It is not entirely surprising that cannibalism is generally one of the worst taboos imaginable to commit in society.

The thought of eating another human being’s flesh is utterly repulsive and said horrific acts can often only be found in horror stories meant to deliberately disgust the audience.

However, one urban legend quite well-known in the Chinese community revolves around a murder where the victims’ bodies were disposed of by being turned into char siu bao.

So, the story goes that the human pork buns were sold to the unsuspecting public by the murderer and were disturbingly delicious.

It does sound like something similar to the British play of Sweeney Todd, the murderous barber who turned his victims into meat pies.

However, the Chinese urban legend is actually based on an actual gruesome murder case in Macau, which would later be depicted in a gory Hong Kong film starring Anthony Wong.

The Eight Immortals Restaurant murders was a horrifying crime which captivated the imagination and horror of the Chinese public.

The restaurant was owned by a former food vendor named Zheng Lin who operated it with his wife and brought up his family there.

It was a happy family, though he and his wife had something of a gambling addiction with mahjong, which would prove fatal in 1985.

Their undoing would come about at the hands of Huang Zhiheng, a mainlander with an extensive criminal record in Hong Kong.

In 1973, he had murdered a man who owed him money and later fled to Macau, burning his fingertips to avoid detection.

He would come to meet Zheng and they struck up a rapport and played several games of mahjong together.

Zheng lost these games badly and owed Huang 180,000 yuan; money which he could never pay.

Hence, Zheng promised Huang ownership of his restaurant if he failed to pay up his dues within a year.

In a terrible decision, Zheng never held up his end of the bargain and Huang grew livid.

On the fateful night of Aug 4, 1985, as the Zheng household was cleaning up the restaurant after a busy day, an enraged Huang burst in and demanded his money, suggesting that they pay him a starting sum of 20,000 yuan first.

The last straw came however when Zheng failed to fork out the money and refused to transfer ownership of the restaurant as promised.

A deliveryman was the last person to see the Zheng family alive.

Huang later claimed that the Zhengs also pointed out that he had nothing on paper to use against them.

According to press reports, Huang used a broken glass bottle to take Zheng’s young son hostage and ordered the family to gag and bind each other.

It is not entirely certain what happened next, but someone screamed and attempted to run and Huang slashed their throat before murdering the entire family.

To make sure he left no witnesses behind, he also lured Zheng’s sister, who lived nearby, to the restaurant and murdered her as well.

For the next few hours, Huang dismembered the bodies, discarding them into garbage bags which he then threw into either the sea or garbage dumps.

Disturbingly, he cleaned up the restaurant, took the money and stayed in the Zheng home.

The next day, the previously mentioned deliveryman visited to find a sign that said that the restaurant was closed for three days.

Huang told the man that the Zhengs had urgent business in the mainland and were thus unavailable.

On Aug 8, one unfortunate beachgoer bumped into eight pieces of human limbs, which at first, the police thought was the result of a shark attack.

An investigation found that the cuts were too precise to be caused by an animal, so they started looking into missing persons cases.

More body parts would be found over time and in fact, the last body parts were only recovered in 1989.

Relatives of the Zhengs grew concerned about their disappearance and informed the police, who linked the family to the body parts.

During this time, Huang had been running the Eight Immortals Restaurant, which would have been strange if not for the fact he was a known acquaintance and had the proper business papers.

The police soon came a-calling and found personal possessions of the Zhengs with him, including the children’s student cards.

Again, Huang tried to flee but was intercepted, arrested and later tried and convicted.

There is a theory that Huang had an accomplice because it seems unlikely a 50-year-old man could kill 10 people by himself.

He would try to escape in vain while receiving treatment in a hospital after being assaulted by a fellow inmate.

In prison, he wrote to the press, claiming he was framed by the police and he had just wanted to live a quiet life in Macau.

He would not last long in prison, attempting suicide and succeeding on the second time on Dec 4, 1986 by slitting his own wrists with a tin can lid.

In his suicide note, he wrote that he was ending his life not because of guilt, but rather the physical pain of his chronic asthma.

Because he had been running the restaurant for some time and because not all the body parts were recovered, rumours spread that he had served up parts of his victims to unsuspecting customers in the form of the restaurant’s signature char siu bao.

While the police never confirmed this, the possibility that it may be true is bone-chilling enough. Watch what you eat, indeed.