Chen Kun, Huang Bo, Shu Qi, and Angelababy.² The first major television version, Candle in the Tomb: The Ancient City of Jingjue, went into production in March 2016 with producer Hou Hongliang and director Kong Sheng, and premiered on Tencent Video on December 19, 2016.⁴^•² It was produced by Penguin Pictures, Dreamer Film, and the studio New Pictures (Zhejiang Shengkai/Zhangzhou-based 正午阳光), the team behind Nirvana in Fire.¹^•⁸

The 21-episode series stars Jin Dong as Hu Bayi, Joe Chen as Shirley Yang, and Zhao Da as Wang Kaixuan, and follows the trio and an archaeology team into the Taklamakan Desert in search of the Jingjue ruins.²^•⁵ Chief screenwriter Bai Yicong stated that the adaptation achieved over 90 percent fidelity to the novel, and reviewers noted that classic lines such as "人点烛，鬼吹灯" ("a person lights the candle, the ghosts blow it out") were reproduced word for word.¹^•⁵

Reception. The debut was commercially strong: the first six episodes drew 170 million views within 12 hours and topped Baidu's television search rankings, and total plays soon passed 280 million.⁶^•¹ Douban scores stood at 8.6 to 8.8 in the first days of broadcast; the aggregated Douban rating later settled at 7.9 from 270,311 users as of June 2025.⁶^•⁹^•⁴ Critics praised the realistic production design, which recreated 1980s railway stations, streets, shops, and period clothing, and the faithful rendering of the novel's tomb interiors, from murals to stone carvings and coffins.⁴ The series could not be broadcast on satellite television, airing only online.²^•¹⁰

Later adaptations

After the 2016 series, the franchise continued with a recast lineup starring Pan Yueming as Hu Ba Yi, Zhang Yuqi as Shirley Yang, and Jiang Chao as Wang Kai Xuan. JustWatch lists this continuation as six seasons: The Wrath of Time (21 episodes), The Lost Caverns (18), The Worm Valley (16), Kunlun Tomb (16), South Sea Tomb (16), and a sixth season.⁷ The Lost Caverns (2020) was directed by Fei Zhenxiang and follows the trio into a mysterious tomb in the Shaanxi region.¹¹^•⁷ A theatrical film, Candle in the Tomb: The Worm Valley (2023), directed by Yilin Dai with a screenplay credited to Zhang Mu Ye and Zhe Yang, runs two hours and stars Pan Yueming, Xue'er Hu, Liqun Luo, Vincent Zhang, and Zhang Weiwei.¹² From the 2015 film Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe onward, adaptations of Tianxia Bachang's novels reached audiences nearly every year, including the major dramas The Ancient City of Jingjue, The Weasel Grave, Candle in the Tomb entries, and the theatrical films Mojin: The Lost Legend (《寻龙诀》) and Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe (《九层妖塔》).¹³

Screen aesthetics and CG

The series has drawn academic attention as a case study in Chinese fantasy filmmaking. A qualitative study published in Idealogy Journal by Shibo Zhou, Md Nagib Padil, and Mohd Nasiruddin Abdul Aziz of Universiti Teknologi MARA examines how computer-generated imagery shapes the aesthetic expression of oriental gods and monsters in the Candle in the Tomb film series, and proposes a theory of CG technology for guiding the visual aesthetics of Chinese fantasy films.¹⁴ The 2016 drama's own effects work was reviewed favorably against earlier tomb-raiding adaptations, with critics crediting its restrained, realistic visual style for avoiding the crude effects that had plagued the genre.⁸

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026