Lights Out at Midnight

Short story There is an ancient village deep in the mountains surrounded by heavy fog. There is a rule passed down from generation to generation in the village: light the lamp at dusk and keep it out at midnight. As long as the bronze lamp on the lamp tower is on, the fog ghost will not enter the village; once the lamp goes out at midnight, people in the village will be taken away by the fog. For forty years, the lantern keeper Uncle Song never let the lights go out. Until the seventh day of the foggyest day of the year, he fell ill in the lantern tower, and the twelve-year-old orphan girl Ah He was forced to keep the lantern for him. During the night when he was watching the lantern, Ah He heard a woman calling Uncle Song's name in the fog, and saw a long-dead woman in the shadow reflected by the light. She followed the clues and discovered that behind the so-called fog ghost legend, there was an old sacrifice case that had been buried by the villagers for forty years. The bronze lamp that is regarded as protecting the village is not really trapped by the fog ghost, but the ghost of an innocent woman. When midnight was approaching on the seventh night, the villagers knelt down and begged Ahe to continue lighting the lamps. But she finally understood that what the village was really afraid of was not the fog, but the truth. So, she chose to let the lights go out.