Gu Yao's Method Of Hiding
The Echo Conch Kingdom and the First Sun kingdom were the only two island kingdoms of the Great Zhou Continent. And they were also the smallest kingdoms in the empire. They were even smaller than the Fenlong kingdom.
The first sun kingdom was located east of the Fenlong kingdom and was a trade ally of them. They two kingdoms were separated by the ocean for about three hundred kilometers. But the Echo conch kingdom was further south from there.
It was over a thousand kilometer away from there and was the smallest kingdom. It also had very little interaction with the rest of the kingdoms, outside of trade. It didn't have that many cultivators either, with the strongest cultivators among them being at the Nascent soul realm.
It was located over five hundred kilometers from the shore and thus had lack of certain resources. It prevented there from many cultivators being born. And since there was also not much land mass, it prevented them from growing crops too.