As I scanned the surroundings, trying to unravel the mystery, a sharp scream suddenly erupted from behind me. It was Qin Bing'er. "Blood… blood…" Startled, I spun around, only to see Qin Bing'er’s slender finger pointing accusingly at the door panel. Focusing my sight, I discovered a horrifying, sooty handprint emblazoned on the wood. (Since my eyes could only distinguish shades of black and white, I vaguely perceived the print as dark.) The handprint was large, the fingers splayed wide, the knuckles smudged and broken.

I froze, my gaze locked onto the black handprint on the door panel. My body remained still, but my mind exploded into chaos.

Man Niao Niao had also spotted the enormous handprint. Clutching the Xuan Yi Du You Pearl, he moved closer to examine it for a long moment. His voice trembled as he muttered, "Damn it, how in the hell did a blood handprint appear here?" Hearing Man Niao Niao mention a blood handprint confirmed my suspicion—the dark mark I saw must indeed be formed of fresh blood, for a pungent, metallic scent of gore suddenly flooded my nostrils.

After a long, dazed silence, I managed to ask Man Niao Niao, my voice shaking, "When… when you opened the door, was there a blood handprint here?"

"No," Man Niao Niao replied with certainty. "When I pushed the door, these two panels were perfectly clean. I even found it strange at the time—could someone actually live here? I even scrutinized the panels carefully a couple of times; I didn't see any damn blood handprint at all. And look, this blood seems quite fresh, and it’s running down the panel. This handprint must have appeared just when we heard that strange noise."

Man Niao Niao’s reasoning held water. If that was the case, the handprint had indeed appeared very recently.

"Then… who closed this door?"

Man Niao Niao stiffened, his eyes widening. "You ask me? Who do I ask? — Bing'er, did you close it?"

Qin Bing'er shook her head. "After I came in, I was completely engrossed in looking at that strange wine jar. I never even thought about closing the door, and besides, why would I need to close these two panels?"

If that was the case, excluding any unknown factors, Hua'er, the dog, was the most likely suspect for closing the door. But Hua'er was just a dog; how would it conceive of actively closing a door? Moreover, the main hall wasn't large, and we weren't far from the entrance. Why didn't we hear the sound of the door closing? Both Man Niao Niao’s push and my later pull had inevitably produced a creak, indicating the door's closing was truly peculiar.

Thinking this, I felt an urgent need to leave the main hall. I quickly urged Qin Bing'er and Man Niao Niao to bolt toward the relatively safer side room, despite its dilapidated state and appalling filth.

The side room showed no signs of disturbance. The fire used for roasting rat meat had not completely died down, occasionally spitting out stray sparks. The dusty floor bore no other footprints, and the rat droppings in the corner, the cobwebs by the wall, and the various insect corpses on the ground remained exactly as before—everything appeared utterly normal.

The few of us collapsed into our previous spots, still shaken. Man Niao Niao, being the last one in, swiftly bolted the side room door behind him as a precaution. The three of us stared at each other, our eyes reflecting a complex mixture of emotions, but no one spoke. Only the faint, rhythmic squeaking from the rat hole in the corner broke the silence.

Hearing those squeaks, a sudden, wild thought struck me: could the muffled 'pop' sound we heard earlier have been caused by these giant rats? Perhaps they were retaliating because they saw the three of us and the dog eating their comrade? However, I quickly dismissed this idea. If these rats were willing to go to the main hall door, they would have gone there long ago, surely leaving behind plenty of droppings and tracks. In reality, the entrance to the main hall was spotless—not a single rat dropping, not even a hair was visible. Besides, could a rat climb that high up a sheer door panel? Could it manage to leave such a massive, bloody handprint? — Unless they had become spirits.

Just as I was drifting into thoughts of a spirit-possessed rat, a faint 'pop' of a muffled sound reached my ears. Though soft, it was exactly identical to the previous one. My hearing had become acutely sensitive; the moment the sound ceased, I identified its origin: the door panel of the main hall.

This sound was clearly not an auditory hallucination, because Qin Bing'er and Man Niao Niao shot up like springs, their gazes seeming to pierce through the closed side room door, attempting to see what manner of fiend lingered outside. Yet, they ultimately decided against rash action, both simultaneously directing their attention toward me, clearly waiting for my decision. I gritted my teeth, cursed inwardly, and walked toward the side room door. The moment my hand neared the latch, the 'pop' sound from outside began again, rapidly escalating in frequency until it threatened to become a veritable downpour of impacts.

I sucked in a deep breath, every muscle tensing, and yanked the door open. A flash of snow-white light from the Xuan Yi Du You Pearl immediately shot out. Amidst the scattering shadows, several fist-sized black shapes flitted silently past the doorway. I blinked hard, realizing with disbelief: these things were bats! I rushed toward the main hall entrance and found the main door ajar by about two feet. Looking closer, fifty or sixty bats, like moths to a flame, were desperately throwing themselves against the bloody handprint on the door panel. Strangely, after striking the handprint, each bat would abruptly pivot in mid-air when attempting to fly out of the hall, as if caught by an invisible tether, struggling violently before being inevitably drawn back into the pitch-black interior.

My mind went numb, and I remembered the wine jar in the center of the hall. Earlier, seeing Man Niao Niao drink the wine and appear unharmed had somewhat calmed me, but now watching those agile bats being sucked into the hall, I had no heart left to observe the situation inside. I spun around hastily and retreated to the side room. Before I reached the doorway, Qin Bing'er let out a shriek that yanked my heart into my throat. With a loud 'bang', I threw the door open to see Man Niao Niao already collapsed on the floor, thrashing about and foaming at the mouth. The small side room was enveloped in a thick cloud of dust kicked up by his convulsions, making it excruciatingly hard to breathe.

Seeing me enter, Qin Bing'er shrank into a corner, pointing at Man Niao Niao on the floor. "He… what’s wrong with him?"

Although I didn't know the exact symptoms of a Gu poisoning attack, at that moment, I was one hundred percent certain that Man Niao Niao had been poisoned. Ignoring the vomit covering Man Niao Niao, I swiftly hoisted him onto my back and roared at Qin Bing'er, "Go! We need to leave here immediately!" Qin Bing'er didn't stop to ask questions, instead snatching up the Xuan Yi Du You Pearl that Man Niao Niao had dropped, tucking Hua'er under her arm, and following me with long, determined strides.

The group fled like hunted animals, instinctively heading toward the bamboo bridge!

Man Niao Niao groaned in agony on my back, his hands desperately clamping onto my shoulders. The force was so great I feared my scapulae would shatter, and his frantic struggles made my steps unsteady, nearly causing me to stumble into the water several times. Even with my head bowed, I could see countless bats swooping past, swirling toward the thatched hut behind us. The 'pop-pop' sounds grew more frantic, each noise like a sharp nail piercing deep into my core.

I gritted my teeth, trying to ignore the soul-searing sounds, keeping a firm grip on Man Niao Niao's substantial backside, sprinting forward until I was almost dragging him step by step. Soon, for the first time since my vision had been reduced to monochrome, I saw colorful things dancing before my eyes—stars!

Seeing how much effort I was exerting, Qin Bing'er shouted for Hua'er and ran up beside me. She tried to steady Man Niao Niao’s writhing body while dodging the swarm of bats flying toward us, stumbling along toward the black lotus-harvesting boat moored at the bridgehead.

That short stretch of bamboo bridge seemed to stretch endlessly. When we finally reached the end of the bridge after immense hardship, Qin Bing'er's scream exploded next to my ear like thunder: "Where is the boat?"

I strained my neck, looking up, and the bridgehead was utterly empty. The black boat had vanished without a trace, and so had the two giant turtles! The surface of the pool was perfectly calm, resembling a vast, black mirror laid out before us.

I inwardly cried out in dismay. I quickly placed Man Niao Niao on the bridge, jumped into the water with a splash, and ran forward several yards until the water nearly reached my neck. Then, hunching over, I plunged my hands into the water, feeling around and shouting for the Turtle Ancestors, hoping to see if the two giant turtles we had saved were still there! After a frantic search, despair washed over me, and the tension in my heart plummeted—the two giant turtles that had just brought us here were definitively gone.

Just then, I heard a song drift over the bridge: "Woe is me, my mother, I shouldn't have picked a quarrel with my kin, at seventeen or eighteen, la-li-la, la-li-la, heading to my husband's home! La-li-la…" (Pan: to raise/keep.)