General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Ever Night 2 (将夜2)

Ever Night 2 (将夜2, also known as 将夜之光明之战, Ever Night: Season 2) is a 2020 Chinese costume fantasy television series directed by Yang Yang (杨阳) and adapted from the novel Jiang Ye by Mao Ni (猫腻). It is the sequel to the 2018 series Ever Night and continues the story of the frontier soldier Ning Que and his companion Sang Sang after the prophecy of the Ever Night begins to come true.¹

Key fact	Detail
Original title	将夜2; aliases 将夜第二季 and 将夜之光明之战; English title Ever Night 2¹
Format	43 episodes of 45 minutes each; Mandarin; costume fantasy genre¹
Broadcast	Premiered 13 January 2020 at 20:00 on Tencent Video; ran to 20 April 2020¹
Main cast	Wang Hedi as Ning Que, Song Yiren as Sang Sang, Yang Chaoyue as Haotian, Yuan Bingyan as Mo Shanshan, Zheng Shaoqiu as Fu Zi²
Production	Produced by Penguin Pictures, Maopian, Golden Media, and Yuewen Film; filmed 16 January to 9 May 2019 in Xinjiang, Guizhou, and Hubei¹
Visual effects	About 15,000 visual effects shots, supervised by Yang Zhi of Shangying VFX³
Reception	Douban score of about 5.4 to 5.7, against 7.4 for the first season; cumulative views of 1.48 billion by 11 February 2020⁴^•⁵

Spoilers

Premise and plot

The series continues the world of the first season, in which a prophecy holds that the Ever Night (永夜) will descend and bring calamity to the Haotian world, and that only the prophesied person (应兆之人) can avert it. After Ning Que kills Xia Hou to avenge the murdered Lin general's household, Sang Sang's illness worsens, and Ning Que takes her away from the Academy to seek treatment, traveling to the Yulan festival. The world suspects Ning Que himself of being the Yama King's child (冥王之子) who will bring the Ever Night, but the truth is that the unremarkable Sang Sang at his side is the prophesied one. Once the truth is revealed, the two are hunted and set out wandering together, with Ning Que refusing to abandon her.⁶^•⁷

The second half shifts to open war. Ambitious rulers rally a coalition of states to attack the Tang empire, and Ning Que, commissioned in the crisis, leads Tang's soldiers and civilians in defense. The defenders reactivate Tang's Grand Array of Startled Divinity (惊神大阵), and in the climax Fu Zi transforms into the moon to protect the human world. Peace returns to Tang, and Ning Que sets out to find Sang Sang again.⁶^•⁷

Cast and characters

Wang Hedi replaced Chen Feiyu as Ning Que, the Academy's Thirteenth Master and guardian of Tang; Song Yiren reprised Sang Sang, the girl Ning Que raised who is revealed as the prophesied one; Yang Chaoyue played Haotian (昊天); Yuan Bingyan played Mo Shanshan, the "book fool" master of Mochiyuan; and Zheng Shaoqiu played Fu Zi (夫子), the Academy's founder. Other cast members include Sun Zujun as Long Qing, Guo Pinchao as the Second Brother Jun Mo, Wang Jinsong as Master Qishan, and Cheng Taishen as Chen Mou; Liu Kejun played Ye Hongyu, a role recast from the first season.¹^•²^•⁸

The recasting extended beyond the lead. Commentators noted that the Daoist fool Ye Hongyu, played by a different actress in each season, was portrayed as a more openly murderous figure in the second season, fighting Ning Que by the lake and the Second Brother at the Green Gorge battle.⁸

Production

The production companies were Penguin Pictures, Maopian, Golden Media, and Yuewen Film, with Yang Yang directing and a screenplay credited to Yang Yang and Lang Nuolin (郎诺林); one listings site credits the screenwriter as Xu Run (徐闰) instead.¹^•⁶ Filming ran from 16 January to 9 May 2019, with locations in Xinjiang, Guizhou, and Hubei, and the production announced Wang Hedi and Song Yiren as the second season's leads on 10 January 2019, before the shoot began in Xiangyang, Hubei.¹

Visual effects. The visual effects supervisor Yang Zhi of Shangying VFX said his team spent about a month and a half redesigning the world setting and cultivation system (fantasy framework of powers gained through spiritual practice and training) for international comprehension, building on work that had begun with the first season. The series contained roughly 15,000 effects shots, including Ning Que's talisman-writing and a dragon emerging from the desert that reviewers singled out.³^•⁹

Music

The score was composed by A Kun (阿鲲). The theme song "Feng Zhi Lüren" (《风之旅人》, "Traveler on the Wind") was performed by Ayanga, and the ending theme "Bu Yuan" (《不怨》) was performed by Liu Wei and Chen Yihan; Wang Hedi and Song Yiren also recorded a duet version of "Bu Yuan" as an insert song. Other insert songs include "Ben Ming" and "Nie Pan" by Shi Yan, and "Jie Wo Yisheng" performed by Zhang Yunjing.¹

Reception

Ratings and viewership. The series premiered on 13 January 2020 and, after a paid early-access finale, had accumulated only 1.48 billion views by 11 February 2020, a figure commentators described as weak for an exclusive, high-budget web series.¹^•⁵ Its Douban score settled around 5.4 to 5.7, against 7.4 for the first season, and the first season's own score slipped from a stable 7.5 to 7.4 after the sequel began airing.⁴^•¹⁰

Criticism. The recasting of Ning Que was the most-discussed change. Reviewers wrote that Wang Hedi's version lacked the youthful recklessness, harshness, and roguish air that Chen Feiyu had brought to the role, while crediting his fight scenes and his portrayal of affection for Sang Sang.⁴ A Xinjingbao review criticized the pacing, noting that the opening twenty minutes compressed the first season's story into under five minutes before moving to Fu Zi treating Sang Sang's injuries, and said that after heavy cuts and rewrites the season felt like a project being hurried to a close; the same review called the actor replacement unsuccessful.¹ Other complaints targeted product placements, plot logic, and anachronistic props such as asphalt roads and jeans visible in shots.¹⁰^•¹¹

Praise. NetEase Entertainment took a favorable view, describing the season as multi-threaded and ambitious in scope, with the stories of Tang, the West陵 divine hall, Yan, the Golden Tent khanate, and the Great River kingdom unfolding in parallel, and crediting the production, especially the effects, with sincerity.¹ The Japanese-language coverage similarly reported divided opinions on the cast change and story while noting high regard for the visuals and action scenes.¹²

Context within the franchise

The first season, broadcast in 2018, had been a commercial and critical success for a male-oriented web-novel adaptation, with more than 1.5 billion views within three weeks and a Douban score of 7.2 during its run, and the original author Mao Ni publicly endorsed it.⁹ The sequel's drop to a 5.4 to 5.7 Douban score is frequently cited in Chinese discussions of sequels whose reception collapses after a cast change, alongside comparisons with other second seasons.⁴^•¹³ The recasting also shaped later adaptations of the same property: commentary on the 2026 Jiang Ye animated series noted that the live-action second season's wholesale replacement of its cast had already driven away part of the audience.¹⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles Cr to In

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

Notice something wrong?