Two days later, a host of distinguished guests gathered in the King's Palace of the Bamboo Step Kingdom.
The princes, nobles, ministers, and officials of the realm had all been summoned in response to Zhou Cheng's call.
Though the Bamboo Step Kingdom was a small country with few people, its territory spanned nearly a thousand li. Bordering the boundless ocean, it possessed vast stretches of resource-rich land.
Apart from lacking powerful backers and frequently suffering pirate raids, its princes and nobles wanted for nothing in their daily luxuries. This banquet, too, was lavish and magnificent.
Li Ling and Mu Qingsi posed as ordinary people and entered alongside Zhou Cheng, Yi Yi, and the others. Rather than rashly reveal their identities and act openly, however, they found an excuse to sit quietly in a corner and observe in secret.
Outwardly, Li Ling rested with his eyes closed. In truth, he enveloped the palace in his spiritual consciousness, carefully sensing for any connected traces of aura.
"Nothing..."
After a long while, Li Ling frowned slightly.
The clue he sought was not here.
When a fellow disciple came over to check on him, Li Ling sent a discreet voice transmission. "Senior Brother Yuan, are all the influential princes and nobles of the Bamboo Step Kingdom here? I don't seem to have spotted my suspect. Could someone be absent?"
Since the person who had touched the stone rice incense might have been a mature woman, Li Ling suspected she had not attended. Perhaps she was the wife of some prince or lord.
Senior Brother Yuan paused in surprise. "That, I wouldn't know."
Li Ling shook his head. His method of tracking clues was rather subjective, and it was difficult to enlist anyone else's help.
"Never mind. I'll keep looking myself."
"His Majesty arrives..."
Just