"Hah… Why do I have to follow this guy…?"
Watching as the captain disappeared into the restaurant before he began to search through the entire place with all his energy, the vice-captain of the group of guard could not help letting out a sigh before she signalled for the other guards to follow their captain inside the restaurant and look for anything that might help them find out where the crack in the formation was located.
Even if she didn't want to look through the area around the restaurant where the crack was supposed to be located for the eleventh time, she did not have the ability to stop her captain.
At most she could complain to him about how ridiculous it was for them to continue searching the same location again and again without finding anything…
"Ah? Guards! W-why are there guards here!?"
Unfortunately for the restaurant owner who was sitting in front of the restaurant together with a friend, the people who were dinning inside the restaurant were soon chased out by the guards as they all came up with their own guesses as to why the guards had suddenly showed up all of a sudden
"Perhaps the restaurant owner did something bad and they are here for him! Let's leave this place immediately!"
"Good idea, I'm sure he evaded taxes or how else would he be able to afford so much expensive stuff to decorate his restaurant?"
If I just didn't built right next to the city wall, everything would have been fine… But the price of land here is so much cheaper…
Listening to the different reasons that his customers came up with to explain the sudden appearance of the guards, the restaurant owner could not help laying down on the small table in front of his restaurant with a dead look in his eyes upon understanding that he had once again lost over a dozen customers due to the guards.
Although this would not be enough to put him out of business, the reputation of his restaurant would decrease even further than it already had over the past few days. Not to mention, even if he might not go out of business for now, the same could not be said if the guards continued showing up and scaring away his customers.
"Should I go and complain? Would that even work when they are clearly here to search for something…?" Muttering this to himself as he laid dead on the small table while looking at the stream of guards entering his restaurant while a stream of customers left it at the same time, the owner could not come up with any way to make the guards leave.
In the end, all he could do was pray that the guards managed to find what they were looking for and left his restaurant alone.
…
Watching all of this from the side as he learnt more about just how many times the guards had shown up over the past few days, Xuan Hao could not help growing more interested in the crack in the formation that they were looking for.
Compared to the crack in Yi Min's formation that had been easy to spot at a glance, it was obvious that the crack in the guardian formation of the capital city was not something that would be as easy to find. After all, if it had been easy to find, there would have been no way for the crack in the formation to have remained unknown for over a hundred years…
From the conversations of the people observing the situation together with him from the side, Xuan Hao also managed to learn that the restaurant that the guards had entered to search for the crack had only been established for a little over fifty years at this point in time. Meaning that the restaurant had been constructed at the location of the crack in the formation without anyone even finding out about the crack being there in the first place!
Or it could also be that the restaurant had been constructed as a way to hide the formation by the noble families as the owner of the restaurant had been sponsored by a noble family when first setting up the restaurant according to a few people standing beside him as they talked about the owner of the restaurant possibly asking this noble family for help dealing with the guards.
Considering the fact that both the captain and vice-captain of the guards were in the Domain Lord Realm and them having been dispatched by the imperial family, Xuan Hao did not expect a noble family to be able to stop them from doing what they were doing.
Even if they could, they would most likely not want to risk getting attention from the imperial family just after a demonic cultivator had infiltrated the capital city. Especially if the thing they stopped the guards from doing was investigating how the demonic cultivator had entered the capital city in the first place!
All things considered, the restaurant owner had no way to stop the guards and could only helplessly sit on the side and watch the guards chase away his customers as they began searching through his restaurant without leaving a single stone unturned.
The only positive thing for the restaurant owner was that he had never done anything shady like avoiding taxes like some other business owners did, something he felt eternally gracefully for when the guards had first showed up to search through his restaurant.
Shaking his head as he thought about the sad predicament of the restaurant owner, Xuan Hao slowly began moving closer to the restaurant that the guards were currently in the process of searching through.
Although… From what he could see, the only person among the guards that was really searching through the place with all of his energy was the guard captain. The rest of the guards were obviously not too happy about the fact that they were now back to searching through the same place they had already looked through ten times before.
Even if they still did it due to it being their captains orders, it did not mean they would put in all of their energy to look through the place…
"Hm?"
Walking up beside the restaurant owner who was still sitting in front of the restaurant watching as the guards were running all over the place inside the restaurant, Xuan Hao could not help frowning as he sensed something off about the person sitting together with the restaurant owner.
Although he was just sitting down with a sad expression on his face watching the guards trashing a good part of his restaurant, Xuan Hao could see in the restaurant owners eyes that he did not really care about the matter and was more like the bystanders watching the thing from the side without really caring what was happening to the restaurant itself.
Considering that the restaurant was his friend's livelihood, this kind of look was rather odd in Xuan Hao's eyes and made the restaurant owner's friend quite suspicious.
Is he perhaps someone arranged by the noble families to look after the crack in the guardian formation and ensure that it does not get discovered by the guards… But if that is really the case, why would they attach themselves to the restaurant and not just secretly fund it instead of openly doing so? It's obvious that funding the restaurant openly will cause a backlash when the crack is inevitably found and the restaurant owner's friend's involvement in the matter is discovered…
Feeling that the entire matter did not really make much sense from the perspective of the noble families, as they did not have any reason to connect themselves to the matter of the crack in the wall like they had ended up doing by funding the restaurant located where the crack in the guardian formation was located, Xuan Hao curiously began inspecting the person sitting beside the restaurant owner.
Dressed in ordinary clothes and looking like any random person that could be found on the streets of the capital city, a middle-aged man around his late forties sat beside the restaurant owner as he coldly looked towards the interior of the restaurant where the guards were located.
However, this was not the main thing that caught Xuan Hao's attention…
I can't sense his cultivation realm!?
Instead, it was the fact that he couldn't sense the other party's cultivation base!
It had to be known that everyone inside the capital city had at least reached the Qi Condensation Realm, with most ordinary people being around the Foundation Establishment Realm.
For Xuan Hao to not be able to sense the other party's cultivation base without using his divine sense to investigate more in-depth only meant one thing-
The other party had at least reached the Domain Lord Realm!
Thinking about this, Xuan Hao could not help narrowing his eyes as he quickly distanced himself from the restaurant once again.
Given that he could figure out how odd the friend of the restaurant owner was, Xuan Hao was certain that guard captain would also be able to find out about it. Maybe that was the reason why he had kept coming back to the restaurant after not finding anything during the last ten times!