1
They say this is the second-deepest lake in the country, reaching 155 meters at its deepest point. But that was unbeknownst to me that evening as my girlfriend and I climbed down the steep cliffs to reach the water’s edge. The setting sun was at its most glorious, but over the mountains on the far side of the lake, ominous clouds were already gathering in the western sky. Minutes from now, they would overtake the sun and dim its golden rays.
This is something you wouldn’t know unless you had experienced it yourself: when a body of water the size of a medium lake is more than a hundred meters deep, and the water is pristine clear, it creates in the mortal mind an eerie atmosphere of supernatural otherworldliness. Your whole body goes into alert mode; all senses are supercharged. A sense of uneasiness hangs over you.
That was the mental state I was in when we reached the bottom of the cliffs and looked at the lake up close for the first time. All was eerily quiet. The sky above felt unusually high, as if we had just entered a confined, self-contained space. There was no beach as one might expect beside a lake—just rough, irregularly shaped pebbles and rocks. And above all, there was something unnerving about the water. Something menacing. You knew it must have to do with the sheer depth. But that bare fact alone could not explain—or dispel—the overwhelming sense of uneasiness one felt while standing on that pebbly shore. It reminded me of the cover of the Dover edition of Ludwig van Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas.
As I stepped onto a rock closest to the water, I heard a faint cry—it was my girlfriend. I turned. She was still at the base of the cliffs where we had descended.
“I need to pee,” I heard her say, her voice faint but distinct. “I want you to take a picture of me.”
As she squatted down, I rolled my phone camera and started recording—a woman squatting in the setting sun, on pebbly ground, against a backdrop of cliffs of brown and white rock. As she straightened up, I turned back to the lake—the water, the sky, the golden rays still beaming through just above the gathering clouds. There was something about the scene that was ineffable. I gazed at it with a disturbing sense of uneasiness and weariness I could not name. If it were a painting, or a memory, the word would be: haunting.
2
Behind the cliffs we had just descended lay a field of overgrown weeds and shrubs. Farther back rose groves of eucalyptus—tall, massive, eerily silent. Their trunks were gnarled, bark peeling; the meandering dirt paths beneath them had been swallowed by grass.
Out of nowhere in that thicket, we stumbled upon ghostly, half-finished mansions in decay—doors chained, windows shattered, balconies choked by vines, courtyards and parking lots reclaimed by saplings. We quickened our pace, yet a slow melancholy seeped in; abandonment does that to a soul.
Amid the hush, I heard a voice—a whisper. Somewhere behind the barred doors of what had once been a ballroom, a party that had never taken place seemed carried on: painted faces, shadows in tow, a band that never arrived, and their faint strains of music drifting in the air.
3
There was a lone taxi by the roadside when we reached the main road.
“Could you please not smoke?” I said as we stepped inside the car.
It was only one kilo to the row of restaurants.
“They’re the best,” the cabbie said, pointing at one of them.
The creatures offered on the menu were all listed as endangered, but we ordered them nonetheless. Through the restaurant’s open window, I could still see the cabbie who had brought us here, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
“Try the local light beer,” I told my companion. “It’s actually good.”
I slipped into the kitchen to watch the famous fish being portioned. Bent over a utility sink was a boy of maybe nineteen, knife flashing.
“Is that my fish?” I asked.
“It is,” answered a man beside him, exhaling smoke that curled around the fluorescent lights.
The fish was brought to the table—fine, petal-like slices arranged in an angular shape that made me think of some mysterious flower from the deep sea. Not even the sushi masters of Tokyo could have prepared it more exquisitely.
Promptly came the pot master, who began preparing the stone pot for the fish dish. As he flared up the stoneware with a ball of flame, I turned my head toward the window.
It was completely dark outside now. I thought I saw the silhouettes of mountains, and the twinkling of fishing lights hovering over the dark water. But I couldn’t forget the haunting image of the abandoned resort-hotel complex—those forlorn, broken windows, those dark hallways that had never echoed with the footsteps of ghosts or humans.
4
The developers had harboured grand plans: a resort town that would dominate the region—jet-skis on the lake, scuba tours beneath it, a Hilton set among the eucalyptus, hillside restaurants, and luxury villas halfway up the slopes for vacationing families from Sichuan and big-city professionals chasing a summer home.
A decade later, the villas still sat vacant—a gated ghost community watched by retired soldiers, its CCTV lenses blinking at no one, its entertainment halls hollow, its “For Rent” banners sun-bleached to near white.
The view, however, remained stunning. From the upstairs bedroom, three picture windows opened onto a near-panorama of lake and mountains.
“This is the sort of place to make love,” she murmured.
That night I lay in the dark, staring at the imaginary terracotta tiles on the roof, and the twinkling stars above them. The dead silence of those remote mountains had a loud quality my ears—and soul—were unaccustomed to. I felt weightless, my soul out of my body, as if I were in outer space, drifting among the stars.
Twilight below, I thought, whispers in silence—something new under the sun. I felt joy, and hope.
Yego’s Chronicles 