General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Lost Tomb 2 Explore with the Note (云顶天宫)

The Lost Tomb 2: Explore with the Note (云顶天宫, "Cloud Top Heavenly Palace") is a 2021 mainland Chinese adventure web drama of 24 episodes, streamed on Tencent Video and produced by Huanrui Century (欢瑞世纪). It adapts volumes four and five of the main Daomu Biji (盗墓笔记, The Lost Tomb) novel series by Nanpai Sanshu and follows Wu Xie, Wang Pangzi, Zhang Qiling ("Xiaoge"), and Xie Yuchen as they work with state departments to investigate an antique smuggling gang led by Jude Kao, ultimately exposing his long-running scheme to loot national treasures at the Cloud Top Heavenly Palace on Changbai Mountain and stopping the tomb raid.¹^•² It was the last Daomu Biji drama produced under Huanrui's license and received the lowest ratings of the entire screen franchise.³

Key fact	Detail
Format	2021 mainland Chinese web drama, adventure genre, 24 episodes, Tencent Video¹
Source material	Volumes 4 and 5 of the Daomu Biji main novel series by Nanpai Sanshu²
Directors and writers	Liu Guohui and Zhou Yuyu; screenwriters Li Ang, A Shun, and Liu Qinzhi⁴
Main cast	Bai Shu (Wu Xie), Zhang Boyu (Wang Pangzi), Zhao Dongze (Zhang Qiling), Zhao Ruihan; Peng Yusi as Shunzi and Liu Xueyi as Xie Yuchen¹^•⁴^•⁵
Premiere	July 11, 2021⁴^•⁶
Reception	Douban score 2.6, the lowest of the Daomu Biji dramas; 81.5% of 30,907 raters gave one star; cumulative views of 403 million by August 4, 2021⁷
Franchise position	The fourth and final main-series drama produced by Huanrui Century under its expired license³

Spoilers

Plot and source material

The drama adapts the fourth and fifth volumes of the Daomu Biji main series, continuing the story after the undersea tomb and the Qinling expeditions.²^•⁴ In the screen version, Wu Xie, having survived the sea-bottom tomb and the Qinling hinterland, risks his life in a warlord's tomb in Guizhou while trying to stop Jude Kao's scheme, and the story moves toward the Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (云顶天宫), a legendary tomb high on Changbai Mountain.⁴^•¹ The official synopsis frames the team as cooperating with state authorities against Kao's smuggling ring, an adjustment consistent with the censorship strategies, such as elevating the theme and rationalizing the supernatural, that commentators identify across the Daomu Biji adaptations.¹^•⁸

In the original novel, the Cloud Top Heavenly Palace is a tomb designed by the Ming-era master builder Wang Zanghai, built at an altitude so high and on cliffs so sheer that ordinary tomb raiders could never reach it, and it was crushed by an avalanche not long after completion.⁹

Place in the franchise

Yunding Tiangong closed out Huanrui Century's run of main-series adaptations, which had covered all of the nine main novels except the finale across four productions: the 2015 Daomu Biji, Nu Hai Qian Sha & Qin Ling Shen Shu, Ultimate Note, and this drama.³^•¹⁸ The title itself remains part of the franchise's commercial identity: in 2024, Xu Lei's Hangzhou Shinian Culture applied to register "Yunding Tiangong" and other Daomu Biji elements as trademarks, and a stage play adaptation, Daomu Biji III: Yunding Tiangong by Shanghai Chuang Drama Studio, had earlier been among the licensed derivatives of the novels.²⁰^•²¹

Production and rights background

A delayed project. In 2016, Penguin Pictures, then one year old, announced at its annual launch event a partnership with Huanrui Century to produce Daomu Biji zhi Yunding Tiangong, with the Huanrui actor Qin Junjie confirmed to star. The project stalled; the partnership instead produced the paired dramas The Lost Tomb 2: Explore with the Note's predecessor Nu Hai Qian Sha & Qin Ling Shen Shu (adapted from volumes two and three), and by the time Yunding Tiangong reached Tencent Video, Penguin Pictures was no longer among its producers.²^•¹⁰

A rights dispute behind the release. Nanpai Sanshu (real name Xu Lei) had sold six years of television adaptation rights to the nine main Daomu Biji novels to Huanrui for about 5 million yuan. On May 26, 2019 he announced on Weibo that the rights had expired and returned to him; Huanrui responded with a lawsuit, arguing that a four-year extension clause applied if the first season's television adaptation had obtained a distribution license, while Nanpai Sanshu argued that a web drama is not a television drama. The dispute was unresolved when the drama aired.¹¹^•¹⁰ The drama had wrapped filming at the end of 2018, near the end of the contract term, and commentators described it as Huanrui's final squeeze on the license before it lapsed.¹² After the rights returned to the author, Nanpai Sanshu said the drama would eventually be remade.²

Cast

The "iron triangle" at the center of the series was recast: Bai Shu played Wu Xie, Zhao Dongze played Zhang Qiling, and Zhang Boyu returned as Wang Pangzi from Nu Hai Qian Sha & Qin Ling Shen Shu, the only member of the trio carried over.¹³ Supporting roles included Peng Yusi as Shunzi, a performance that some reviewers singled out as the drama's most successful casting, and Liu Xueyi, who repeated his well-received Xie Yuchen from the previous installment.⁵^•¹⁴

Before the premiere, Bai Shu published a self-deprecating "disclaimer" post listing ten superlatives about his own version of the role and inviting criticism; Zhao Dongze similarly asked for patience, and Bai Yicong, credited by the production as "chief editor," issued a statement disclaiming any real involvement, saying the credit had been given to him without his work. All three posts drew further criticism rather than goodwill.¹⁵

Reception

The drama trended on Chinese social media within two days of its July 11, 2021 premiere, with commentary overwhelmingly negative.⁶^•¹⁶ On Douban it settled at 2.6, the lowest score of any Daomu Biji screen adaptation, against 8.2 for Ultimate Note (2020) in the same franchise; of 30,907 raters, 81.5% awarded one star and 11.5% two stars, while four- and five-star ratings together accounted for about 1.2%.¹⁷^•⁷ By August 4, 2021, near its finale, cumulative views stood at 403 million including trailers and previews.⁷

Criticisms centered on three areas. Casting was judged far from the novel's characterizations, particularly Zhao Dongze's Zhang Qiling, a role fans treat as the franchise's most demanding, and Bai Shu's Wu Xie, described as lacking the character's spirit.¹⁶^•¹³ The plot was criticized for heavy alteration and padding, including invented romantic elements and scenes such as Wu Xie selling his "unicorn blood," which reviewers called illogical next to the source.¹⁸^•¹² Production values, including effects and fight choreography, were also faulted as rough compared with earlier installments.¹⁶ Reporting during the run described the production company itself issuing a statement distancing itself from the finished show, an outcome commentators called rare in Chinese drama promotion.¹⁹

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 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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