Yingcai wanted to ask more questions, but they came across Principle Yu, standing by the local cemetery. Just as they were going to ask what he was doing there, they heard a cackling coming from inside the cemetery. A female voice, like a cry but not quite, like a laugh but not quite that either. Although it sounded close by, it proved elusive when they searched for it. It left them with the terrifying feeling that it was a ghost.
Yingcai, had always mocked the superstitious, found himself wrapping his arms around Sun Sihai. Sun Sihai also lost his cool, and wrapped his arms around Principal Yu. They looked like children playing the schoolyard game of defending each other from attacking "eagles" .
Principal Yu stood at the head of the little group and let out a roar in the direction of the dark cemetery. "We are all educated people, you can't frighten us!"
A person emerged from the darkness. The hidden cackle had come from none other than Biqiu's mother—the eldest daughter of the old village head.
Principal Yu and Sun Sihai couldn't be angry, as they knew she'd been born a sweet potato. They asked her why she was hiding out here so late at night.
Biqiu's mother giggled and said that she was missing her father and had decided to recite him a text that she had just learnt by heart. She showed them her first grade textbook proudly.
Principal Yu did not know whether to laugh or cry. He said they had to leave, and gestured for her to go first. Biqiu's mother patted Sun Sihai on the shoulder as she passed, "I know who you are, you're Sun Sihai, my father's favourite."
When she was gone, Principal Yu joked to Sun Sihai that he mustn't think sweet potatoes were stupid; she was a perceptive woman.
They chatted all the way back to Deng Youmi's place. Principal Yu called out a greeting and Cheng Ju came to the door. Deng Youmi was not home yet. He'd had to walk over ten kilometres to see all the children back to their homes, some lived so far from the school. The teachers waited inside for him. Eventually they heard him shouting at the door for Cheng Ju to let him in. When he joined them, he seemed quite shaken—Deng Youmi had run into a pack of wolves.
After Deng Youmi had seen the last child home, he started back. He had just passed a small ridge when he met the pack head on. He was so scared that he didn't know what to do, so just stood stock still in the middle of the road. The wolves behaved oddly, as though they were in a rush. They brushed past him one after the other without even pausing to sniff him. One young wolf, trapped between two larger ones, suddenly pushed its way free between Deng Youmi's legs.
When Deng Youmi had told Yingcai about how Cheng Ju's beautiful eyes had been scarred by a wolf's lick, he had backed down under Yingcai's questioning, and allowed that her attackers might have been wild dogs. Now, Yingcai told everyone very earnestly that the food chain on a mountain as high as Jieling was such that it was unlikely to support a large pack. The animals that Deng Youmi had encountered were most likely wild dogs, never trained by humans. Again, Deng Youmi conceded, saying that mountain folk always exaggerate a little when they speak of mountain affairs.
In response, Sun Sihai sarcastically remarked that they ought to revise the school curriculum to include the new proverb, "a wolf in dog's clothing" —or should that be a dog in wolf's clothing?
Everyone laughed. Cheng Ju wiped the tears from her eyes. "It's just like the old saying: even the poor enjoy good fortune occasionally."
They all decided to go and see the old village head's youngest daughter, Biqiu's aunt, who lived next door to Deng Youmi, and tell her about her sister. She said that today was the anniversary of her father's death, so her sister must have gone to the cemetery to pay her respects. It was just like her to have moments of lucidity during the course of a far-from-normal day.
