Then they walked through the jungle toward Na Hai Village but the route they took [not following any established trail, to avoid meeting the enemy] went up and down the high hills and deep valleys of a mountain range. After three days and three nights each of them had consumed about one case of dried rice and they had not yet even fully crossed that one range. Finally Chia Koua had an idea which he shared with his traveling companions: they would never reach Na Hai before consuming their entire rice supply if they continued going directly through the jungle like this. He suggested that they look at the map to find a trail to follow, and everyone agreed. [Tou Lee was supposed to be the leader of the group, but increasingly deferred to Chia Koua.]

Shong Lue leads Chia Koua to the trail

Once they found the right trail they walked along it for five days and five nights [with short rest stops of two to three hours). They finally heard roosters crowing and

realized there must be a village in that vicinity, so they waited until dark to go on. After dark they walked on again, but the people of the village had just cut down and burned [the jungle to make] a rice field, which obliterated the path under a covering of ashes, and they did not know which way to go. In the middle of the wide rice field, even though the moon was shining, they had no way to figure out where the path was. They were very worried.

They divided up into three groups to find the path again. Two of the groups went around the two edges of the field and the third walked across it. If one of the groups found the path it was to inform the others by radio. Chia Koua was with the group which walked across the field. He put the radio on standby, ready for the other two groups to call any time. After the groups had gone in their different directions, Chia Koua was very worried, so he called on Shong Lue for help [thinking, "Shong Lue help us find the trail."] A moment later he saw a striped bird, unlike any he had ever seen before, fly down and land just in front of him. He asked himself, "It is very late; why did this beautiful bird come and land right here?" He tried quickly to catch the bird, but it flew a few steps away. Every time he made an attempt to catch it Chia Koua almost got the bird, and in trying to catch it he followed the bird until he reached the edge of the field, where it disappeared. He looked around and there was the path entrance [into the ,jungle] again, so he called the other groups to join his. He did not realize that it was Shang Lue who had come to lead their way [until after they got back to Long Cheng and he discussed everything with Shong Lue.]

Chased by Khua Soldiers
 
Once they got on the path again they walked for another four days and four nights until they approached a village populated by Khua people [an unidentified ethnic group with clothes similar to the Iu Mien]. They came first to a ricefield, arriving toward evening when villagers were returning home. Fearful of being seen by people walking back and forth, they looked for a place to hide, intending to wait until all the people were home before they went on. While on the way to their hiding place at the top of a small hill, they unfortunately encountered a Khua woman picking bamboo shoots. The woman ran toward the village to alert the soldiers there [who were allied with the] Vietnamese, and the soldiers came after the team with hunting dogs to chase and kill them, but [by the time the soldiers arrived] the team was well on its way. No one knows what the solders saw when they arrived at the scene, but they fired several rounds of ammunition for a while [which the team could hear from where they were]. The dogs [apparently] did not pick up the trail left by the team, either.

Food is used up

The team went off the path into the jungle and then returned to it again after a distance. They walked on for another twenty-nine days, during which time everything [they had brought along to eat], including the dried rice, was consumed. When they had nothing left and were extremely hungry, they radioed to Long Cheng, urgently requesting night drops of food, but the Hmong authorities there replied that aircraft could not approach where the team was, and they would have to figure out how to survive by themselves. This bad news made everybody weep. They realized it was too far to go back and even farther to reach their destination. They probably would all die of hunger. Everyone said to Chia Koua. "You are the student of Mother of Writing; do you have any ideas that could help?" Chia Koua told them to do what he said so that he could ask for help from Mother of Writing. Everyone assured him that they were dependent on him, and that they would do whatever he told them. Chia Koua then called upon Shong Lue to provide them with ideas and to strengthen them until they could find food to eat. After this appeal to Shong Lue they were strongly guided by the idea that they should go forward and not return. They decided to make every effort to go on and take a chance on finding a village ahead. Chia Koua told the team members that if they came to a village he promised to find food for every one of them.