Wu Guang and Li Xia took two hours to reach the City's Manor and return to the shop. During this time, Wu Guang continued chatting and tried to find any possible reasons behind such persecution of Li Xia. But except finding that she had never even met her enforced groom, she did not know anything useful. This only confirmed Wu Guang's suspicions about there being something else behind all this.

In any case, as they returned, Wu Guang saw what he expected to see. The storefront was currently enclosed by guards, and a person vividly gesticulating while pointing at it and explaining something to the captain of the patrol. This person was no one either than the main ruffian that he had let go of before. Wu Guang also noticed that half a street away there were two people carefully observing the situation, and he guessed that they should be people from Merchant Head Du.

The fact that the guards had not yet entered was a good sign. It meant that no conflict with Lan Yanzhi had yet happened. Although Wu Guang did not care, the fewer conflicts there were at this moment, the easier it would be to solve the situation. His preparations were completed, so he approached the guards while asking what had happened. He did it loudly, as to make sure that the ruffian saw him. And the latter did not fail to live up to Wu Guang's expectations, instantly starting to point at him and explaining something to the guard captain.

A few moments later, the captain signaled his men, and Wu Guang and Lan Yanzhi were escorted towards him.

"Are you the owner Miss Li? And you are her helper who assaulted this man and his companions?" Such a start meant that the guard was either too dumb to understand that he was being lied to, or simply was of the same tribe as the ruffian.

"Excuse me captain, who assaulted who? When I entered the Li store before, I found out that this man and his companions were trying to assault Miss Li. I could not permit it so I asked them to stop, I never touched them" Wu Guang decided to play along.

"Huh? Are you saying that the victim is lying?"

"Captain, just ask him if I was the one who attacked him"

"You! If you don't want to admit your crimes, then you will have to accompany me right now" The captain ignored Wu Guang's words, confirming that he was in cahoots with the ruffian all along.

"Since when a few words without proof are enough to accuse someone?" Wu Guang did not continue to play the game, he already had found what he needed to know.

"You! You dare to disrespect the guard! Surrender or we will use force!" The captain did not expect Wu Guang to act like this, but in fact, was very happy for it to happen. After all, now even if they beat him up, nobody would investigate.

"Stop! What's happening here?" A loud shout stopped the guards and the captain in their tracks. It's not that they would stop at any random passerby's shout, but that they very much knew the owner of the voice. After all, it was no one else than the vice-commander of the guard.

"Lord Vice-Commander! This man has committed grievous crimes! He attacked and injured people after being paid by that woman. Now he is trying to resist our lawful arrest" The guard captain was dumb enough to think that someone like the Vice-Commander passed here casually, and so started explaining their version.

"Committed grievous crimes? What are you talking about?"

Hearing this question, the guard captain quickly signaled to the ruffian and the latter started explaining what had happened. Well, his version of it. If one heard this, Wu Guang and Li Xia were almost demons.

Seemingly the ruffian and his companions had arrived at the Li store to ask about a simple deal she was pending on answering. Five cultivators coming together could be strange, but the ruffian explained that they were fearful of Miss Li as the latter had already threatened and sent people to attack other envoys. And it turned that they were right, but even prepared they could not resist Miss Li's evil scheme. As soon as they entered, they were instantly attacked and heavily injured. The attacker was no one else than this young man and a companion of his. After they escaped with heavy injuries, they reported to the guard. And as he was the only one not injured heavily, he came here to identify the perpetrators.

"Mmm... I see, if such happened, it is indeed a vile crime" The Vice-Commander spoke up calmly and glared at Li Xia and Wu Guang before asking.

"Did that happen?"

"No"

"Then what happened?"

"This man and four of his companions barged into my property and tried to assault my friend. They injured Miss Li's servant, and so I was prompted to ask my servant to teach them a lesson"

"That's a lie! Li Xia is the owner of this store and the adjacent property! Lord Shishi, as you see this man is simply evil. He is trying to make it look like these respectable people broke into his property and attacked a woman. After all, if that was true, he would be allowed to injure or even kill them in self-defense!"

"I wonder... how could these respectable people as the captain referred to them know who is the owner of this property?" Wu Guang asked.

Neither the ruffian nor the guard captain knew how to answer such, but after the vice-commander glared at them, the ruffian instantly spoke up

"We were asked to come and ask Miss Li if she was interested in selling the entire property. Our master confirmed that she was the owner"

"I wonder who lied to your master... After all, I am indeed the owner of this property. Please take a look at the deed, Vice-Commander" As the words, Wu Guang needed to hear were said, he instantly produced the deed for the property.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

This entire charade was part of his plan. A plan that he enacted by going to the City's Manor, requesting Elder Shishi's assistance to quickly complete the process of owner change. Normally it took a few days as it required both the original deed in the archive and the city books to be changed, but with the brother of the Head Administrator asking for it, the process was done in less than ten minutes. After that, Wu Guang received the deed to his name and came here. As for the Vice-Commander, the latter did not know anything except that Elder Shishi requested him to take a look at what was happening around this property. He wasn't informed about anything, even that Wu Guang had become the owner just an hour ago.

"Hmm, indeed, here it says that it's owned by a Wu Guang"

"That's me, here is proof of my identity. Although Wu Guang had given his inner badge to Elder Mo and the new badge was something he did not want to show yet, he still had a carved token of the sect from the admission test. Although it did not explain his status, the fact that he was given it meant that he passed the entrance test and became a disciple in the sect.

"I see, so young friend Wu Guang is a disciple of the 'Three Hills Sect'! No wonder that you reacted instantly after seeing a friend of yours in danger" The Vice-Commander could not know the truth, but after being showed the deed and finding out that Wu Guang was from the Sect, he was pretty sure that the culprit was not him. After all, the Sect's disciples were pretty much untouchable in the city, so if he was even slightly guilty, he would have recurred to his identity and returned to the sect. Where even if it was confirmed he was at fault, he would at max be given a verbal lashing.

"Disciple of the Sect!" The captain and the ruffian both exclaimed at the same time, before growing pale. If they did know that Wu Guang was from the Sect, they would have not accused him like this! Their master would also have acted differently.

In any case, both of the observers heard everything and now she would find out that Wu Guang was from the sect, and that he was the owner of the Li property. If her real interest was the property, then she would need to deal with Wu Guang. And if her interest was Li Xia herself, then she would also need to deal with Wu Guang first. After all, Li Xia was living on his property.

In short, Wu Guang wanted to provoke the Du brother and sister to go after him.

A few minutes later, everything was solved and the guards dispersed. Regretfully for the captain and the lead ruffian, the ones that were brought in for questioning were them... And Wu Guang doubted that they will survive even a night in the city prison. Head Merchant Du would not let them implicate her in something like this, would she?

________________________________________________________________________

With this matter settled and after making sure that Lan Yanzhi and Li Xia had agreed to follow his instructions, Wu Guang decided to return to the Sect. His instructions were simple, for Li Xia to remain in the property and Lan Yanzhi to heighten her vigilance for the following days.

After returning to the Sect, Wu Guang spent the rest of the day dealing with small matters like meeting with his teammates and solving the team and residence matters. The three of them were happy for Wu Guang's new status, but at the same time, it meant that they would not work together for the time being, which was a bit sad for everyone. Still, Kuang Jing's proposal of reforming their team as a three-man one was agreed by Wei and Yuan Taotu, so they did not break up. The residence matter was also settled pretty easily, with Wei and Kuang Jing moving to live there, as it was a team residence.

Wu Guang intended to leave the 'Phasing Astral Orb' with Yuan Taotu, but the latter refused it, citing that Wu Guang probably would need it more. This was true, so in the end, Wu Guang kept it.

As for the evening, Wu Guang spent it holed in his assigned room while trying to carve a rune on some practice slates he grabbed from the Sect's store. The pen he had bought for the price of a few properties was of very good quality, and Wu Guang's mind had a lot of different runes and methods, but still, for some reason, Wu Guang did not succeed.

It took him almost three hours to find out the reason. Thankfully it was something he could solve quickly, and at the start of the 4th hour, Wu Guang managed to carve the easiest rune, a three-stroke gathering rune. The issue was laughable, the engraving pen he had bought was simply of too high level for his current cultivation. Normally such should not occur, but seemingly the master behind its creation was a bit peculiar... and hid a blocking mechanism.

Wu Guang's senses did not perceive it initially, but after trying for a few hours, he resorted to his mind power and found out. His mind power was at the strength of an Earth realm cultivator, so the block was dispelled simply by him scanning the pen. Something that he should have done before. "It seems that I have relaxed now that I am not in direct danger. I also started thinking this plane is too weak after getting my consciousness integrated. I did not even try to assure my safety by checking the instrument!" As Wu Guang thought this, he made an internal remark to not get careless anymore. Although it would be a bit extreme, he would check everything he intended to use or consume from now.