darknovel Chapter 510 of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" airs.
Chapter 510 of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" airs.
On February 10, the TV series "Candle in the Tomb: The Lost City" premiered simultaneously on Nebula Video and Hunan TV.
Three days before its premiere, the most prominent banner recommendation on the homepage of Nebula Video had already been replaced with a poster for "Candle in the Tomb: The Lost City".
A still of Pan Yueming, Jiang Chao, and Hu Zhenni standing in front of the ruins of the ancient city of Jingjue occupies the entire page, with a line of large golden characters above them.
"A cinematic production that captures the essence of the original work."
Hunan TV's trailers bombarded viewers during prime time, featuring tight editing, numerous special effects shots, and a narration that summarized the core selling points in a single sentence.
"More complete than the movie, more shocking than the original book."
At 7:35 p.m. that evening, Hunan TV's drama slot started with the opening sequence on time.
At the same time, Nebula Video's backend servers began to experience the first wave of traffic surge.
The technical department had received a warning from Li Mingde two days prior and added three more servers, but the instantaneous concurrent requests in the ten minutes before the broadcast still exceeded expectations.
The ratings data for the first episode were transmitted to Hunan TV's broadcasting center at 8:30 PM.
The CSM national network ratings exceeded 2, ranking first in its time slot.
This number is an amazing start in an era of increasingly fragmented viewership.
Within ten minutes of starting its broadcast on Nebula Video, the number of simultaneous online viewers exceeded three million.
After the first episode aired, the total number of views has already reached eight million.
VIP users could watch the first three or four episodes, and this scheduling strategy proved effective that very night.
After the first two episodes were released for free, the paid conversion rate nearly tripled compared to usual.
At 10 p.m. that night, all four episodes were released.
When Li Mingde came out of the data center, the technical director handed him a real-time data table.
The total number of views on the first day exceeded 22 million, and the number of new paying users exceeded 1 million.
The following morning, the Douban entry for the TV series "Candle in the Tomb: The Lost City" opened for ratings.
It received an initial score of 8.6, 0.5 points higher than the movie version.
Within an hour of the score being released, the short review section was flooded with over three thousand comments, with the top-rated comments almost entirely being positive.
"This is what Ghost Blows Out the Light should be like."
Compressing a novel of over 200,000 words into a two-hour movie inevitably cuts out a lot of details, while the length of a TV series is just right to unfold those details.
The Kunlun Glacier, the Nine-Story Demon Tower, and the ancient city of Jingjue—every scene is faithfully recreated.
"Pan Yueming's portrayal of Hu Bayi is quite good. He has that reckless spirit, while also retaining the righteousness inherent in the character."
Jiang Chao's Wang Pangzi is finally no longer just a plot device. The Wang Pangzi in the book is both poor and righteous, and this version is a very accurate portrayal.
Guo Zhenni's portrayal of Shirley Yang is also a pleasant surprise; she is capable and decisive yet retains a feminine sensitivity, and the subtle chemistry between her and Hu Bayi is already beginning to emerge.
"The costumes, props, and makeup were all meticulously crafted, and the quality of the actual desert filming is comparable to that of a movie."
The special effects in the scenes set in the ancient city of Jingjue were also solid and didn't feel cheap.
"The close-up of the Corpse-Scented Devil's Flower at the end of episode four gave me the creeps."
The scene in the movie version was even scarier; the lighting and sound effects were perfectly coordinated.
Of course, there were also criticisms, mainly focusing on the pacing.
Some viewers felt that the setup in the first two episodes was a bit too long, with the Kunlun Glacier segment taking a full episode and a half to get to the main point.
Some fans of the original work also pointed out that certain details were not adapted well enough, such as the way Hu Bayi appeared in the novel.
Overall, however, positive reviews made up the vast majority, and the rating actually rose on the second day, jumping from 8.9 to 9.0.
Hunan TV and Nebula Video simultaneously released their first-day performance reports on the second day.
Hunan TV's version emphasizes a viewership rating exceeding 2, ranking first in its time slot;
The Nebula Video version emphasizes that the number of views has exceeded 22 million and the number of new paid users has exceeded one million.
Chenxi Media's official Weibo account reposted the report at noon, with only eight characters in the caption: "Faithful to the original work, living up to expectations."
The top comments section was once again dominated by artists under Chenxi Entertainment, who neatly typed "Congratulations" and "Awesome!"
With the immense popularity of "Candle in the Tomb: The Lost City", Guo Zhenni has officially entered the public eye.
Guo Zhenni's Weibo followers increased by four million in seven days, jumping from less than three million to seven million.
Script offers, media interviews, and magazine shoot invitations poured in; her agent received more than twenty calls in one day.
The popularity of the TV series also boosted the sales of the original novel, with sales of the "Ghost Blows Out the Light" series of books on major e-commerce platforms surging by 300% within a week.
Offline bookstores even set up special booths, and many viewers couldn't wait to revisit the details of the text after watching the show.
This "Ghost Blows Out the Light" craze has even spread to the tourism industry. Inquiries about one of the filming locations in the series, the desert scenic area, have surged, and local travel agencies have quickly launched "Jingjue Ancient City Adventure Tour" themed routes.
As the plot progresses to the heart of the ancient city of Jingjue, the suspense builds layer by layer, and the audience's enthusiasm for watching the next episode continues to rise.
Nebula Video launched an interactive "Drama-Watching Calendar" event, inviting netizens to predict the future plot developments, with the number of participants exceeding five million.
Hunan TV's ratings also remained at the top of the time slot, with an average rating of 3.3% in the second week, showing a "high start and strong finish" trend.
Industry insiders are buzzing with discussion: "Candle in the Tomb: The Lost City" may redefine the production standards and market potential of domestic adventure dramas.