Luziany

UPDATE: With the release of the Time Raiders (2025) TV show, there is now one single show that would be my most recommended place to start with the main DMBJ story, due to its budget, pacing, length, book-accuracy, and wide appeal for fans of both younger and older casts.  However, you may prefer to start with the Lost Tomb or one of the other main story shows, you may prefer trying one of the prequels first, or you may not have access to it, so still consider all the options below!

*****

The Lost Tomb series, based on the Daomu Biji series of books, is a sprawling multi-adaptation franchise.  It can be very confusing to figure out what order to watch the shows in, which can be compounded by the fact that, depending on your tastes, the chronological order might not be the best order to get you hooked.  This post highlights some likely entry points for getting into this franchise and their pros and cons, so you can decide which might work best for you!

Note that another obvious point of entry into the DMBJ universe is the book series that all these adaptations are based on!  ( @laireshi​ has an intro guide to the books here.) There is also a donghua adaptation is you prefer animated series.  However, this guide is specifically focused on live action screen adaptations.  There are also several spinoff/side story movies, but as many of those make marginal sense even to hardened DMBJ fans, I only recommend a few of those as possible entry points.

I would be remiss not to mention that another time-honored way to enter the DMBJ universe is by picking whichever adaptation stars your favorite actor/actress and white-knuckling your way doggedly through the resultant confusion.  I wholeheartedly support you in this.

Here is a list of the current finished main adaptations, in story chronological order.  Possible recommended entry points are starred.

***The Mystic Nine - 2016, 48 episodes

***Time Raiders (movie) - 2016, 2 hours

***The Lost Tomb (aka, The Lost Tomb 1) - 2015, 10 or 12 episodes

***Time Raiders (tv show) (aka Wu Xie’s Private Notes) - 2025, 18 episodes

The Lost Tomb 2 – 2019, 40 episodes

The Lost Tomb 2: Explore With The Note (aka The Lost Tomb 2.2 aka The Lost Tomb 2.5) – 2021, 24 episodes

***Ultimate Note – 2020, 37 episodes

Adventure Behind the Bronze Door (aka Tibetan Sea Flower) 2024, 32 episodes

***Tomb of the Sea (aka Sand Sea aka Sha Hai) – 2018, 52 episodes

***Reunion: The Sound of Providence seasons 1 and 2 (aka The Lost Tomb Reboot) – 2020, 62 episodes total

***Side story movie Mystery of the Abyss (aka The HeiHua Movie) - 2022, 2 hours

***Side story movies Conjuring Curse (2023, 1 hr 45 min) and Misty Creed (2023, 1 hr 30 min)

Under the cut:  Why you should (and shouldn’t!) start with each of the starred adaptations! 

The first two volumes of Daomu Biji, which are adapted into two TV dramas and a donghua, chronicle the beginning’s of Wu Xie’s main involvement with the tomb robbing world and set up the world, characters, and plot.

The official English translation of volumes 1 - 2 are books 1 - 3, and a little bit of book 4.

Summary - Volume 1 (from merebear)

Fifty years ago, a group of earth masters (i.e., grave robbers) from Changsha dug up a silk book of the Warring States Period. The fragment records the location of a peculiar tomb of the Warring States Period, but the group of grave robbers encountered a strange incident underground and almost all of them were killed. Fifty years later, the grandson of one of the grave robbers discovered this secret in his ancestor’s notes. He gathered a group of experienced grave robbers to hunt for treasure, but no one expected there to be so many weird things in this ancient tomb: suspicious seven-star coffins, a green-eyed fox corpse, a seven-headed snake cypress…. Who is the owner of this mysterious tomb, and can they find the real coffin? Why are there so many mysteries in the tomb that cannot be solved? What is the relationship between the strange ship tomb on the seabed, the sacred ten-thousand-year-old tree in the Qinling Mountains, and the snow tomb in the Heavenly Palace in the Clouds located in the lofty mountains? What ancient mysteries are hidden behind them?

Summary - Volume 2 (from merebear)

Uncover the eternal mysteries hidden in the ten-thousand-year old sacred tree in the Qinling Mountains and the snowy tomb of the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds.

Wu Xie, who has been idling around at home after his return from the Xisha undersea tomb, suddenly meets his friend, Lao Yang, who was just released from prison and has some amazing news for him. After hearing about a strange hexagonal bell, the ancient She people, a huge bronze tree, and the distant hinterland of the Qinling Mountains, Wu Xie can’t help but be eager to check it out.

Wu Xie and Lao Yang then head to the mysterious Qinling Mountains alone to explore, but what awaits them ahead? All kinds of strange things come one right after another, from Siberian salmon, a waterfall from hell, a corpse array, and a Zhu Jiuyin…

What was this huge bronze tree used for? Was it a tree meant to grant wishes or a kind of totem of the ancients? Will they find the real answer? The expedition is full of human trials and tribulations, with terrifying characters and loathsome faces intertwined. In the end, it’s a jaw-dropping, beyond all imagination, impossible-to-guess adventure with a real and believable ending.

Summary - The Lost Tomb (from mydramalist)

50 years ago, a group of Changsha grave robbers dug out manuscripts of the location of treasures from Warring states, but an encounter with an undead rendered almost the whole group dead. In the present, the young grandchild of the sole survivor, Wu Xie, discovers a secret within his grandfather’s notes. Together with his third uncle, Wu Sanxing, and a few other experienced tomb robbers, search for the treasure. But what no one expected to find the intriguing mysteries that accompanied their tomb-robbing adventure - just who was the owner of that tomb? Will they be able to find the real coffin? And just where will these puzzles lead the group?

Summary - The Lost Tomb 2 (from mydramalist)

The group of heroes are pulled into another tomb-raiding expedition that takes them beneath the sea. In an ancient Ming Dynasty ship, they encounter monstrous creatures and puzzling traps. Wu Xie opens the box that he obtained from the Seven Star Coffins of Lu Wang’s Palace to discover a snake-browed copper fish. Wu Sanxing recounts the strange occurrences over ten years ago when they went on an archaeological expedition to Paracel Islands. Wu Xie leads a team down to the same place to explore a sunken ship where hidden dangers await.

Summary - Buried Tree Devil / Qinling Sacred Tree (from the daomu-biji wiki)

After the adventures in the Seven Star Palace and the underwater Xisha Tomb, Wu Xie returns home to Hangzhou. He gets a call from Lao Yang who tells him of an adventure in the Qinling mountains and invites Wu Xie to join him in going back. All the while, Zhang Qiling is secretly helping Wu Xie.

Where to Find

If you can read Chinese, you can find Volume 1 and Volume 2 on daomubiji.org.

If you cannot read Chinese, the official English translations are available on Amazon. Honestly, though, they’re… bad. Really bad. You may as well MTL the text from daomubiji.org, at least that doesn’t cut out entire paragraphs.

Merebear has translated Volume 1 and is partway through translating Volume 2.

The Lost Tomb and The Lost Tomb 2 TV dramas are available on YouTube.

The Buried Tree Devil / Qinling Sacred Tree donghua is available on Tencent’s website and YouTube (as 盗墓笔记之秦岭神树)

Rarepairs

The following are some of the Vol 1 - 2 / Lost Tomb / Lost Tomb 2 ships currently listed on AO3, and are eligible for the Rarepair Exchange.

As with many of the eligible rarepairs for this exchange, some of these are better known in the Chinese fandom, but aren’t really known in the English fandom yet.

These aren’t the only possibilities, of course! Any ship that you can think of is eligible for this exchange, with the exception of Wu Xie / Zhang Qiling, Hei Xiazi / Xie Yuchen, Wang Pangzi / Wu Xie / Zhang Qiling, Wang Pangzi / Zhang Qiling, Wu Xie / Xie Yuchen, Wang Pangzi / Wu Xie, and Hei Xiazi / Huo Xiuxiu / Xie Yuchen!

Qiu Dekao | Cox Hendry / Wu Xie

A Ning / Wu Xie

Huo Xiuxiu / Wu Xie / Xie Yuchen

Pan Zi / Wu Xie

Wang Meng / Wu Xie

Wu Sanxing / Wu Xie

Xie Yuchen / Zhang Qiling

Huo Xiuxiu / Wu Xie

is it casual now?

This is the first post in a series of three four about Eddie’s house on 9-1-1.

part two, part three, part four | Buck’s loft

Okay! So! I’m a bit of an architecture and interior design enthusiast, which means I’m constantly paying too much attention to the living quarters of characters in shows I’m obsessed with. I decided to put that to use and make up a floor plan for Eddie’s house and got a bit carried away. Anyway, a-thousand-something screenshots and three weeks of effort later, we have what I would normally make just one long post but is instead a series of three posts, because of the tumblr image limit.

Also, sorry in advance if this is just way too much information. I figured, since I’ve got it in my brain, I might as well put it in the post.

Anyway, here’s the floor plan as a whole. I’m going to focus on each individual room in later sections of the post. This section kind of covers the house in general.

This latest attack on Build is a horrifying violation of privacy and trust that leaves me feeling literally nauseated. I once again reiterate that I don’t trust third-hand amateur fan translation to be accurate and contextual, particularly given the provenance of the material, but Build himself is apparently distressed enough by at least some part of the material to make a public apology. So, that being out there, I will say: This was a private matter that should have stayed private, out of respect for everyone involved. Whatever was actually said is nobody’s business except Build’s and now, unfortunately, any named individuals who this was inflicted on and who may have been hurt by it. Which, rest assured, was the intention - to hurt not only Build with this, but also, particularly, Apo and Bible, both of whom Poi has shown her dislike of and ill-will toward in the past. I suspect some people also don’t know how abuse works, and it shows, given that what was purportedly said is a reflection of Poi’s own views back at her.

Whatever the context, I see that purity cancel culture still insists on freezing people in amber in their worst moments - without recognition of any capacity for change or growth - as long as it provides ammunition for a smug, gleeful Particicution. You’re stuck on some unkind things Build supposedly said more than a year ago? Let me tell you what I’ll remember for the rest of my life: The small, broken sound of Build’s voice just a few months ago as he tried to protect Bible and Bible’s career from a sociopath, in a telephone call that he felt he needed to secretly record as evidence of how he was being manipulated and abused.

Meanwhile, I see that swathes of KP fandom continue to be complicit in Poi’s campaign of public and dehumanizing abuse of him, which now includes not only borderline revenge porn, but separating him from his friends and isolating him. This is what abuse looks like. It’s happening in front of your eyes. Do you even care? Do you actually, legitimately care about abuse, or is it just a tool for you to use to win petty shipwars and make yourself feel righteous? Because here it is. Take a good look. This is a textbook play. And if you’re participating in reposting those screenshots of private conversations and mocking Build’s relationships and spreading vituperative language about him and acting like he deserves to have his life and career destroyed, you’re enabling an abuser. You are aiding and abetting her, as the very scenario she threatened him with - in order to maintain access to him, to keep him under control and compliant - continues to get spun out. YOU are a bully and a hypocrite and an abuser, helping to prove that the most dangerous time for an abuse victim is when they leave.

But I guess some victims do have to be perfect, huh?

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