Chapter 495: Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Ancient City of Jingjue

Chapter 495: Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Ancient City of Jingjue

Chapter 495: Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Ancient City of Jingjue

As Galaxy Group once again achieved success overseas with "Bad Boys" and reaped huge box office revenue, the stock market value of Galaxy Pictures has also been rising steadily.

And the situation surrounding this company is becoming more and more turbulent under the surface.

Of course, all of this is only done in secret, after all, the Galaxy Group’s roots are in China.

You can't just call for protection when you need it, and not let others call for protection when they need it.

After all, the Galaxy Group is a leading enterprise in China's cultural industry. It has caught the attention of senior leaders and has a certain position in the country's cultural strategy.

Not to mention their cooperation with the military and aerospace departments, just take the [Galaxy Park] which is still under construction. They cannot let their children be bullied by outsiders.

So for Wang Hao, the impact brought by external forces is still within the controllable range, but preparing for a rainy day has always been his style.

In view of the importance of Galaxy Group in China's cultural industry layout, as well as the unruly behavior of some forces, he realized that he might have to significantly reduce the frequency of going abroad in the future, or even make plans not to go abroad at all.

This is by no means alarmist; there are many precedents in reality.

Let’s not talk about Huawei, but just talk about France’s Alstom. The company is known to the world for its innovative environmental protection technologies. Its main development directions are transportation, electricity, and power grid businesses. It is a truly long-established company with more than 1 employees alone, and its size is not much different from Galaxy Group.

As a result, because of its size and outstanding technology, it was targeted by a bald eagle, resulting in the arrest of the company's executive Pierucci at Kennedy International Airport.

The reason for his arrest was even more outrageous. It was said that it was because Pierucci was offering bribes in Indonesia. If someone is offering bribes in Indonesia, it is not the turn of the United States to intervene.

This happened in 2013, which was the year before last, not too long ago. As a result, Alstom could not hold on and sold its energy business to the United States at a very low price.

With these real examples in front of him, Wang Hao felt it was better to be cautious. Anyway, he didn't think the air abroad was that sweet.

Just when the film market was extremely lively due to the competition between "The Drive" and "Jurassic World", another TV series also produced by Galaxy Group also set off a wave of drama craze in China.

This work, adapted from the novel of the same name by Tianxia Bachang and integrated into the [Galaxy Cinematic Universe], is called "Ghost Blowing Out the Light".

To be more precise, it should be called "Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Mystical Ancient City".

As a masterpiece of domestic suspense and tomb-robbing novels, "Ghost Blows Out the Light" undoubtedly has a large number of loyal fans. The thrilling stories depicted in the book and the magnificent world it presents have attracted countless people to become addicted to it.

As the producer and producer of "Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Mystical Ancient City", Galaxy Group is a leader in the domestic film and television industry. Its production level is not only world-leading, but also top-notch.

Especially in terms of special effects technology, Galaxy Group dares to claim second place in China, and no one dares to claim first place.

Only they have enough strength and skills to perfectly restore the amazing and wonderful contents in the book.

After all, the original work of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" is not a documentary literature. It contains a large number of strange scenes and monsters of various shapes. It is not easy to perfectly restore these elements.

If the production level is poor and the special effects are cheap, it will undoubtedly greatly reduce the viewing experience of the film.

Therefore, as early as the year before last, when the Galaxy Group released the information that it was going to shoot and produce "Ghost Blows Out the Light", many book fans cheered and looked forward to it. Everyone spread the word, and the expectations for this work were raised to the maximum.

Now that the TV series has finally officially started, book fans can't wait to log on to Star Video Network and activate VIP without hesitation, just to start this long-awaited drama-chasing journey as soon as possible and follow the three protagonists into the mysterious world of "Ghost Blowing Out the Light".

The plot of the Xinghe version of "Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Mystical Ancient City" is not complicated and is not much different from the original.

The first half of the first episode of the TV series roughly explains the past of Hu Bayi (played by Pan Yueming), mainly his experience when he was a soldier.

Then the war ended, Hu Bayi retired and returned to his hometown, where he happened to meet his best friend Fatty Wang (played by Jiang Chao).

The two were doing a small business in Panjiayuan, and during that time they met Da Jin Ya (Tong Lei) who was dealing in antiques. At his instigation, they remembered that there was a tomb near Ganggangyingzi where they had stayed in the countryside when they were young, and decided to try their luck.

The story has developed to this point, but it is somewhat different from the original novel. The TV series uses the excitement brought by revisiting the old place to give Hu Bayi some shots of his memories.

In addition to the two of them, there is also a young girl named Ye Wenjie (played by Wang Ziwen) who is the most eye-catching.

Of course, this is "Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Mystical Ancient City" after all, not "The Three-Body Problem", so the young Ye Wenjie only appeared briefly.

Later in Ganggangyingzi, they learned that the ancient tomb in Niuxin Mountain had been excavated by an archaeological team, so they decided to give the Kwantung Army Fortress a try. On the way, they discovered that Yerengou had good feng shui and expected that there must be a large tomb there.

The two of them and their guide Yingzi entered the tomb. After some adventures, they finally escaped death, but their gains were not great. They only got two ancient jades.

After returning to BJ, they were not able to exchange their two ancient jades for much money from Big Gold Tooth, but Big Gold Tooth also introduced them to a business and recommended them to the archaeological team sponsored by Chinese-American Shirley Yang (played by Ni Ni).

After the archaeological team was fully equipped, they headed to the Taklamakan Desert to search for the legendary ancient kingdom of Jingjue.

In the desert, they encountered sandstorms, ancient city ruins, stone statues with giant pupils, desert army ants, and in the underground tomb of the ancient city ruins, they saw murals about the Queen of Jingjue and learned about her related deeds.

After that, the archaeological team finally discovered the Zaglama Valley after a long journey. They came to the foot of the Cishan Mountain, saw the legendary ancient city of Jingjue, entered the Jingjue Temple, saw the legendary Jingjue "Ghost Cave", as well as the coffin of the Jingjue Queen and the strange corpse-scented konjac in the cave.

After seeing the corpse amorphophallus, the archaeological team was also affected by it and the teammates began to fight each other.

Fortunately, Hu Bayi was finally awakened by the shouts of Fatty Wang and Shirley Yang. They all escaped from the tomb of the Queen of Jingjue while being chased by the black snake and hid in a stone chamber in the mountain, where they found an ancient corpse and a stone box.

Through the scrolls treasured by the "prophet" clan in the stone box, and some information revealed by Shirley Yang, Hu Bayi and his team also roughly understood the Queen of Jingjue and the "ghost cave", and even more ancient secrets. It turns out that there was a sacred mountain in the ancient Western Regions, which is the Zaglama Mountain around the ancient city of Jingjue. The mountain is surrounded by rivers and abundant plants and animals. Four tribes that migrated from the far west lived nearby and lived a peaceful and harmonious life.

However, the good times did not last long. One day, the tribesmen discovered a bottomless cave in the Zagrama Mountains.

The cave is extremely deep and no one can reach the bottom, but many people are very curious and want to find out what the world is like below the cave.

There happened to be a high priest in one of the four tribes. Based on an ancient myth recorded in the tribe, he ordered people to make a jade eyeball, hoping that with the power of the true God, he could see whether the bottomless pit was auspicious or inauspicious.

However, during this large-scale festival, the four tribes not only failed to see the situation clearly under the bottomless pit, but also attracted the arrival of disaster.

The high priest became blinded and died. Then countless strange snakes began to emerge from the cave. There were many of these snakes, some of which were extremely poisonous, some were extremely fast, and some were huge in size.

Some of them are even monsters with human heads, snake bodies and limbs. They can drive other strange snakes and have some intelligence.

In order to deal with this sudden disaster, the four tribes nominated two saints favored by the true God. They carried two holy artifacts inherited from the tribe and led the warriors in the tribe to go deep into the cave and kill the mother snake that specialized in hatching strange snakes.

Although the snake beasts were wiped out, the young prophet in the tribe received revelation through divine revelation that this cave was a cave of disaster, and the imitation jade eyeball had opened the door to disaster.

According to the prophecy, eight hundred years after the prophet's death, his tribe had migrated to the cold plateau to avoid disaster, where the basilisk would not go because of its nature.

Mount Zagrama will welcome a new tribe, which comes from the desert in the west. They discovered ghost caves in the mountains, and the wizards in the tribe claimed that this was the place where the devil lived.

This tribe was the predecessor of the Jingjue Kingdom. The tribe settled near a ghost cave. Many years later, a little girl in the tribe awakened her talent and grew a pair of ghost eyes that could see into the underworld.

Without the need to perform a ritual using the Jade Eye sacrificial vessel, the little girl was able to summon the black snake spirit to serve her.

With the help of this powerful ability, she conquered more than a dozen neighboring countries and became a feared figure in the Western Regions.

When her strength reached its peak, this "Queen of Jingjue" was no longer satisfied with defending one place, and extended her tentacles to the more prosperous Central Plains.

However, the Central Plains at that time was in the period of Emperor Wu of Han, when the military power was the strongest. Not only did Zhang Qian go on a diplomatic mission to the Western Regions, open up roads to the Western Regions, and set up the Four Hexi Counties, but there was also a famous general named Huo Qubing.

Under the attack of the Han Dynasty, the ambition of the Queen of Jingjue finally came to an end at Yumen Pass.

Even the ancient city of Jingjue was burned down by an attack by a team of elite Han soldiers, and the Queen of Jingjue and the secrets within were buried in the yellow sand.

And Shirley Yang is exactly the descendant of the survivors of that team of elite Han soldiers.

Through the prophetic parchment book left by the prophet of the Zagrama tribe, Hu Bayi and his companions not only learned the secrets of the ghost cave and the ancient city of Jingjue, but also found a crack in the mountain wall. They took Professor Yang out of the tomb safely and caught up with the old guide Anliman who was about to escape when he encountered a sandstorm. In the end, they were successfully rescued by the rescue team.

However, the wonderful story of Hu Bayi and Fatty has just begun. After returning to BJ, the two who received their wages from Shirley Yang soon found strange eye marks on their backs.

To be honest, Galaxy Group’s "Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Mystical Ancient City" can be regarded as an extremely special existence among domestic TV dramas in the past decade.

The story of the TV series is not complicated, but after all, there is the original novel. Although the plot is simple, it is also very exciting.

The key is texture, from costumes and props to lighting, lenses, and the vivid special effects, which are almost far ahead of domestic TV dramas.

Especially the several visits to tombs by Hu Bayi and others, whether it was the fortress and the Wild Man Valley in the early stage, or the ancient city of Jingjue in the later stage, the special effects modeling and rendering almost reached the movie level.

You should know that there are not only urban dramas in China. In recent years, with the entry of Internet capital into the entertainment industry and the IPization of film and television, many fantasy novels have been adapted into TV series.

However, once the audience sees the special effects in those TV dramas, they will feel that they are "fake" and full of cheapness.

Especially some ancient puppets, with their photo studio style, plastic texture, and cheap special effects, anyone with a little aesthetic sense can't help but frown.

However, Galaxy Group’s "Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Mystical Ancient City" is different. If we really have to make an analogy, it’s like watching an American TV series, or it can be compared to the high-quality Chinese online dramas of seven or eight years later.

Therefore, as soon as this web drama was launched, the online broadcast volume reached 12 million in the first 1.7 hours, and the data on the first day exceeded 3 million, setting a record for the highest online broadcast volume on the first day of a TV series.

In the following days, the online broadcast volume of "Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Mystical Ancient City" exceeded 2 million and 3 million in a single day.

Within 8 days of its release, the TV series had received 10.3 billion hits. By July, when the TV series was nearing its end, its online broadcast volume was even higher.

So much so that even though the TV series is about to end, some netizens have left messages on the official website of Galaxy Group and the website of Star Video, saying that since "Ghost Blows Out the Light" has been filmed for several episodes in a row, there is no need to wait and the rest should be released quickly, otherwise people will not be able to watch other dramas after watching this one.

At the same time, with the popularity of "Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Mystical Ancient City", several leading actors in the drama also benefited a lot.

Especially Pan Yueming, who played Hu Bayi. His popularity plummeted due to his divorce from his wife in 2012. Not only did his career suffer a setback, but his entire spirit also suffered a great blow. He was in a decadent state for a long time after the divorce.

Even though the "passionate kiss scandal" was later exposed and cleared his name, his career still suffered a setback after several years of silence.

It was not until this time, with the recommendation of his agent Chen Zhixi, and his strong efforts as a fan of the book, and with the approval of Wang Hao, that Pan Yueming got the leading role of "Ghost Blows Out the Light: The Mystical Ancient City" for a very low salary. Only then did he make a complete comeback.

After the TV series was launched, the character Hu Bayi, played by him, received unanimous praise from the audience as soon as he appeared.

This is not to say that he fits the image of Hu Bayi in the original novel very well, but that after experiencing setbacks and blows, Pan Yueming's temperament has become more restrained, calm, and rounded, and his acting skills have become more mature, so the roles he plays are naturally full of appropriateness and suitability.

(End of this chapter)