Love Beyond the Grave (白日提灯): Cast, Plot & Where to Watch — Dilraba and Arthur Chen's 2026 Ghost Romance

Quick answer: Love Beyond the Grave (白日提灯, Bái Rì Tí Dēng, "carrying a lantern in broad daylight") is a 2026 Chinese fantasy ghost romance starring Dilraba Dilmurat and Arthur Chen Feiyu. It premiered March 28, 2026 on Tencent Video (internationally on WeTV) and ran 40 episodes. Dilraba plays He Simu (贺思慕), a 400-year-old ghost lord who has ruled the realm of Guixu for three centuries; Arthur Chen plays Duan Xu (段胥), a young general of Great Liang. The hook: the two are bound so that they share their five senses. It opened enormous — heat value past 22,000 within 50 minutes, a record for the year — and it has two endings, which is the thing most people end up searching for.

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The basics

Chinese title	白日提灯 (Bái Rì Tí Dēng)
Former title	慕胥辞 (Mù Xū Cí)
Premiere	March 28, 2026
Episodes	40
Platform	Tencent Video · WeTV (international)
Leads	Dilraba Dilmurat, Arthur Chen Feiyu
Source	The novel 《慕胥辞》 by Lei Qingran (Jinjiang Literature City)
Genre	Fantasy, ghost romance, tragedy

On the two titles: the drama was announced as 慕胥辞 and renamed 白日提灯 before broadcast. The old title is built from the leads' names — 慕 from 思慕, 胥 from 段胥 — with 辞 meaning an ode or a parting. Both titles still circulate, so search results mix them.

The premise: two people sharing five senses

He Simu is not a ghost in the Western sense and not a human who died. She was born from the union of the former Ghost King and a mortal woman — an evil spirit from her first breath, never once human. She has ruled Guixu (归墟) for 300 years and runs a wish-exchange: she grants what people want, and takes their souls in payment.

What she does not have is senses. No colour, no warmth, no taste, no sound as a living person experiences them.

Duan Xu is a young general of Great Liang — and, unusually, a literary scholar who remade himself into a military commander, with one obsession: recovering the lost northern provinces.

The two become bound so that she experiences the world through his senses. That single device does all the work. Her ability to feel anything is borrowed, and the lender is a mortal man in a war. The romance and the tragedy are the same mechanism, which is why the ending lands the way it does.

The drama opens with He Simu performing — posing as a fragile war orphan on a battlefield, wincing at blood, stumbling, looking up at Duan Xu with eyes that plead for protection. He sees through it immediately. Or thinks he does. (Full character breakdown →)

The cast

• Dilraba Dilmurat (迪丽热巴) as He Simu (贺思慕) — lord of Guixu, 400 years old, 300 of them ruling. The role asks her to play someone performing helplessness while being the most powerful entity in the story.
• Arthur Chen Feiyu (陈飞宇) as Duan Xu (段胥) — general of Great Liang, scholar-turned-commander, mysterious origins.

Where to watch

Tencent Video domestically; WeTV internationally, with English subtitles. All 40 episodes have aired.

It has two endings — and that's the main thing to know

The canonical episode 40 ends in tragedy. Duan Xu dies in He Simu's arms on what was meant to be their wedding day. She carries him back into Guixu alone, and the mortal world she had finally learned to feel goes dark again — because the senses were never hers. They were borrowed, and the lender is gone.

There is also a happy bonus episode.

This "BE + HE" structure — a tragic canonical finale plus a separately released happy version — is a recognized pattern in Chinese drama, and the reason "love beyond the grave ending explained" is the query people actually type. Which one counts is a genuine argument. We broke down both endings and what the writers appear to have believed →

How it was received

The premiere was enormous: heat value past 22,000 within 50 minutes of release, setting a record for the year.

Reception afterwards was 口碑两极分化 — sharply polarized. The visual style, the pacing, and the leads' performances all drew both strong praise and strong criticism, and the split never really closed. It's a drama people argue about rather than agree on, which is worth knowing before you start it.

Where it sits in the tradition

Ghost romance is not a novelty in Chinese fiction — it's one of its oldest and most respectable modes, running through 《聊斋志异》 (Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio), where scholars fall in love with fox spirits and ghost women who are frequently more principled than the humans around them.

Love Beyond the Grave is working squarely in that lineage, and inverts it in the usual Liaozhai way: the ghost is the one with the moral weight, and the mortal world is the dangerous place. (The full tradition, from 聊斋 to Dilraba →)

Frequently asked

What is Love Beyond the Grave's Chinese name? 白日提灯 (Bái Rì Tí Dēng), "carrying a lantern in broad daylight." It was previously titled 慕胥辞.

How many episodes is it? 40.

Where can I watch it? Tencent Video in China; WeTV internationally with English subtitles.

Does Love Beyond the Grave have a happy ending? Both. The canonical episode 40 is a tragedy; a separate bonus episode gives a happy version.

Is it based on a novel? Yes — 《慕胥辞》 by Lei Qingran, from Jinjiang Literature City.

Do I need to know Liaozhai to follow it? No, but the ghost-romance conventions it plays with come from that tradition.

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More on Love Beyond the Grave:

• Ending Explained: Why There Are Two Finales
• Who Are He Simu and Duan Xu? Character Guide
• Why 白日提灯 Is the Perfect Title
• 10 Chinese Idioms Every Fan Should Know
• Famous Quotes Explained
• The Ghost Romance Tradition: From 聊斋 to Dilraba
• Learn Chinese Watching 白日提灯