Old Tian's nails managed to dig in, and the coffin lid indeed made a creaking sound.
At the same time, a force came from inside, pushing the coffin outward, helping them to "open the door."
However, the internal force was intermittent, as if it was being suppressed by something.
Li Zhiyuan moved a bit closer and set up an array in front of him to avoid being detected.
At this distance, if something truly jumped out from inside later, he could ensure it was suppressed in time.
Old Tian seemed to sense something and looked back, then seeing nothing, turned back and continued to open the coffin.
Finally, with a "crack" sound, the coffin lid was opened, not flipped open but slid towards the tail.
Immediately, a figure sat up from inside.
Li Sanjiang laughed: "Haha, I told you, how could you die? I haven't even given you a sitting ceremony, how could you die!"
Old Tian: "Right, not dead at all, still quite spirited."
As soon as the words fell, the figure that just sat up fell back down with a "thud."
Li Sanjiang stopped laughing and leaned against the coffin, shouting, "Hey, wake up, did you also drink tonight? How can you be so drunk with just a bit of alcohol?"
Old Tian: "Yeah, we can drink a thousand cups without getting drunk!"
Suddenly, the figure sat up again.
Then, with a "thud," it lay back down again.
Li Zhiyuan looked up, observing the surrounding breaths continuously gathering, these breaths originating from the Peach Forest, targeting the evil spirits in the Nantong Territory.
Inside the coffin, there was indeed an evil spirit, but it only had an evil aura without any resentment.
It wanted to do something upon waking, and the lack of resentment in its actions suggested it wasn't intending to harm people or seek substitutes.
Li Zhiyuan glanced at his own grandmaster, whose face was flushed and still in a drunken state, raised his hand, and dispersed the gathering Peach Forest aura.
This act was tantamount to offending the one from the Peach Forest below, but fortunately, Li Zhiyuan had some standing in front of Qing'an, and it didn't seem to mind at the moment.
Without the suppression, the shadow inside the coffin sat up once more, then turned its head and bit down directly on Old Tian's neck.
"Oh oh oh oh!"
The sound from Old Tian's mouth didn't seem painful at all, but rather quite pleasurable.
Li Sanjiang's eyes blurred, wanting to say something but just yawned, falling backwards and directly falling asleep.
Li Zhiyuan walked behind Old Tian, looking at the pitch-black corpse.
On the chest of the corpse, purple flowers were blooming.
Accompanying the sucking, these flowers gradually withered.
The corpse wasn't sucking blood or yang energy, but rather the poison and evil within Old Tian.
Li Zhiyuan moved a bit closer, sat down at the coffin's edge, reaching out, trying to touch the purple petals.
But as soon as he touched it, the flower was startled and retracted into the body.
The young man lowered his head, looking at the purple mucus left on his fingertips.
Blood mist erupted, stimulating it, causing the mucus to quickly boil and evaporate.
This wasn't a flower; it was a special kind of evil spirit.
There are many kinds of spirits. For example, Li Zhiyuan was once possessed by a Little Huang Ying spirit, which is the most common type, what people often refer to as being haunted by a ghost.
But there are many spiritual entities in the world, and plants under special conditions can also give birth to a certain speciality, forming the conditions for an evil spirit.
Those who are possessed feel very tormented.
For instance, the living cannot coexist with ghosts, even if a human and ghost fall in love, the living party will continually suffer bad luck, ultimately leading to no good outcome; Tan Wenbin and those two godsons of his had such a good relationship, yet during that time Tan Wenbin lived through days worse than death.
Being possessed by a plant spirit is also a kind of torment, equivalent to being parasitized.
This purple flower probably feeds on calamity and toxins, or rather, these things can suppress its activity, allowing the body to escape the torment it brings for a while and feel comfortable.
Li Zhiyuan speculated that the doctor might have been possessed by it somewhere in the past, causing his body to start experiencing mutations.
Specializing in difficult and complicated cases, he is likely merely seeking remedies that can temporarily relieve him; ordinary ailments he might not be unable to treat but simply doesn't need to, only needing to find extreme cases such as Old Tian's.
He's dead now, but even in death, he isn't at peace.
In theory, in his condition, he should undergo corpse transformation after death, especially since his body was not cremated but chosen for earth burial by his family.
Corpse transformation doesn't necessarily mean harm; it might crawl out from the coffin only to collapse and disintegrate shortly after, separating from the purple flower, thus allowing him to be relieved.
Or it might roam at night for a long time, wandering into yards where illnesses are present, absorbing what it can to alleviate its own suffering.
In such cases, in ancient local records, they could become an immortal or be listed in an earth temple.
This is also why many local records document "good immortals," who have rather poor images almost synonymous with evil ghosts, because they are inherently evil spirits, just with different food and desires.
Common folks are pragmatists and won't consider much; as long as it benefits them, they will erect monuments and temples for worship.
Such a "local living immortal" is harder to find than any auspice.
Li Zhiyuan hadn't expected that just in a neighboring town, there was such a person.
This doctor chose the wrong profession; he actually should have learned from Liu Jinxia and Mr. Shan, cloaking himself in the attire of Xuanmen; maybe he would have encountered me earlier, making it easier to solicit customers.
