Hu Xiaotian woke early the next morning and first checked Cloudsplit Valley. Only after confirming that the bodies of Qi Danai and the two black-clad assassins had dissolved completely and been washed away by the river did he relax. He searched the valley again, found the assassins' weapons, then dove to the riverbed and buried them beneath rocks.
Returning to the cave where Chu Fufeng's Long-Life Buddha had been enshrined, he found that Unenlightened had smashed the statue to powder with his palm. If the Old Emperor learned of this, that alone would be enough to cost him his head.
Hu Xiaotian cleaned out the cave and prepared to move a Long-Life Buddha Statue over from a neighboring cave. The Old Emperor would never come in person anyway, so he would bluff his way through for now.
While sweeping up the statue's debris, however, he uncovered something shaped like a gear. It was about the size of a copper coin, yet felt surprisingly heavy in his hand. On closer inspection, the teeth around its edge were exceedingly strange. Although Hu Xiaotian had no idea what it was, he could tell that it was important. He had carefully examined this cave before and found nothing of the sort. It must have been exposed only when Unenlightened shattered the statue with his palm. Since Chu Fufeng had hidden the gear inside the Long-Life Buddha Statue's belly all those years ago, it had to be extremely precious.
Hu Xiaotian carefully put the gear away, finished cleaning the cave, then selected a similar-looking Buddha statue from another cave and carried it back on his shoulder. What had once been a heavy statue was now a light burden to him, and he completed the move with hardly any effort.
By the time Hu Xiaotian finished