SPOILER WARNING: This article includes mentions of scenes from the Heaven Official’s Blessing novel not shown in the donghua.
To celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival, the official Heaven Official’s Blessing account has shared a teaser for the fifth short film.
The teaser appears to be a mash-up of different scenes from different volumes. It begins with the Mid-Autumn Banquet where the gods compete to see how many lanterns get released in their honor. This also is one of the first times we see the Three Tumors together–Shi Wudu, Pei Ming, and Ling Wen. For Xie Lian, who has always been the laughingstock of the three realms, getting one lantern would be a miracle, let alone three thousand.
The teaser than transitions to Hong Hong-er devoting his life to a statue of Xie Lian before it seamlessly move to Hua Cheng disintegrating in Xie Lian’s arms as he sobs. Xie Lian returns home, despondent, silently vowing he would wait for Hua Cheng regardless of how long it takes but upon seeing lanterns being lit at his home, he knows: Hua Cheng has come back, just as he promised.
The hodgepodge of scenes in the teaser has excited fans but also been a cause of worry as it seems to be trying to stack the rest of the story into one short film. It has led to questions of if this means this short film is the last for Heaven Official’s Blessing and if the donghua will ever get a third season.
A donghua adaptation was released in October 2020 with Haoliners Animation League helming the animation and production with Season 2’s animation team replaced by Red Dog Culture House. The second season released a few years later in October 2023. From then on, Heaven Official’s Blessing has only been releasing five to ten minute short films with no announcement of a third season in sight.
The first was released in February 2025 and depicts Xie Lian as a young Crown Prince of Xianle rescuing a young San Lang when he falls from a tall building. The second film was released in the same year and depicts one of the extras, when Xie Lian and Hua Cheng stroll around Ghost City and answer riddles. The third film was released in February 2026 and depicts another famous scene when Xie Lian and Hua Cheng kiss for the first time (underwater, no less!). The fourth film, “The Cave of Ten Thousand Gods” which depicts an iconic confession, showed at Anime NYC this year but has not popped up on online platforms yet.
Based on Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s popular danmei series, Heaven Official’s Blessing follows an unlucky god named Xie Lian who was once a beloved prince among the mortals and god among the heavens. After being banished twice, Xie Lian has become the laughingstock of all three realms. When he ascends for an unprecedented third time, it turns the heavens upside down. With multiple palaces destroyed, Xie Lian now has to find some way to pay the damages but with no followers and therefore no power, he can’t do much except descend to the mortal realm to hunt down ghosts. There, he meets a mysterious red-robed young man who seems to know a lot about Xie Lian.
Crunchyroll streams the donghua on its platform. The novel can be read via Seven Seas Entertainment. The manhua of the donghua was released by Aloha Comics. The manhua, illustrated by STARember, only has 100 episodes and has since been seemingly discontinued.
The three short films are available on Bilibili’s YouTube channel.
Source: X, formerly known as Twitter
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