After ten more days, Chia Koua's team reached Nang Hai. The four men who had led the group back [to their home] tried to enter the village first, but saw Vietnamese soldiers everywhere, so they could not go in. Their food had run out, so they radioed to Long Cheng to report that they had reached their destination, and requested supplies. The authorities therefore asked the Americans to make night drops in the forest area where the team was located. [Three drops were made in a period of over one month.]

Chia Koua talks with the souls

After the team had waited in the forest for some time [about ten days, during which they did have contact with the villagers], for some unknown reason the Vietnamese authorities in Phong Saly sent messengers to call the Vietnamese soldiers back to the city. Chia Koua's team then came out of hiding to establish itself in the village [although not to live there, as it was now too large a group, having been augmented by the fifty soldiers from the last village].

Chia Koua visited Neng Tru Her [and his wife], the Hmong couple whose children had seen the human souls, met Youa and Xeng, and asked them if there was any truth to the report that the faur men had given to the Hmong in Long Cheng. Both confirmed that the account was true and that Chia Koua could still talk to those souls if he wanted to. Chia Koua told the youngsters that whenever they saw the souls again they should call him to come and talk to them. Then he went back to the hiding place in the forest.

One day the souls returned, and Youa and Xeng went to inform Chia Koua, who came and talked to them in the children's house. They covered one corner with a blanket and when he began talking to the souls he heard the voices as if there were real people behind the blanket; but when they lifted it there was no one. Chi a Koua told himself that maybe some Chinese people [assuming Chinese because of their higher level of technology] had come to play a theatrical trick such that they could talk, but could not be seen. He did not yet believe [that the phenomenon was authentic], so he came up with the idea of taking the two youngsters out into the forest where there were no [regular] houses, assuming that the voices would no longer be heard there. Xeng then set up a blanket in the forest [stringing it across the corner of a hut in Chi a Koua's camp] and called the souls, who were still able to converse with Chia Koua, just as in the house; so Chia Koua finally became convinced that they truly were souls.

During his conversation with the souls Chia Koua asked them to locate his father and bring him back to talk to him. They were gone for seven days and succeeded in bringing the soul of Chi a Koua's father with them when they came back.

When Xeng saw them come he told Chia Koua to cover a place with a blanket and talk to them. During the conversation Chia Koua's father described how he had died and left his son behind. Everything he said was accurate but the soul could not be seen, only heard.

Some souls bring raspberries

One day Chia Koua and his soldiers went out to clear space in the forest to make an airstrip [about five kilometers from the village. They planned a full airstrip but ultimately would succeed in clearing only a helicopter pad one hundred meters square, a task which would take them about twenty days.] That night they all slept in [a camp in] the jungle. The following morning Chia Koua woke up first and ordered his soldiers to go and get water and cut firewood to cook their food. After some had already left and the others were about to go, Chia Koua went back into his tent and found a package of fresnly picked raspberries[wrapped in a large leaf]. The package, which had been left next to his pillow, was still wet with the morning dew.

Chia Koua thought the soldiers had brought him the raspberries, and asked those still present if any of them had gone out to pick raspberries. No one said "Yes," so Chia Koua ate the raspberries, thinking they must have been picked by the others whom he had sent out for water and firewood. Then when everyone had returned from their duties he asked them again if any of them had picked raspberries and brought them back to his bed that morning. All insisted that there were no raspberries growing in the surrounding area, but maybe ghosts [dangerous spirits who had originally been human beings] had brought them from somewhere else for him to eat. Chia Koua was surprised and said jokingly, "If someone did bring these raspberries to me, please bring some more, as there were not enough to share with all the soldiers."

Four hours later rain fell, and everyone went into their tents for shelter. When Chia Koua got back to his tent he found another package of raspberries wrapped in two large green leaves next to his pillow. He told everyone that someone had brought him more raspberries, and shared them with the eighteen soldiers [who included men from among the fifty soldiers who had come from the last village]. They ate the raspberries but wondered [uneasily] if some evil ghosts had really put them there. [If so, eating them could cause disease.]

Chia Koua went back into the village to ask Xeng if he had seen anyone come. Xeng told him that three young girls who had heard about the team's arrival in the area had come to pay the men a visit. "You did not see them, of course,"[he said], "so they decided to pick raspberries for you to eat to make you feel their presence. The girls have already gone back, but they did ask me to let you know." Chia Koua was then even more convinced that some friendly souls, and not evil ghosts, brought him the raspberries.