The Windlike Token was stuck in midair, unable to rise or descend.
At the sight, Mo Chen knew he had stumbled into a restrictive ward.
After all, he had more or less gotten his start by drawing talismans and studying restrictive wards. Back at the Twin Crane Sect's Scripture Pavilion, he had secretly waited until no one came at night, then begun sketching away with the Complete Basics of Talisman Scripts before him.
With no one to guide him back then, Mo Chen had feared going astray in his cultivation, so he had taken up Talisman Drawing instead.
After copying enough gourds to draw his own ladles, he naturally recognized this as an Immobilizing Ward.
"Which fellow Daoist laid this ward? I stumbled into it by accident. Please release me. To compensate for the ward you'll lose, I'm willing to pay some spirit stones."
With that, Mo Chen slapped the Windlike Token, and it began shrinking until it became a token the size of a court tablet.
The riverbank was utterly silent. Only the reeds swayed in the wind; not even the shadow of a ghost was in sight.
Mo Chen waited a dozen breaths or so, but no cultivator emerged to answer him.
His expression soured, but he suppressed his anger and repeated himself.
This time, Mo Chen deliberately raised his voice a little.
Only after he finished speaking a second time did fluctuations of spiritual power come from deep within the reeds, where two brown headscarves were faintly visible.
Both men looked bleary-eyed. Yawning, they pushed the reeds aside with their hands. Only after glancing at Mo Chen did their expressions change to ones of considerable surprise.
Seeing this, Mo Chen grew even more displeased.
No wonder no one had answered after he called twice. They had been