General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Ultimate Note (终极笔记)

Ultimate Note (终极笔记, also known as 盗墓笔记之终极笔记 or The Lost Tomb 3) is a 2020 Chinese youth adventure web series produced by iQiyi, adapted from four novels of Nanpai Sanshu's Daomu Biji (The Grave Robbers' Chronicles) franchise. It premiered on iQiyi on 10 December 2020, ran for 36 episodes, and became the highest-rated television adaptation of the franchise, with a Douban score of 8.2 out of 10.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	10 December 2020, iQiyi, exclusive web broadcast; 36 episodes of about 47 minutes each¹^•²
Source material	Four novels of the series: Snake Marsh Ghost City (蛇沼鬼城), Mystery Sea Return Nest (谜海归巢), Yinshan Ancient Building (阴山古楼), and Qionglong Stone Shadow (邛笼石影)¹
Directors and writers	Zou Xi, Ma Xiaogang, and Wei Lizhou; chief screenwriters Tian Liangliang and Zhang Yuan'ang²
Main cast	Zeng Shunxi as Wu Xie, Xiao Yuliang as Zhang Qiling, Cheng Fangxu as Wang Pangzi, with Hanikezi, Liu Yuning, Fan Ming, and Wang Jinshan²
Ratings	Douban 8.2/10 from 308,541 users (as of 17 August 2025); iQiyi 9.0/10 from 282,000 users²
Production	Produced by iQiyi with Huanrui Century as co-producer; made by Linghe Media²
Sequel status	No second season; the film rights Nanpai Sanshu had licensed to Huanrui Century expired in June 2019²

Spoilers

Story and source material

The series continues the story after the Cloud Top Heavenly Palace events of the franchise. Wu Xie, having returned from an expedition, receives two mysterious videotapes sent by Zhang Qiling and realizes he has been drawn into a large conspiracy. He explores the Golmud sanatorium alone, meets Zhang Qiling and Xie Yuchen, and a six-person team with different goals travels together. In the Palace of the Queen Mother of the West they discover mysterious meteoric jade, after which Wu Sanxing disappears and Zhang Qiling loses his memory. Searching for clues to restore Zhang Qiling's memory, the team finds that the Zhang family ancient building is the key to all the secrets, but the intervention of Jude Kao's forces blocks them. Old Madam Huo then joins Wu Xie's group to repeat the joint tomb expedition of the nine families, and an accident during the operation leaves the team in crisis with the mysteries unresolved.³

The 36 episodes condense four of the nine novels, Snake Marsh Ghost City, Mystery Sea Return Nest, Yinshan Ancient Building, and Qionglong Stone Shadow. Director Zou Xi described the adaptation approach as acting as a "translator" who restores the temperament of the original books to the greatest extent possible, keeping to the novels' narrative order and plot lines rather than restructuring them.⁴ Reviewers noted that the screenwriters also filled in answers to some of the mysteries the author himself had left open; for example, the conflicting versions of the truth of the Xisha undersea tomb, which the novel never settles, are resolved in the series through a face-to-face confrontation between Wu Sanxing and Chen Wenjin.⁵

Production and broadcast

The production company Linghe Media filmed in five locations, Xishuangbanna, Qujing, Yinchuan, Wuxi, and Hengdian, going into original rainforest and desert settings to cover the large number of scenes required by four books' worth of story.⁴ The series was announced with a concept poster on 22 October 2020, the cast was confirmed on 4 December, and it was scheduled for release on 9 December before its 10 December premiere. New episodes were released on iQiyi every Thursday to Saturday at 20:00, with members able to watch six episodes ahead; from 2 January 2021, members could pay for early access to the finale.²

Commercial performance was strong for a modestly promoted series. Within 48 hours of release the iQiyi internal heat index passed 7,000, and after three weeks it rose above 8,000.² Producer Cai Jia reported that the show reached the top of recent popularity charts, with Weibo topic reads exceeding 1 billion.⁶ An industry tally of 2020 serials recorded total views of 976 million for the series on iQiyi.⁷

Reception

Critical response. Beijing Youth Daily wrote that the series won recognition from original-book fans and that scenes faithful to the novel triggered celebration among them, calling it a successful adaptation of the IP.² A combined assessment cited by Guangming Daily and Luo Mengzhou, a teacher at the Beijing Film Academy Film and Television Experiment Center, praised the series for condensing four novels into 36 episodes while keeping the plot tightly interlocked without padding, calling it a model for short-form IP adaptations.²

Audience scores. The Douban score rose over time. It stood at 7.6 during the paid early-access finale in January 2021⁴ and reached 7.8 shortly after broadcast⁶, before settling at 8.2 with more than 300,000 ratings by August 2025.² One 2026 report gives a figure of 8.4, describing a rise from 6.6 at premiere, and calls it the only adaptation in the franchise to exceed 8 on Douban.⁸ Within the franchise it is the highest-rated television adaptation: Reboot (重启之极海听雷) scored 8.6 for its first season but fell to 7.5 for the second, Sha Hai scored 7.3, The Lost Tomb 2: Explore with the Note (秦岭神树) 7.2, and Cloud Top Heavenly Palace (云顶天宫) 2.6 on Douban.⁹^•¹⁰

Criticisms. Recurring complaints concern the handling of the close relationships between the male leads and the visual quality of the effects. Some viewers felt the series made the bonds between Wu Xie and Zhang Qiling, and between Hei Yanjing and Xie Yuchen, more explicit than the novels' understated treatment, and that the special effects looked dated.¹¹ Book fans also disagreed over the rights situation behind the production, and some found the ending rushed.¹

Rights and the missing sequel

The series' production history reflects the franchise's complicated rights management. In 2013, Nanpai Sanshu licensed the film and television rights to nine of his novels to Huanrui Century for a total of 5 million yuan over six years. On 15 October 2017, a Huanrui Century announcement disclosed that iQiyi had paid 288 million yuan to commission Daomu Biji 3, which was later renamed and released as Ultimate Note. In June 2019, Nanpai Sanshu publicly confirmed that the rights previously granted to Huanrui Century had formally expired.² As a result, despite the show's reception, no second season was planned, and the story stops where Wu Xie hesitates over Xie Yuchen's proposal to impersonate his uncle.¹²

Awards and legacy

Director Zou Xi won the "Annual Five Young Directors" award at the 4th Chuxin Bang on 20 October 2021 for the series, and the show was nominated for Annual Premium Web Series at the 2021 Internet Film and Television Premium Rankings on 20 April 2021. Zeng Shunxi received a nomination for Best Actor in Contemporary Chinese Themes at the 32nd Huading Awards on 2 December 2021.²

The series is frequently cited in Chinese media discussion as evidence that faithful adaptation can succeed where heavily altered adaptations fail: a 2021 analysis of IP adaptation practices contrasted its Douban score above 8 with Cloud Top Heavenly Palace's score below 4 the following year as an illustration of the risk of drastic alteration.¹³ Years after broadcast it continued to draw new viewers; in 2026, following the finale of another franchise series, Jiu Men, viewers revisited Ultimate Note, which remained the only Daomu Biji adaptation rated above 8 on Douban.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 › Chinese modern and contemporary drama

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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