Lakeside Ghost Story 14

It was dusk. The setting sun hung over the ridge of the green mountains, casting rippling, jagged glints across the waves. Golden Lake was breathtaking at sunset. Its waters seemed truly forged from molten gold, radiating a warmth that soothed the eye, utterly unlike the dark, uncanny place it would become fifty years later.

Zhuo Yu sat by the lake, still holding Seven-Day Tales in his hands.

"Asha, my grandfather once told me that I had to watch over Golden Lake. It was his only wish before he died." Zhuo Yu stretched and asked in puzzlement, "But he was always an old man who hated trouble. Why did he care so much about this place?"

Asha came to his side, scooped him up with practiced ease, and carried him back to the house over his shoulder. "Everyone... has the person... or thing... that matters most?"

"Put me down!"

"It's getting dark. Staying outside... will make you sick." Asha's words were a little slurred, and he spoke haltingly.

Zhuo Yu was set on the sofa. He snapped the book shut. "When I was little, Grandpa was always telling me stories from Seven-Day Tales, and stories about our ancestors' adventures during the gold rush. How come none of them ever found the Fountain of Youth?"

"It's only a story." Asha set the cooked dinner on the table, then picked Zhuo Yu up and placed him at the dining table, despite Zhuo Yu's vigorous protests.

"Stop carrying me around at the drop of a hat. It's like you think I'm disabled."

Zhuo Yu did not know that his words would prove prophetic.

Three days later, a group of officials claiming to be from the development bureau suddenly arrived in Springwater Town. They said they had taken a liking to Golden Lake and wanted to buy the land, turn it into a scenic attraction, and use it to stimulate the local economy.

Marcus, the town's newly appointed mayor, thought it was a fine opportunity. He kept coming up the mountain to persuade Zhuo Yu to sell Golden Lake. Zhuo Yu would make money, Springwater Town would have a more prosperous future, and he never stopped trying to convince Zhuo Yu that it was a win-win arrangement.

But Zhuo Yu did not see it that way.

First, Springwater Town was far too remote. Few tourists would make a special trip to see an ordinary lake, and Golden Lake's scenery was hardly the most spectacular sight on earth. It was simply an obscure, quiet, warm lake.

Zhuo Yu therefore suspected a trick. Perhaps they intended to use the land for some undisclosed purpose and were using a tourist development as a cover.

Second, it was ancestral property left to him by his grandfather. By sentiment and by right, he was entitled to decide what happened to it. More importantly, this was his and Asha's home, and he did not want to leave Golden Lake.

So, after Zhuo Yu had refused the mayor time and again, the man who had seemed so kindly finally bared his fangs.

On the day Asha stayed after school to film the archives, the mayor gathered several households together. Armed with weapons, they broke into the lakeside cabin, bound Zhuo Yu hand and foot with electrical tape, and forced him to sign.

The mayor gave him a sneer of contemptuous pity, a declaration of transfer in hand. "You wouldn't sell the land when we asked. Now you don't even get the money, you stupid outsider. If you ever come back here, you'll only be a tourist."

But Zhuo Yu would not be cowed. He might not look as tough as these burly men, but his spirit would sooner break than bend.

Even after nearly an hour of brutal beating, he refused to yield or write his name on the declaration of transfer.

The mayor was finally getting anxious. He knew that the intellectually disabled, deformed freak could drive them off in no time. He had deliberately picked a day when the freak was gone to seize Golden Lake, but night had fallen, and he had no idea how long his son could hold that freak back.

At Springwater High School, Asha was facing no small trouble of his own.

Little Marcus, Marcus II, stopped him at the school exit. He looked remarkably like his father, right down to the condescendingly arched brow and mocking expression.

"Well, well. I was wondering why this big idiot always wears a mask to school. Turns out he's a monster!"

Little Marcus's lackeys immediately erupted in rowdy laughter.

Asha backed away two steps, clutching his hockey mask tightly. He had known that nothing good would come of today's filming.

"Why aren't you talking?" Little Marcus drawled theatrically. "Didn't your fag father teach you how? Then again, he's Asian. You two are both freaks. Go back to wherever you came from!"

Asha, who had not wanted to argue with them moments before, flared with anger. He shoved the swaggering Little Marcus aside and tried to leave the schoolyard delinquents behind.

But Asha was simply too large and too strong. Little Marcus went straight down, his forehead striking the tiled ground. Blood immediately began to pour from the wound.

The already ugly mood escalated.

Little Marcus had never suffered such an indignity in his life. Before this, moving with his father from the big city to this godforsaken little town had already been the greatest hardship he had ever known. He had not expected to run into a menace like Asha today as well.

Asha ignored him and turned to leave, but Little Marcus remembered his father's instructions. He shouted, "Stop him!"

Dealing with those little punks was as easy for Asha as an adult crushing chicks in his hand. One shove apiece, and they all went down. The watching students scattered at once, afraid of getting caught up with someone who looked like a monster.

Asha ignored the unreasonable teenagers. He nearly missed the last bus.

Little Marcus climbed to his feet, truly enraged now. "After him! Catch him!"

He drove his convertible while his underlings rode motorcycles, following close behind the school bus. They planned to teach Asha a lesson when he got off. Meanwhile, Old Marcus had finally made up his mind.

They broke Zhuo Yu's legs.

Blood loss and searing pain blurred Zhuo Yu's consciousness. He only felt someone write something on the declaration of transfer, then seize his hand, press it into an ink pad, and leave his fingerprint on the document.

Having done all this, the mayor had no wish to remain in the cabin. He held the declaration as though it were a peerless treasure, and even his voice trembled.

"Mr. De Leon! We have finally carried out your will! We found the Fountain of Youth!" The mayor exulted, celebrating this day with the others amid the blood Zhuo Yu had shed.

Zhuo Yu wanted to stop them, but the human body had its limits. In pain and torment, he lost consciousness.

Thus, when Asha returned home, all he saw was wreckage strewn across the floor and Zhuo Yu lying in a pool of blood, bone fragments piercing through his legs.

The person who mattered most to him...

Asha fell to his knees and let out a grief-stricken roar.

At the same time, Little Marcus arrived outside the cabin. At a glance, he saw the awful scene inside, but he was not surprised in the least. He knew his father's methods.

Serves them right, he thought. Those two freaks had been too stupid to appreciate a favor. If they had submitted to authority sooner, they would not have ended up like this.

And that deformed piece of trash, Asha, had dared to hurt him!

It was intolerable!

Little Marcus let out a long, delighted laugh, and that laugh was what finally drove Asha over the edge.

He was like a tiger charging into a flock of sheep. With only his hands, he could easily break their ribs; grip their throats, and in no time at all, he could suffocate them to death.

Asha was not as gentle as he appeared. Quite the opposite: from childhood, he had possessed a destructive urge unlike that of ordinary people. Though he could not remember the days before Zhuo Yu took him in, he knew they could not have resembled the life of a normal child.

Compared with everyday conversation, going to school, and navigating the complicated relationships that made his head hurt, he was better at killing.

He had been born knowing the most vulnerable places on a human body, where to strike to make someone stop breathing quickly, and how to inflict the most agonizing torment on an enemy. Had Zhuo Yu not brought him home, tales of a masked serial killer would surely have spread around Golden Lake.

But Zhuo Yu had taught him what it meant to be human. Everything Zhuo Yu had done for him was meant to let him enjoy life like an ordinary person. He had kept Zhuo Yu's teachings firmly in mind.

He could not kill people. Nor did he want to bring trouble down on Zhuo Yu.

Watching Little Marcus, who was about to die from suffocation, Asha finally let go.

"Go! Leave here!"

With the greatest restraint of his life, Asha gritted his teeth and spared the teenagers. In return, a gunshot rang out.

Little Marcus's eyes were bloodshot as he pulled out his gun and fired wildly. One shot, two... all the way to six.

Every bullet struck Asha's body hard. Some tore through his lungs, some pierced his side, and the worst shot struck Asha directly in the spine.

Little Marcus emptied the gun, but Asha was not dead. His vitality was as monstrously tenacious as the rest of him.

At that moment, Little Marcus had to admit that perhaps this guy was truly too strong, so strong that it had become unnatural. An unprecedented panic swept over him. He feared both retaliation and the law.

He fumbled out the knife at his waist and plunged it viciously into Asha's heart. Gushing blood stained his hands red. Trembling violently, he still barked, "What are you standing around for? Dump his body in the lake! Throw him far out!"

The teenagers had committed a crime, and in their extreme panic, they could only look to Little Marcus for direction. Grimacing as they dragged themselves up from the ground, they worked together to load Asha into the car and drove toward Golden Lake.

Zhuo Yu, awakened by the sounds of fighting, also saw Asha's mask left on the ground.

And so the two of them missed their final moment of wakefulness together.

No one knew how Zhuo Yu, dragging his broken legs, crawled from the cabin to the far shore of the lake by following the trail of blood and tire tracks.

Perhaps fate had not yet abandoned them. Asha was too heavy for the teenagers to throw him very far, so the gentle waves carried him back to shore. He rose and fell with them, as though Golden Lake itself mourned their suffering and could not bear it, reaching out to stroke this pitiable child.

Zhuo Yu used every last ounce of strength to pull Asha from the water. Thank heaven, Asha still had a breath left in him.

The two lay there by the lake. Asha was unconscious, while Zhuo Yu quietly gazed at the sky.

He had been wrong. So very wrong. From beginning to end, he had been an outsider to Springwater Town. Perhaps the mayor had been right: perhaps he should have come here as a tourist, drawn now and then by Golden Lake's beauty, writing stories about it...

Would none of this have happened, then?

He had even dragged Asha into it. Because of his own stubbornness, Asha might die too.

Zhuo Yu thought for a long time beneath the hazy hunter's moon, but even this quiet was about to be cruelly shattered.

When Mayor Old Marcus learned that his son had gotten into trouble, he did not scold him. Instead, he praised his son for acting decisively and bringing honor to the church. Of course, he would not leave his son to face the consequences. He would take care of the aftermath for these two.

So the mayor, who had left Golden Lake only a short while ago, returned with his men. This time, they had not come to seize the deed, but to destroy the evidence.

Zhuo Yu, drained of all strength, heard the sound of car engines. Even turning his head was difficult. All he could see were Marcus's finely made boots, followed by the black muzzle of a gun.

Things unfolded as they do in every tragic story.

One shot. Death.

A great rush of blood flowed into the lake. The scene, so like one from thousands of years ago, finally awakened the ancient power within this land: Golden Lake was enraged.

Amid a deafening roar, Asha opened his eyes.

And so was born the "killer spirit" that would haunt Golden Lake for half a century.