The Lantern Keeper’s Debt

I’m Daniel, an Australian exchange student in the city of Lijiang, in Yunnan Province. Last month, my aunt Clara flew in for a visit, and I decided to take her to the ancient cliff dwellings of the Naxi people in the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain range. These weren’t ordinary caves; they were the hidden refuge of a Ming Dynasty rebel prince who defied the emperor and fled to the mountains with his followers. The government eventually hunted them down, slaughtered everyone, and burnt the settlement. No one has lived there since, but the locals avoided it, whispering about the ‘Lantern Keeper’ who had sold out the prince to the emperor for a bag of silver.

We hired a guide—a taciturn old man named Luo, who led us up a winding goat path to the cluster of stone huts built into the cliffs. The air was thin and cold, and the sunlight seemed to struggle to reach the deepest alcoves. Clara was a shutterbug, snapping photos of everything: the carved deities at the entrance, the rusted iron cauldron in the communal kitchen, the overgrown garden terraces. I took photos too, trying to capture the eerie beauty of the abandoned village. But when I reviewed them on my camera screen, I noticed something odd—cloudy, translucent spheres hovering in several shots. None were near me or Clara, but many seemed to gather around my aunt, as if she were a magnet for them. In one picture, a small orb sat in a dark corner of a crumbling house, like a child crouching. In another, three orbs hovered over a stone altar, stained with centuries-old blood. And in the largest hut—said to be the prince’s quarters—there was a massive, glowing orb, pulsating with a malevolent light.

I dismissed them as dust or lens flares, but that night in our hotel room, Clara couldn’t sleep. She said she felt watched, and that there was a cold spot in the corner. She kept hearing a faint scratching, like fingernails on stone. I tried to soothe her, but as she dozed off, I opened my laptop to upload the photos to a paranormal forum. I titled the post ‘Orbs in the Ancient Village’ and attached about fifteen images. Within an hour, a user named ‘Luo_GHOST’ replied: ‘You brought her to the sacred place. She carries the mark. The Lantern Keeper demands his debt.’ I clicked on the user profile—it was blank. I felt a chill crawl up my spine.

The next day, I went back to the village alone, hoping to find answers. The guide Luo refused to accompany me, muttering something about the price of betrayal. I climbed the path again, but the village seemed different—the shadows were longer, the silence deeper. I entered the prince’s hut, where the largest orb had appeared in my photo. The room was bare except for a stone ledge, and on it lay a rusty iron lantern. The glass was cracked, and inside was a wick that looked as if it had burned centuries ago. Suddenly, the lantern flickered to life with a cold blue flame, and I heard a voice, dry as dust, whisper in my ear: ‘You have seen what was never meant to be seen. The keeper will be repaid.’ I spun around, but no one was there. The flame died, and the room fell dark.

I stumbled out of the hut, and as I turned to leave, I saw my own reflection in a broken piece of glass. But it wasn’t me—it was an old man with a beard, wearing a tattered robe, and his eyes were hollow. He pointed a bony finger at me, and then the reflection faded. I ran down the mountain, my heart hammering, and didn’t stop until I reached the hotel.

Back in my room, Clara was sitting on the bed, pale. She held out her phone: she had taken a single picture of herself in the mirror of the hotel bathroom that morning, and in it, a dark shape was crouched behind her—a twisted, hunched figure with long arms, its face obscured. She said, ‘Daniel, I think something followed us.’ That night, we didn’t sleep. We sat in the lobby, amongst other guests, but we could still hear the scratching, now coming from the walls. The receptionist mentioned, with a nervous smile, that the building was built on the site of an old execution ground.

I knew then that we had brought back something more than photographs. I contacted the forum again, and a different user, ‘Stringer2000,’ finally gave me a warning: ‘The Lantern Keeper is the ghost of the traitor who sold the prince. He is bound to the village, but if someone carries the images of his victims, he can follow them. You must return the lantern to its place and burn the images. Do it before the next moon.’ The next moon was in two days.

We went back to the village at night, carrying a hammer and a pouch of Sichuan peppercorns—a local protection against evil spirits, as an old woman had told us. The path was harder in the dark, and the wind carried whispers that sounded like the screams of the massacred. When we reached the village, the prince’s hut was glowing with an eerie light. We entered, and the lantern was burning brightly, casting a spectral glow. I lifted it, and the flame roared, and the voice became a chorus: ‘You cannot hold me. You are already marked.’ I felt a burning in my chest, and looking down, I saw a black handprint on my shirt. Clara screamed and threw peppercorns at the lantern, and the flame sputtered. I shattered the lantern against the stone floor, and the glass scattered, but the flame didn’t die—it hovered in midair. Then it shot towards Clara, entering her through the forehead. She collapsed.

I carried her back to the hotel, and doctors found nothing wrong, but she hasn’t spoken since. She just stares into corners, her eyes wide, and occasionally she points at something only she can see. I burned all the photos, but I can’t shake the feeling that the Lantern Keeper is still following us. I can hear his footsteps in the hallway at night, and when I glance at reflections, I see that old man’s face instead of mine. The moon is full tonight, and I am writing this by the light of a dying candle. I fear that when the candle goes out, he will come to collect his debt.