General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Mu Ye Gui Shi (鬼吹灯之牧野诡事)

Mu Ye Gui Shi (鬼吹灯之牧野诡事, released in English as Ghost Blows: Makino Sly Thing) is a 2017 Chinese suspense-adventure web drama adapted from the same-named work by the novelist Tianxia Bachang (天下霸唱, pen name of Zhang Muye), produced by iQiyi, Dongyang Xiangshang Pictures, and Huayi Brothers, and starring Wang Dalu (王大陆) and Jin Chen (金晨). It premiered on iQiyi on July 3, 2017 and follows Hu Tian, the son of the tomb-raider Hu Bayi, as he searches for his missing parents.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	鬼吹灯之牧野诡事 (Ghost Blows Out the Light: Mu Ye Gui Shi)
First broadcast	July 3, 2017, exclusively on iQiyi; finale September 13, 2017¹
Format	Suspense-adventure web serial in two seasons of 12 episodes each, 24 episodes total³
Directors and writers	Zhao Xiao'ou and Zhao Xiaoxi (the Zhao brothers); screenplay credited to Xinshengtang¹^•³
Main cast	Wang Dalu as Hu Tian, Jin Chen as Bing Lun, Wang Yuexin as Lei Li, Zhang Boyu as Wang Yao, Zhang Xin as Xiao Jinya³
Source work	A Tianxia Bachang column in the Southern Metropolis Daily explaining mysteries of the Ghost Blows Out the Light series, later collected and published as a book⁴
Reception	Douban score of 2.8 shortly after launch, later 3.1; views passed 1.9 billion by the finale⁴^•⁵^•¹
Litigation	Tianxia Bachang and co-defendants were held liable for unfair competition over the title and ordered to pay 1.1 million yuan⁶

Spoilers

Plot and characters

The story concerns the second generation of the mojin (摸金, tomb-raiding) tradition rather than the original protagonists. Hu Tian (胡天), played by Wang Dalu, is the son of Hu Bayi and runs an antique shop called Cangjin Pavilion in Beijing, making a living in small cons with Xiao Jinya (小金牙), granddaughter of the character Da Jinya. A mysterious woman, Bing Lun (冰轮), played by Jin Chen, arrives with news of Hu Tian's parents, whom he has not seen for 20 years, and a clue to the Bawang Tomb (霸王冢, the tomb of the Hegemon-King of Western Chu, Xiang Yu). Hu Tian assembles a five-person group with Bing Lun, Wang Yao (王耀), son of Wang Kaixuan, Lei Li (雷厉), a cheated rich heir, and Xiao Jinya, and they travel through the Six Ghost Markets to recover the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Art left by his father before entering the ancient tomb.¹^•³^•⁸

The source work

The drama's source is unusual among Ghost Blows Out the Light adaptations. The eight core novels of the series are Jingjue Ancient City, Longling Labyrinth, Yunnan Insect Valley, Kunlun Shrine, Yellow Skin Grave, South Sea Return, Nuqing Xiangxi, and Wuxia Coffin Mountain. Mu Ye Gui Shi is not one of them: it began as a column Tianxia Bachang wrote in the Southern Metropolis Daily (南方都市报) that explained points of interest and background in the Ghost Blows Out the Light series, and a publisher later bought the column and collected it into a book under the title Ghost Blows Out the Light: Mu Ye Gui Shi. Commentators describe the book as closer to a reading guide or background material for the series than a novel with a complete plot of its own.⁴^•⁷

Tianxia Bachang retained the rights to this work. In 2007 he had transferred the rights to the Ghost Blows Out the Light series, including possible sequels, prequels, and side stories, to Shanghai Xuanting Entertainment (the operator of the Qidian web-fiction platform), but Mu Ye Gui Shi remained his, and he licensed its adaptation to Xiangshang Pictures (向上影业), a company in which he held a stake partly through contributing copyrights of several of his works. He personally served as supervisor (监制) on the production.⁴^•⁸

Production and broadcast

The series was announced at a launch event in Beijing on June 30, 2016, with filming set to begin on July 16 of that year, and Tianxia Bachang visited the set in September 2016 in his supervising role.⁵ Huang Xiaoming was attached as co-producer and supervisor, and Storm TV (暴风TV) was a joint sponsor.⁷ iQiyi internally rated the project at its top S level and also developed a licensed mobile role-playing game of the same name, for which Tianxia Bachang served as story planner for the first time.⁹^•¹⁰

The drama premiered on July 3, 2017, positioning itself ahead of Tencent's Ghost Blows Out the Light: Yellow Skin Grave, which was scheduled for August of the same year, in a summer season in which two Ghost Blows Out the Light adaptations competed on different platforms.⁴ New episodes were released Mondays and Tuesdays at 20:00, with VIP members able to watch a week ahead.³

Reception

The drama drew sharply negative reviews from viewers. Its Douban score stood at 2.8 shortly after launch, lower than the widely criticized Midnight Diner adaptation, and Baidu Baike later recorded 3.1 from 23,333 raters; by comparison, the Tencent series Ghost Blows Out the Light: Jingjue Ancient City scored 8.1.⁴^•⁵^•⁹^•¹¹ Critics faulted the acting, props, and special effects, and many viewers objected that a drama titled Ghost Blows Out the Light contained none of the familiar characters or continuity of the series.⁴^•¹¹ Even the co-sponsor Storm TV answered a Zhihu question about the show with the remark that, as the sponsor, it felt awkward.⁹

Commercially the picture was mixed. The series reached over 1.9 billion cumulative views by its September 13, 2017 finale and topped Weibo's topic recommendation and drama charts, and a month after launch it still drew about 29 million daily views despite its low rating.¹^•¹² At the industry level it was recognized: on April 17, 2018 it received a "Top Ten Web Dramas of the Year" award at the second Wangying Awards held during the Beijing International Film Festival.¹ Mainland media reviews were more favorable than audience scores, with Xinhua Online noting the series' comedic tone and youthful "second-generation mojin" premise, and NetEase Entertainment observing that younger viewers responded to its mix of suspense and humor.⁵

The "Gui Chui Deng" name lawsuit

Because the underlying work was never part of the transferred Ghost Blows Out the Light series, the drama's title became the subject of a landmark unfair-competition case. Shanghai Xuanting, which owned the rights to the Ghost Blows Out the Light name as a well-known commodity name after years of promotion, sued Tianxia Bachang and the production companies for using "鬼吹灯" (Ghost Blows Out the Light) in the drama's title and in promotional trailers, which also carried phrases such as "Jin Chen of Ghost Blows Out the Light is praised as China's Gal Gadot." Both courts at first instance and appeal supported the claim, and Tianxia Bachang was ordered to pay 1.1 million yuan in damages.⁶

The case drew attention because it delineated the boundary between an author's rights and a commercial platform's rights over a shared brand. Commentators noted that while Tianxia Bachang, as author of Mu Ye Gui Shi, was free to license its adaptation, attaching the "鬼吹灯" mark to the result appropriated a commodity name whose reputation had been built by the platform's investment. Legal analysis also observed that the dispute could have been avoided if the original transfer agreement had included a reverse license allowing the author to use the series name on his own later works.⁶^•¹³

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 Iv to My

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

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