General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Candle in the Tomb: The Lost Caverns (龙岭迷窟)

Candle in the Tomb: The Lost Caverns (龙岭迷窟, also known as 鬼吹灯之龙岭迷窟) is a Chinese 18-episode adventure web series that premiered on Tencent Video on April 1, 2020 and concluded on April 29, 2020¹. Adapted from the second volume of Tianxia Bachang's (天下霸唱) novel series Ghost Blows Out the Light (鬼吹灯), it follows tomb raiders Hu Bayi, Shirley Yang, and Wang Kaixuan (Fatty Wang) as they investigate an abandoned Tang-dynasty tomb in the Longling hills of Shaanxi Province²^•³. The series was the fourth Ghost Blows Out the Light web drama produced, and it became the highest-rated screen adaptation of the franchise, holding a Douban score of 8.3⁴^•⁵.

Key fact	Detail
Original title	龙岭迷窟 (Gui Chui Deng Zhi Long Ling Mi Ku)¹
Run	18 episodes, Tencent Video, April 1 to April 29, 2020, Wednesdays 20:00¹
Director / executive producer	Fei Zhenxiang (director); Guan Hu (监制)⁶
Main cast	Pan Yueming as Hu Bayi, Zhang Yuqi as Shirley Yang, Jiang Chao as Wang Kaixuan, Gao Weiguang as Partridge Whistle, Tong Lei as Da Jinya⁷
Douban rating	8.3, the highest of any Ghost Blows Out the Light screen adaptation at the time⁵
Franchise role	First installment of a five-part consecutive production plan with a fixed lead cast⁸
IMDb rating	7.4/10³

Spoilers

Premise

The story picks up after the events of the Jingjue ancient city expedition. Hu Bayi and Wang Kaixuan, together with the antique dealer Da Jinya, are drawn to the fictional county of Gulan in Shaanxi by a story about an embroidered shoe unearthed from a tomb. After falling into the Longling labyrinth caverns and suffering a bat attack, they discover red spots on their bodies and meet Shirley Yang, who is investigating the same curse. Guided by the blind old tomb raider Chen Blind (陈瞎子), they learn the story of Partridge Whistle (鹧鸪哨) and Master Liaochen's search for the Muchen Pearl (雮尘珠), the artifact that can lift the curse, and descend into a abandoned Tang-dynasty tomb beneath the Fish Bone Temple, where they face traps including the Suspended Soul Staircase and a chessboard mechanism before recovering the Dragon Bone Heavenly Book⁹. The finale leaves the Muchen Pearl's location pointing toward Yunnan, setting up the sequel¹⁰.

Place in the franchise

A turning point for the IP. Before The Lost Caverns, the Ghost Blows Out the Light adaptations had been scattered across film studios and changing casts, with quality that varied widely; of eleven rated adaptations counted by 1905.com, six scored below 5 on Douban¹⁷^•¹⁹. Starting with this series, Penguin Pictures committed to shooting five installments consecutively with one creative team and a fixed cast of Pan Yueming, Zhang Yuqi, and Jiang Chao, followed by The Worm Valley (云南虫谷), Kunlun Shrine, The South Sea Tomb, and The Coffin in the Wu Gorge⁸. Each installment was given a distinct visual palette tied to its setting, with The Lost Caverns carrying the yellow of northern Shaanxi⁸.

A separate, unrelated web film with the same Chinese title, Gui Chui Deng Zhi Long Ling Mi Ku, directed by Piao Zhutian and starring Lin Yushen, was released on iQIYI on April 2, 2020 and scored about 3.0 on Douban, a contrast widely covered in the Chinese press²⁰^•¹⁷. An interactive spin-off, The Last Mountaineer of the Migratory Tombs (龙岭迷窟之最后的搬山道人), launched on Tencent Video during the series' run²¹.

Adaptation choices

The screenwriter's three changes. Chief screenwriter Yang Zhe described the adaptation as doing three things: reordering the story, adding supplementary plot, and adding adventure-film elements¹¹. The novel is not continuous from start to finish, so the writers rearranged events so the story would flow in one sweep¹¹.

Two changes stand out. In the novel, the farmer Li Chunlai sells a single embroidered shoe in Beijing and Hu Bayi buys it for 600 yuan, after which the three men decide on their own to hunt antiques in Shaanxi; the series instead has Hu Bayi, Wang Kaixuan, and Da Jinya travel back to Li Chunlai's home village to see a box of tomb goods, which gives the trip a concrete motive¹¹. The coffin-shop owner Ma Dabao, nearly absent from the book, was expanded into the antagonist who lures the trio into the trap and later forces them into the tomb¹¹. Shirley Yang's entrance was also moved earlier: she appears in episode two as a setup for joining the adventure, whereas in the novel she arrives in the second half¹¹.

Reviewers noted that some of the novel's puzzle sequences, particularly the Suspended Soul Staircase, were simplified, which critics said weakened the original's logical tension even as it tightened the screen pacing¹².

Production

Filming began in May 2019 in Yulin, Shaanxi⁴. The series was produced by Penguin Pictures with Wanda Pictures and 7 Impressions Culture⁷.

Cinematographer Chen Ying described a deliberate visual identity for the Loess Plateau setting: a saturated orange-yellow palette, with the director summarizing the desired texture in four words, "dry, stubborn, coarse, parched" (干、艮、倔、燥)¹³. She proposed a 2.66:1 widescreen aspect ratio, unusual for a web series, to exploit the landscape; the production built 20,000 square meters of interior sets and rigged full lighting across 3 kilometers of cave locations, and the visual-effects teams joined preproduction to keep the underground scenes coherent¹³^•¹⁴. Filming dark spaces lit only by torches, candles, flashlights, and fluorescent lamps was a stated technical challenge¹³.

The title sequence calligraphy and the theme-song lyrics were contributed by lead actor Pan Yueming¹⁵.

Reception

The series opened to a Douban score of 8.4 and settled at 8.3 by its finale, the highest rating of any Ghost Blows Out the Light screen adaptation to that point¹⁶^•⁵. Viewer praise centered on the casting, the period detail of 1980s Beijing's Panjiayuan antique market, the leads' Beijing-accented banter, and fidelity to the novel¹⁵^•¹⁷. A data review put cumulative plays at 2.30 billion, Weibo topic reads at 1.14 billion, and the audience at 63 percent male¹⁸. On IMDb the series holds 7.4/10³.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026