Shong Lue had prepared a new mountain rice field [by clearing the jungle in the usual Hmong fashion], and during the 4th month, after the rice field [i.e. the jungle] had been cut and burned, he and his wife went to clean off the unburned residue [as typical Hmong farmers must do when cultivating temporary slash-and-burn (swidden) mountain rice fields, not the more permanent paddy fields of more level areas]. They also needed to build a small shelter for [protection against the elements during the months when they would be working in the field and guarding it from birds and animals while] growing the rice. 

On the morning of the third day of going out to the field in this fashion, Shong Lue told his wife that he would leave early to hunt squirrels [around the field]. She was to prepare breakfast and bring it along when it was ready. Then he got ready and left. So Pang Xiong prepared food and started out along the jungle path after her husband. [Fields were anywhere from one half hour's walk to two or more hours from the village.] Half way to the rice field, however, she was knocked down by a whirlwind and became unconscious, lying there for almost half a day. She woke up a little afternoon, and remembering her responsibility, raised the undamaged food basket to her back and continued on her way.  When she arrived at the field, Shong Lue was very upset. "How come you are so late?" he complained. "It's already afternoon! What's the point of coming at all at this late hour?" But she said, "Please hold off your scolding until I tell happened, and then you can scold me all you want. When she told him what happened, and then you can scold me all you want to.  When she told him what happened, Shong Lue was afraid, and decided they should go home and consult a shaman to find out what the whirlwind was, and come back to finish the work another day. Then they returned home.

Shong Lue hears the voice of God

So at dawn the next morning Shong Lue woke up early and prepared for a ceremony to select the powerful shaman who could best determine what Pang Xiong had encountered the day before. As he sat down to perform the ceremony he suddenly heard a loud voice speaking to him from the air:

You do not need a shaman. I am sending your two brothers to come to help you, that's all. You mustn't be afraid. Beginning today, you must not sleep with your wife, and she must not go outside of the house to work in the fields until your two brothers are born. You must prepare a set of opium-smoking equipment made of kulu bamboo so we can communicate. Also build a round house [as a place to worship], and build a monument [beside it]. Find candles and flowers [to put inside the round place of worship] as offerings. Make black ink from the indigo plant, and paper from bamboo, and have them ready. When that is done, people will come and bring you the Pahawh

Shong Lue looked around quickly as he heard the voice, but saw nobody anywhere. He remembered an old saying that insanity begins this way, and became very fearful, wondering what it all meant. Suddenly he was slapped three times on the cheek, hard enough for him to see red stars flying around. Again he heard the voice speaking to him from the air:

I am God, your Father, who sent you to be born on earth as a human being. You are not crazy, but you must do what I tell you to do.

Shong Lue thought to himself, "I am so poor; if this is all true how can I ever do all of these things? I have no opium; my farming season is coming. If that time is lost, what will I feed my family for the year to come?"  Once more he heard the voice speaking to him from the air:
 
Don’t worry about such matters.  I will send three kings to come and help you to build the field shelter, plant the seed rice and weed the fields.  Three days from now you just carry enough seed rice to the field and come back home.  As for the opium, you only need to buy a little bit and it will last you forever.

Shong Lue obeys the instructions

So Shong Lue Yang decided to try and see if all this was true. He counted up to the third day, and when he woke up early in the morning he carried a basket full of seed rice to the field. There he found a small shelter, made of earth, which had already been built up in the rice field. Little yellow ants were still crawling slowly down from it. He remembered what he had heard, so he left the basket of seed rice in the small earth shelter, and returned home. 

The next morning Shong Lue carried another basket of seed rice to the field, and found that flocks of pulika birds [brown, somewhat smaller than a crow, which like to eat rice and corn from the fields] were carrying away the grains of seed rice which he had left the day before, and were flying all over the field. So he left the second basket of seed rice in the small earth shelter and returned home.  Early the third morning Shong Lue carried still a third basket of seed rice to the field. Then he prepared kulu bamboo equipment for smoking opium, found wood and built up a round house and a monument, prepared candles and flowers, and began to worship as he was told.

The Young Men Appear

Beginning on the night of the 15th day of the 5th month, in the year 1959, Shong Lue began to smoke opium for the first time, using the equipment he had made. He smoked until midnight; then, after his wife and children were all asleep, suddenly two young men appeared in the bedroom doorway. [The bedroom of such a house was just large enough for a sleeping platform for the parents and small children. The husband slept nearest the open doorway.] Shong Lue called out a greeting: "Are you here, the two of you?" "Yes, we are here to teach you the Pahawh Hmong and the Pahawh Khmu'," they replied. Shong Lue got up and brought in two low seats, and put them down next to his bed for the men to sit on. Soon they told him to get a pen and the paper he had made, so they could teach him. He got his bowl of indigo ink and his pack of bamboo paper, but didn't have a pen, so he asked what he should do.  They told him to sharpen a piece of bamboo into a pen. Then they took it, and with the ink they wrote the Source Version of the Pahawh on the bamboo paper to teach him.

People in Black Uniforms Worship the Three

They taught him until just a short time after midnight,  when through the bedroom doorway came a group of black uniforms [of officials], wearing medals made of gold.  They brought candles and flowers and knelt down, bowing to the three who were sitting there. "We are very happy to have you as the saviors of the people. We bring candles, flowers and silver coins as offerings, to worship you."  They only stayed for a short while, but before leaving they said to Shong Lue, "We couldn't bring with us all of the money we have for you, so please come and get it."  They made an appointment, and told Shong Lue where he should go; they told him to build a small thatch shelter there in which to wait for them, and they would come and show him where the money was; then they left. Soon after that the two young men also left, disappearing through the bedroom doorway, and Shong Lue fell asleep. 

The next day he went and waited, as he had been told, until those same people from the night before came to him, still dressed in black, with their medals of gold. They took him to a place where they pointed down to the ground and said to him, "Here is where the money is. Dig down and find it." Then they left.  Shong Lue dug down and found a jar of silver bars buried by some body a long time before. Shong Lue realized that those people dressed in black had come from heaven. So he took the silver bars to pay for all his expenses.

Shong Lue learns the Pahawh

From then on the two young men came to teach Shong Lue the Pahawh every night, always appearing after his wife and children had gone to sleep. Each night he lit his small round opium lamp and waited for the two young men to appear at the bedroom doorway, where they also disappeared again each night after the session was over. They kept this up until one night when Shong Lue decided to pay special attention to just where the men came from, and how they came. After he lit his lamp, just before the two young men appeared at the door, he felt something walking across his feet from the other side of the bed, where his wife slept. So then Shong Lue Yang knew for sure that the strong whirlwind which had struck his wife on her way to the field that day was really the two young men [with whom she became pregnant at that time]. The men continued teaching Shong Lue the Pahawh until the beginning of the 6th month, when he was allowed to go back and inspect his rice field. He found that the seed rice had been planted and that the rice was coming up evenly allover the field. Then he knew for certain that the pulika birds had been there especially to plant his crop for him. So he continued learning the Pahawh until the beginning of the 7th month, and again was allowed to go back and see how the rice field was doing. He found no weeds interfering with the rice plants at all. As he took a good look around he noticed that the weeds had been cut by mice, and knew for certain that the ants, the pulika birds and the mice were the three kings of which he had been told; so he returned home happy.

Pang Xiong Gives Birth to Twin Boys

Shong Lue continued studying the Pahawh until the 9th month, the 15th day in the year 1959, when his wife gave birth to twin boys. [The Hmong authors cannot account for the five-month pregnancy.] The second morning after the twins were born, Shong Lue and his wife prepared a small traditional Hmong party to name their sons, and invited the wife's parents. The day when these in-laws arrived was a stormy one, with heavy rain and wind, so that it was very difficult for anyone to get about, but the in-laws were nevertheless able to make it through the bad weather.

When they arrived at Shong Lue's house, and even before they had dried off, the mother-in-law walked over and sat down on the heavy horizontal bar to which the pestle for husking rice is attached. She began to scold the family angrily: "You two are so lazy that you haven't been going to work in the fields all this time but have just loafed at home. And on top of that, now you have twins! Don't you ever think about how you are going to feed your family?"

As she continued to berate Shong Lue and Pang, the faces of the twin boys turned blue. Shong Lue became very concerned and quickly picked up his bamboo pen, and with the indigo ink he wrote down a few of the Pahawh letters which the twins had taught him. He handed the paper to his father-in-law [since a Hmong son-in-law is not supposed to deal directly with his mother-in-law] and said, "Please show this to mother and see if she can read it; otherwise she should stop scolding." [i.e., if the illiterate son-in-law can write, something miraculous is happening.] The father-in-law looked at it and realized it was writing. He showed it to the mother-in-law, and she realized also that it was writing. So then she stopped scolding, and the twins' faces slowly returned to normal.  Early the next morning they had their celebration and named the twins. The older one was named Cha Yang and the younger Xa Yang. After the traditional celebration was over the in-laws returned home.

A Message from Xa Yang

But the twins who had been born as sons of Shong Lue Yang and Pang Xiong did not live. First the older Cha Yang died, only seven days old. Xa Yang then lived for seven days more. Shong Lue was heartbroken, but he found a written message with a baby's footprint on it [like an official stamp], written to him by Xa Yang [the younger twin baby]. It said,

It has been seven months and seven days since we came to stay with you. [Note difference from the five-month implied above]. We came this time only to find and help you. When the mother-in-law came and scolded us, my older brother Cha suggested that we should leave and hide because we are creating problems for you.  So that's why he left me alone with you for a while.  Our duty was only to bring you the Pahawh, as God had authorized us to come down and do, so you could teach it to the Hmong and to the Khmu'. You must understand, and try not to miss us any more. This message is to let you know that the Pahawh for the Hmong and for the Khmu' is only being made available for a time now. The group that accepts the Pahawh will be blessed from now on, but if either group does not accept it, that people will remain downtrodden and poor, the servant to other nations for the next nine generations. After that the Pahawh will be brought back again.  You must also know that God has ruled that from now on the time for a generation will be eighty-five years. And God has ruled that since the Hmong writing system has been destroyed by other nations in the past, the nations who keep destroying it and destroying the Hmong people will themselves be destroyed in return.  But the nations that help to save the Pahawh Hmong and Pahawh Khmu’ will be blessed by God.  From today on you will be able to remember all of the authority God formerly gave you, when he sent you to earth to be born as a human being, with the two of us to follow and bring you the Pahawh.  God gave you that power so that you could save people.  You must now go on to do what God as already given you the authority and the power to do.

Shong Lue remembers his past.

When Shong Lue had finished reading the message which Xa Yang had left for him, it all came back. He remembered that God had chosen the three of them to come down to earth to teach the Pahawh to the Hmong and Khmu' peoples. And so from that day on Shong Lue Yang was totally awakened, knowing everything in the universe from the beginning to the end.  He also remembered that he had been born in a Hmong family before, that he had had a family and that his name had been Shong Lue. He remembered his [earlier] three sons and two daughters, and how he became a wild boar living in the thick jungle for quite a while, and how he ate corn from fields belonging to Hmong people, and was killed by a Hmong which helped to remove his form as a boar. He went back to where he had lived in the earlier life to check with the Hmong family which owned the corn field, and took them to visit the place where he had dug up the tubers and found the jar of silver. He told them to dig down and find the jar of silver, so they believed who he had been before. He also found his children [from his earlier life], and they corroborated his story, confirming that their father was Shong Lue. After that he told people to call him by the name of Shong Lue, but did not tell anyone about this history except Chia Koua Vang, so that it could be recorded.