General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Worm Valley (云南虫谷)

The Worm Valley (云南虫谷; also known as 鬼吹灯之云南虫谷, Candle in the Tomb: The Worm Valley) is a 2021 Chinese suspense-adventure web drama adapted from Tianxia Bachang's (天下霸唱) novel Gui Chui Deng Zhi Yun Nan Cong Gu (鬼吹灯之云南虫谷), part of the Candle in the Tomb (鬼吹灯) series. Directed by Fei Zhenxiang (费振翔) with Guan Hu (管虎) as supervising producer, it stars Pan Yueming, Zhang Yuqi, and Jiang Chao as the tomb-exploring trio Hu Bayi, Shirley Yang, and Wang Pangzi, who venture into Yunnan to find the legendary Muchen Bead (雮尘珠) in the tomb of King Xian of the ancient Dian kingdom.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original run	Premiered August 30, 2021 on Tencent Video; 16 episodes of about 35 minutes; series status ended¹^•²
Source	Adapted from Tianxia Bachang's novel Gui Chui Deng Zhi Yun Nan Cong Gu; direct sequel to Longling Grotto (龙岭迷窟)¹^•³
Key crew	Director Fei Zhenxiang; supervising producer Guan Hu; screenwriter Liu Anqi (刘安琪); producer Liang Jing¹
Cast	Pan Yueming as Hu Bayi, Zhang Yuqi as Shirley Yang, Jiang Chao as Wang Pangzi (Wang Kaixuan)²
Launch performance	Broke 100 million views within 8 hours of release; cumulative views exceeded 830 million by September 14, 2021⁴
Reception	Douban rating opened at 7.9 and fell during the run, reaching about 7.0 by September 13 and 6.7 by September 14⁴^•⁵
Awards	Two 2022 Tencent Online Video Golden Goose honors: Annual Outstanding Director (Fei Zhenxiang) and Annual Audience-Favorite Series¹

Spoilers

Plot

The three protagonists carry an eyeball-shaped mark from their previous adventure, a curse that threatens their lives. Rumor holds that the Muchen Bead, said to be able to save lives, was buried as a funerary object in the tomb of King Xian (献王) of the ancient Dian kingdom, so the trio travels into the miasma-covered wilderness of Yunnan to find it.⁶

Following a map made of human skin, they pass through a secret underground waterway of the ancient Dian kingdom beneath Zhelong Mountain (遮龙山). There they trigger a thousand-year-old mechanism of "tong shu" (痋术) sorcery: thousands of "tong figures" made from slaves hang upside down from the cave ceiling like bombs, and their fall into the water sets off a chain of predation in which one creature subdues another. A mysterious "SOS" signal in the jungle at night, first attributed to the resentful spirits of a buried Flying Tigers aircrew, turns out to be a trap laid by the high priest who served King Xian.²^•¹

The finale shows the trio finding the bead, a walnut-sized stone with an eye-like pattern, and the closing scenes preview the next installment, Kunlun Shrine (昆仑神宫), in which the same cast travels to a snow mountain for further clues.⁴

Production

The drama was produced by Tencent Penguin Pictures, Dream Author (梦想者电影), and 7 Impressions Culture (7印象文化), with filming in Yunnan beginning in August 2020.¹ It was originally to be directed by Zhang Li; the production team was later changed and Fei Zhenxiang took over as director, going on to direct the subsequent series installments.¹

Effects and locations. The production combined location shooting in Yunnan with built sets for set pieces such as the cave of inverted human figures and the twin banyan trees. Director Fei Zhenxiang stated that the visual effects ran to more than 500 minutes, compared with 370 minutes for the earlier Nuqing Xiangxi, and estimated the adaptation's fidelity to the novel at about 80 percent.⁴^•⁷ Reviewers noted that the compressed schedule left some effects shots looking cheap.⁴

Place in the Candle in the Tomb series

The Candle in the Tomb IP has a fragmented rights history: the film adaptation rights to the first four volumes went to Dream Author, which with Huayi Brothers produced the films Mojin: The Lost Legend (寻龙诀, 2015) and a 2018 film version of The Worm Valley that earned only 150 million yuan at the box office with a Douban score of 3.2, while Wanda held the later four volumes.⁴^•⁸ In 2015 the IP rights came to Tencent, and Penguin Pictures gained web-drama adaptation rights to all eight volumes, releasing Candle in the Tomb (精绝古城, 2016), Huangpi Zi Fen (黄皮子坟, 2017), and Nuqing Xiangxi (怒晴湘西, 2019) with changing casts.⁸

From Longling Grotto (2020) onward, Tencent settled on a fixed lineup: Guan Hu supervising, Fei Zhenxiang directing, and Pan Yueming, Zhang Yuqi, and Jiang Chao as a stable "iron triangle," with a five-part seasonal plan that continued with Kunlun Shrine, Nanhai Gui Xu (南海归墟), and Wuxia Guan Shan (巫峡棺山).⁵ The Worm Valley was the second installment with this cast and the fourth web drama in the series.⁹

Reception

The launch was strong: the drama topped the web-drama viewership chart within 4 hours of release with 89.294 million views, exceeding Longling Grotto's debut performance, and broke 100 million views within 8 hours.³^•⁴ Its Douban rating opened at 7.9, second among the series' web dramas only to Longling Grotto.⁴

Decline in ratings. After about five episodes the score fell, stabilizing around 7.0 by September 13 and reaching 6.7 by September 14, the first installment of the series with Pan Yueming to drop below 7.⁵^•⁴ Critics attributed the decline to added subplot material, particularly a new storyline about villagers of Zhelong Stockade that drew strong objections from fans of the novel, as well as padded content, inconsistent characterization, and frequent mid-episode advertising.⁵^•⁴ Later retrospective assessments gave lower figures, with one Jiemian article citing a Douban score of 6.1 and another 5.3.¹⁰^•¹¹ In a September 2021 interview, Fei Zhenxiang accepted criticism of the direction and said that all scripts, including Longling Grotto and The Worm Valley, were written by the team he led, asking critics to hold him responsible rather than the screenwriter.⁷

Despite the ratings fall, the drama won two 2022 Tencent Online Video Golden Goose honors, Annual Outstanding Director for Fei Zhenxiang and Annual Audience-Favorite Series.¹

Copyright litigation

In 2022, Tencent sued Beijing Weimeng (微播视界), the operator of Douyin, for infringement of the drama's information network transmission right through user-uploaded clips. The first-instance judgment found infringement and awarded economic damages of more than 32 million yuan, a figure that drew attention because a published study of 2021 video cases found the maximum awarded amount for television content was 2 million yuan, less than a tenth of this award.¹²^•¹⁰

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 Sp to Z

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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