I flew back a moment later from a nearby forest, dangling a scrawny seventeen-year-old boy by the scruff of his neck.

"Put me the fuck down! Fuck you! Who are you! Let the fuck go!" he cursed and swore and kicked, but he was no match for a beautiful, powerful badass immortal.

I flew him straight to the center of the village of Běitiánliú, where the central fountain was, and dropped him there in the water for good measure.

"Hey!" He vaulted up, spluttering and totally soaked. "You fucking motherfucker! I'll fucking kill you!"

His commotion had drawn out the villagers, many of whom had been sleeping, since it was night by now. They gathered around, along with the wispy-bearded village elder and the village leaders.

"This boy is the demonic cultivator who's been terrorizing your people!" I gestured to the soaked boy, who looked like he wanted nothing more than to lunge at me and snap my neck. "Young man, would you like to tell them why you used the Soul Torture technique, or should I?"

The young man growled, kicking the water in the fountain and glaring at me. "Fine then! I'll speak! But you'd all better listen until the end!" He took a deep breath, swore quietly, then began, glaring down at the village elder now:

"You all recognize me, don't you? Or maybe you don't — maybe you all already forgot the homeless orphan who used to live on the streets of town, begging and asking for food and shelter when it was cold! My name is Jiang Dao, but none of you remember that, do you?"

"I do!" one random villager offered hopefully. "You're that orphan boy who used to go around begging, but never got any food from anyone! Heh..."

Wow. That was unhelpful. Jiang Dao's eyes flashed red, and he kicked the water again, sending it splashing.

"That's right! None of you paid me any heed. But worst of all was the village elder, Xiang Zhai!"

Noises of confusion came from the crowd. I crossed my legs while sitting on the hovering Destiny Blade, pulling a fresh baozi out of thin air and munching on it. This was gonna be interesting, heheh. Town drama ahead, full speed.

The wispy-bearded village elder, Xiang Zhai, gasped, pointing his cane up at this unruly demonic cultivator boy. "Jiang Dao! How dare you accuse me! What have I ever done to you?"

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Jiang Dao sneered. "Seriously? You're so petty. Need me to remind you how many times you beat me over the course of the thirteen years I spent in this stupid town?"

"Nonsense! I did no such thing! I am the reverent elder and shaman of Běitiánliú! I would do no such thing!"

The villagers entered the chorus.

"That's right! Elder Xiang wouldn't be like that!"

"And even if he did beat you, you definitely deserved it, you barbarian!"

Jiang Dao bared his teeth again. Whoa. This guy liked baring his teeth like a wild animal.

"Yeah, whatever! Suit yourselves! But hear me out first: does it make it any more believable that I was beaten by your stupid Elder Xiang because I stole his baozi? Huh? Sound more believable now?"

The angry villagers suddenly went quiet, eyeing Elder Xiang out of the corners of their eyes.

I munched excitedly on my baozi. Oh, shit...looked like Elder Xiang beating people for stealing his baozi was a well-known phenomenon. Either that, or he was just freakishly protective of his bao buns.

"Elder Xiang beat me hundreds of times for stealing his bao buns! Sure, whatever, it was stealing — but I was a starving kid! I needed to eat! Instead of sharing his abundance of baozi with me, he beat me instead! You all know how selfish he is with his buns — he won't let anyone touch them! Not even his own family!"

I choked on my bun and used a technique to dislodge the food from my throat.

Sorry. That sentence just sounded kind of weird. Moving on.

Another rando villager piped up hopefully. "Well, while it's true Elder Xiang is protective of his buns, he really works hard on them...so it was still wrong to steal them."

The demonic cultivator Jiang Dao pulled at his hair in rage. "You all are unbelievable! I can't believe you ended up with houses to live in instead of me! Fuck you! I confess! You all want me to confess — I do! It was me! I left this stupid town and trained for four years to become a demonic cultivator, just so I could learn the Soul Torture technique to terrorize Elder Xiang in his sleep and drive him into madness as revenge for what he did to me! All right?"

"AHA!" Elder Xiang stabbed his cane at Jiang Dao again triumphantly. "We have a confession! Everyone, pull him down! We'll beat this scoundrel and throw him straight in jail!"

"Yeah!" cried everyone, swarming the fountain.

"WAIT!"

Suddenly, the fountain water surged, drenching everyone and pushing them away from Jiang Dao, who stood on the fountain top, unharmed.

I lowered my arms, released the Water Manipulation technique I'd just used to push everyone away from Jiang Dao. They all stared up at me, dripping and confused.

"Everyone hold up! Something's not right here. Jiang Dao, answer this question: you said you used the Soul Torture technique to torture Elder Xiang. Did you also use this technique on other villagers?"

Everyone looked at Jiang Dao expectantly. Elder Xiang's face paled.

Jiang Dao frowned.

"No. I didn't."

Dang. I should really conjure up another baozi. It seemed things in this town were even more interesting than they had seemed.