"But then..." a confused villager muttered. "Who's been torturing us all with dreams of terrifying baozi?"

Jiang Dao stared. "Excuse me? Why would I torture ALL of you with horrifying dreams about baozi? I mean, I guess you did all wrong me, so I could...I just didn't think about that before..." Clearly, he was starting to consider that maybe that was an option. Before he could decide to do anything stupid, I cleared my throat loudly.

"Elder Xiang!" I called. "Where exactly are you going?"

Everyone turned around to see that Elder Xiang had been quietly hobbling away on his cane like his life depended on it.

I glared him down with my powerful, immortal gaze, and he trembled.

"I...need to g-go to the bathroom," he mumbled.

"Yeah, well, you better hold it," I growled. "Elder Xiang, answer this question, unless you want me to tell everyone the answer for you: why did you curse so many of your own people with the Soul Torture technique? And why did you hide your memories of doing so from me?"

Elder Xiang paled. I glared harder. Finally, the desired effect took action: trembling, he fell to his knees and started to howl, groveling in the dirt.

Heh. It was weird for people to grovel, but if they were assholes, why not make them grovel a little?

"Forgive me, Your Immortal Greatness! I have done a great disservice to my village! I deserve to die!"

"Disservice?" I snorted, flicking my sleeves dramatically. "More like unforgivable crime. Do you want to explain what you've done, or should I do it?"

Shaking under my seething gaze and the puzzled eyes of everyone in the village, Elder Xiang slowly lifted his head and began to tell his tale:

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Ever since Xiang Zhai was young, he'd loved to cook steamed buns. They were his comfort food! Once his mother taught him how to roll, fill, and steam them, there was no stopping him. As long as there were extra ingredients, he could be found in the kitchen, rolling dough and seasoning fillings happily.

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It actually became a problem. It started interfering with his time for other activities, like helping his dad, the former village elder, out with village duties, and the Xiang kitchen started to get super depleted. His parents had to limit how many baozi he could steam per week, and that made Xiang Zhai absolutely miserable.

He cooked in secret, and when he couldn't, he subsisted off the few baozi he could cook per week, living his miserably little limited-baozi experience.

Once his parents passed away and he finally became the village elder, however...

There was no one to stop him anymore! Xiang Zhai, the baozi enthusiast, was back on track. He became known for taking time away from his duties to cook and steam delicious bao buns that consumed lots of ingredients. And what was even more well-known was that he absolutely wouldn't share them with anyone. They were like his little babies. He loved them more than his own children! Baozi were his passion, and no one could stop him.

Over time, as he started to deplete the Xiang family's kitchen storage, he began to direct products for cooking baozi to the Xiang storage, rather than to the communal storage for distribution. This was the reason for the scarcity of food in Běitiánliú village over the past decade...and also one reason why no one had ever given Jiang Dao a bite of food for free. They'd all been living on the edge of hunger.

Then, Jiang Dao started stealing the precious baozi, like a cruel bandit. Every time Xiang Zhai caught him eating his baozi, he felt like there was a hole torn in his chest. His precious bao buns! He beat Jiang Dao over and over again, his hatred towards this little scoundrel who didn't appreciate the art and value of baozi growing every day.

At last, he decided that enough was enough. He was going to make sure that rascal wouldn't ever steal his baozi again.

As the village shaman, he knew a thing or two about calling on evil spirits. He used his techniques to effectively perform a shaman's version of Soul Torture — sending an evil spirit to torture Jiang Dao with visions of getting chased by a bloody, fearsome baozi until he went mad and couldn't steal anymore!

The perfect plot! Mwahaha! Jiang Dao would be gotten rid of, and Xiang Zhai's baozi would be safe and sound once again.

Only, before he could put the plot into action, Jiang Dao ran away.

Disappointing but...that worked out. The threat to the precious baozi was now gone, and Xiang Zhai no longer had anything to worry about.

That is, until recently, when another food shortage began.

As villagers began to go hungry, more and more people, for the first time, began to sneak into the Xiang household to steal a few of the always-abundant baozi for their hungry families. Everyone knew Elder Xiang just kept the baozi by the window of his kitchen to let the smell fill the air. Frankly, they were easy to steal! And surprisingly, many people got away with it.

Until the Soul Torture dreams began.

No one noticed the pattern, since the theft of Elder Xiang's buns was never talked about; but the pattern was still there. Every one of the people who had stolen from or eaten the baozi of Elder Xiang ended up falling ill from the strange, nightmarish dreams. The guy who managed to steal a whole three trays of buns actually died from fear in his sleep!

And the reason for this, as I suspected, was...

"Revenge. You wanted revenge on all those who'd stolen your precious baozi. And you also wanted them to never be able to do so again."