In September 1938, roughly six months into Aoyama’s stay, she and Chi-chan travel to Takao for a three-day visit that includes a lecture. Spotting a street vendor selling braised pork rice, Aoyama immediately wants some despite having just eaten. Chi-chan refuses: the vendor serves customers standing at the roadside, which would be undignified for Aoyama. She adds that Aoyama is scheduled to attend a multi-course banquet with the local Women’s Cultural Lectures Association for that evening. When Chi-chan offers to have the banquet chef replicate the dish, Aoyama declines on principle: Genuine travel means eating authentic street food, not restaurant imitations.

At the banquet, an association member asks what role women and writers ought to play in the war. Aoyama responds with careful platitudes, privately feeling like a hypocrite.

Walking back to the hotel, Aoyama marvels at Chi-chan’s social acuity and ability to handle any situation without visible effort. She also recalls a moment from the train: Chi-chan identified a couple as French by overhearing a few words they exchanged, revealing a quiet familiarity with the language that extends to expressions of affection.

When Chi-chan asks about the purpose of Aoyama’s Taiwan writings, Aoyama explains she wants to preserve a record of Island culture before imperial assimilation erases it, as it already has done in Hokkaidō and Okinawa. Chi-chan replies quietly that Taiwan has already changed, then gestures to her own chōsan. Chi-chan believes the question Aoyama was asked at the banquet was a veiled attack on Chi-chan’s Islander dress. Though Aoyama tries to get Chi-chan to dismiss the woman’s comment, Chi-chan observes that people only recognize the cruelty of cultural erasure when they are its victims.

Despite Chi-chan’s concerns about an approaching typhoon and their return schedule, Aoyama insists on visiting the Katansui River Iron Bridge the next morning. Chi-chan relents. On the train, Aoyama presents Chi-chan with a large bag of assorted desserts as a gift. Chi-chan’s formal composure gives way to warmth. They cross the bridge, and the sweeping view moves Aoyama to declare Taiwan beautiful; Chi-chan quietly agrees. Chi-chan promises bah-sò-pn̄g and lóo-bah-pn̄g on their return.

Back in Taichū, Chi-chan explains the distinction between lóo-bah (pork belly braised in chunks) and bah-sò (minced pork, often made using cheap pork skin in poorer households). She shares a childhood memory: bah-sò was considered a rare treat, and she once dreamed of eating as much bah-sò as she wanted. Aoyama declares that she will fulfill Chi-chan’s dream that day and proposes beer and wine to go with the bah-sò. Chi-chan, amused, concedes defeat. When Aoyama asks her to drop the formal “keigo” address, Chi-chan agrees, saying that it would be nice to do so. As the typhoon moves toward Taichū, Aoyama invites Chi-chan to stay the night at her cottage; Chi-chan refuses and teases that they could always settle it with dice.

In October 1938, Aoyama and Chi-chan visit Tainan. The chapter opens midway through a campus tour of the Tainan County First High School for Girls, led by F-sensei. She notes that the nearby Second Girls’ School, which serves mostly Islander students, is roughly half the size of the First High School.

Aoyama asks F-sensei if the Mainlander students use the slur “lí-ya” against the Islander students. F-sensei reassures her of their students’ manners, but notes the coincidence of a recent incident between two fourth-year students, Ōzawa Reiko, a Mainlander, and Tân Tshiok-bi, an Islander, involving the same slur. She dismisses it as a resolved misunderstanding, and later presents the two students as Aoyama and Chi-chan’s student hosts.

The narrative flashes backs to Aoyama and Chi-chan’s arrival in Tainan. At the Tainan Railway Hotel, a receptionist calls Chi-chan “lí-ya” and claims they have no vacancies. Chi-chan calmly presents credentials citing Aoyama’s Government-General sponsorship, and the man’s hostility reverses at once. In their room, Chi-chan explains that “lí-ya” began as a coarse way of addressing Islanders and became a derogatory slur. She acknowledges that wearing her traditional chōsan likely invited the man’s prejudice.

Back at the school, Ōzawa is broad-shouldered and candid; Tân, who is slight and boyish, is quiet beside her. Despite the reported conflict, Ōzawa consistently shields Tân from the sun and brushes petals from her shoulder. During the dormitory tour, Tân hints at a rumor that a lavatory near Building One harbors a place where students vanish.

After Aoyama’s lecture, she and Chi-chan eat their fill of street food at the West Market and drink tang-kue-tê (cold winter melon tea sweetened with boiled-down gourd), which Aoyama loves instantly. Walking back, Aoyama tells Chi-chan she finds both Islander and Mainlander food and dress equally beautiful. Chi-chan, visibly moved, raises her purse to cover her face.

That night, sleeping in the same dormitory room, Aoyama and Chi-chan decide to investigate the lavatory. Inside, they hear a voice address someone else as “lí-ya” and ask why she had not come sooner. Aoyama and Chi-chan investigate, but find the room empty, save for a photograph of Tân in androgynous, Western-style attire. F-sensei discovers them, dismisses the issue, and sends them back to bed. Aoyama theorizes the voice was Ōzawa’s, but cannot account for her disappearance from the lavatory. Chi-chan stays awake through the night working through the problem.

Just before dawn, Chi-chan wakes Aoyama and replaces the photograph on the sink. They hide on the staircase and wait. A slight figure enters the lavatory; when they check moments later, the room is empty and the photograph is gone. Chi-chan explains her deductions: She had tracked sounds in Ōzawa’s adjacent room all night, determining that Ōzawa never left, ruling her out as the lavatory figure. The person was Tân, small enough to conceal herself behind an open stall door. She points to a further clue: a flower originally on Tân’s collar had later appeared behind Ōzawa’s ear, suggesting that between the two, Tân is the bolder one, and that the slur “lí-ya” has been reclaimed by Tân as an endearment. This means that the original incident that got them into trouble with F-sensei may have been a complete misunderstanding. Aoyama, astonished, calls Chi-chan the “Great Detective.”

On the return train, Chi-chan peels water caltrops for Aoyama, reminding them of their first meeting. She observes that this is precisely why Aoyama needs her. Aoyama offers a peeled caltrop back, and the quiet exchange brings to mind the winter melon tea, whose sweetness, she realizes, only now fully registers.