Adding any weak acid to bleach releases toxic chlorine and chloramine vapors. Inhaling the vapors causes respiratory damage and throat burns, while coming into contact with them can cause chemical burns. Eyes are especially sensitive to such mixtures. For those reasons, one should never mix vinegar and household bleach.
Mixing ammonia and bleach has a similar effect. But if ammonia is present in excess, toxic and explosive liquid hydrazine is formed. Bleach and rubbing alcohol when mixed creates chloroform. In addition to the anaesthetic use popularized in novels and television, chloroform damages the nervous system, eyes, lungs, skin, liver, and kidneys when inhaled in large amounts. High levels of exposure could result in death.
It was very important to understand the dangers of household chemicals! Li Mei ripped a shirt for a strip of cloth to cover her nose and mouth. She then sat in the dining room and mixed together liquids in appropriate amounts, putting them away in storage before the vapors caused any damage.
She lit a bit of cloth on fire, putting it in storage and taking it back out a minute later to test its state. Even after a minute in storage flames burned bright on the cloth, consuming it to ash in moments after she brought it back out. 'Perfect stasis,' Li Mei muttered with satisfaction. Keeping that in mind, she lit several long strips of cloth on fire and stashed them before they vanished.
In the kitchen she burned charcoal inside the wood stove until the pieces were bright red and radiating heat from a distance. Those went inside the storage too, then went around examining some heavier statue bases standing around the dining room and in the hall.
She found four that wouldn't move even when she threw her body weight against them! They were perfect for her needs, solid and heavy but not too large in size, and went right into storage. Her storage had a limit on mass not length-width-depth measurements, and the dense pedestals pushed it to being so full the shortcut icon turned bright red - but it was only temporary.
Li Mei slipped down into the basement, making her way to the slave's quarters with silent footsteps.
The slave's quarters were a small room with an attached bath and lavatory that all five had to share. There were six narrow beds crammed into a short space, the ceiling so low even Li Mei felt uncomfortable. Near the door was a single wardrobe for holding clothes they all had to share.
Everything stank of sweat and body odor. Li Mei walked by each bed at a clipped pace, bringing out the heavy pedestals on top of the five sleeping slaves with a few decisive movements.
They awoke with a chorus of screams, voices tinged by pain and confusion. A tiny woman with curly brown hair went pale from the pain, cold sweat breaking out on her face - the pedestal pinning her to the bed was almost as big as she was. The others fared little better.
The largest slave, a man with rippling muscles and a face like a pig, exerted himself trying to move the plinth. He grunted and snorted but only made it wobble around. He was the only one who even came close to getting loose.
Li Mei flicked a switch to turn the lights on, removing the ragged cloth tied around her face.
"Hello everyone," Li Mei said, a cruel smile shadowing her lips. Two months of eating properly turned her into an adorable little girl with charming dimples, but the pinned slaves seemed immune to her cuteness. Four pairs of eyes stared at her, confused and angry, while one gaze was panicked and afraid.
As she thought.
"What the hell's going on?!"
"44, explain!"
"Help us up!"
"How... Did she... Do this?"
The five babbled and swore and gasped for breath. Li Mei brought the knife that killed 44 out of storage and stood unmoving until they noticed it and fell silent. Its blade was still slick with warm blood that dripped slowly onto the cold stone floor.
"Was it fun? Hurting me. Beating me. Did you enjoy yourselves?" Her low, calm voice sent chills down the spines of the adults. Li Mei sauntered over to the closest bed, where a skinny man was trying to leverage himself against the bed to move the plinth pinning him down. She brought out a bottle of mixed bleach and vinegar, pouring it into the man's eyes. As he screamed in pain and fear, Li Mei smiled and moved away before she inhaled the vapors. "You were right. This is fun."
The room was small so she'd have to work fast before the fumes had a chance to affect her. More of the mixture was poured on each of the slave's faces, accompanied by burning pieces of charcoal she dropped out of her storage and onto their faces.
After they shrieked and suffered for a couple minutes she stabbed the knife into the soft parts of their throats. Severing one of the many carotid arteries in the neck ensured they would bleed to death in a matter of moments.
She couldn't face them head-on in her small body, but she could damn well cut their throats while they were pinned in place.
Then she turned to the woman who stared at her with horror in her dark gaze.
"How is this possible..." The woman's voice was a panicked whisper, hoarse and soft. Li Mei smiled wider, showing her sharp white eyeteeth.
Employed staff had access to better tools in the kitchen alone, much less what they could bring from the cottages. A chipped blade, frail, roughly made, probably belonged to a slave - just a guess, but Li Mei was glad to see she was correct. Seeing the face of a supposedly dead child was enough to elicit a reaction and reveal the guilty party.
"Aviva." Li Mei spoke her name like a curse, trailing the edge of the bloody knife against the trembling woman's neck. "It was so painful, Aviva. My stomach, bleeding and torn from this clumsy, cheap knife. Really, you couldn't steal something nicer to kill me with?"
"I... I don't... I didn't..."
"You did! Yet here I am. Such a cruel death after such a cruel life, Aviva. Can you imagine how angry I am?" Li Mei stabbed the knife into the bed, its chipped edge nicking Aviva's neck and adding a trickle of new blood to its surface. Aviva swallowed a shriek, dark eyes wide and color draining from her cheeks. "Why did you do it? Why did you kill me? It hurt so much."
"O-Orders... I was ordered!"
"Who, Aviva. Who ordered it?" Li Mei tilted the knife, cutting deeper into the woman's neck. She kept remembering every wound, every beating the woman inflicted. Cruel and vicious, even worse than the other slaves. Aviva broke 44's bones more than once. The memories made Li Mei's mauve eyes narrow into thin slits.
"The steward! Vigen! We can't disobey orders, 44! I swear I'm so sorry, I-"
"Not interested."
Aviva screamed as vinegar and bleach splashed on her face, draining into her mouth and down her throat. The smell of it was making Li Mei's stomach churn, so she put the knife back in storage and brought out a handful of burning hot coals. They were dropped on the woman's face, but unlike with the others she didn't cut the throat. Such an easy way out, for the one who killed 44?
Not a chance.
Instead, she walked to the door. Before she left she brought out a bag of flour and threw it as hard as she could at the wall. When fine white dust filled the air she rolled a handful of burning cloth along the floor into the room and ran as fast as she could for the nearby stairs.
The eventual explosion sent waves of heat and flame from the room back into the basement with enough force to knock Li Mei off her feet even though she made it up the stairs and into the hallway. Dust already in the basement caught fire from the flour explosion in a chain reaction, spreading its influence further and faster than she expected.
Sparks caught in her hair and ignited. She poured water from a stored thermos over her head, swearing at the pain of having her neck and scalp burned, but she didn't stop running. Li Mei could smell burning cloth over the stink of her own flesh and hair, furniture and decorations near the basement door combusting behind her.
Fire spread around her faster than she could run, leaping from surface to surface, an angry beast bent on devouring everything in its path. It found pockets of dust left behind by slackers who didn't do their jobs cleaning the manor, causing more explosions in different parts of the house.
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Smoke gushed through the hallways, a sinister black cloud rushing ahead of the flames. Hotter and hotter the manor burned, turning the night sky a furious bloody red.
But Li Mei knew all the best passages in the manor!
Her feet found the shortest route to the outside, mindless of hot floors and burning carpets under her bare feet. She laughed wildly, sprinting at top speed towards the outside. Her footsteps were light, as though the weight of the world was lifted off her tiny shoulders.
The horrible person who killed 44 was dead! Up next, everyone else who hurt her - including the steward that ordered the deed.
Li Mei dashed towards the stables, stopping just short of the wide double doors. She turned to look at the burning manor, an enormous grin on her face and a delighted shine in her eyes. Windows shattered as smoke and heated air broke the panes, sending a sparkling rain of shattered glass into the courtyard.
Which fool said revenge was best served cold?
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Li Mei climbed into the stable rafters in a haze of adrenaline and pain, collapsing into the netting holding the horse's feed. Her entire body trembled, and despite many burns on her flesh a deep chill pervaded her very bones. She pulled a blanket out of storage, wrapped herself tightly in its cozy embrace, and closed her eyes.
In her previous life Li Mei killed one man. It was entirely self-defense and she had no regrets about the experience - he had it coming even in the eyes of the law and the media that covered the incident. Chang Yezi was a revolting man who kidnapped, imprisoned, and eventually tortured helpless teenage girls to death.
He chose poorly when he picked Li Mei for a target.
She wasn't proud of having killed, but she was proud that the person she killed was scum of the Earth. As far as she was concerned the slaves and everyone else who abused 44 were just as guilty as that vile man. The pain, the fear, the loss of self worth. Nights of terror and shame. Days of hunger and fatigue.
Every emotional and physical wound inflicted on 44 formed a list of sins those people could never cleanse, digging deep into an unhealed scar Li Mei kept buried in the darkest shadows.
When she saw the slave's faces and remembered what they did to 44, Chang Yezi's laugh surfaced in her memories, haunting her every movement.
Once the rush wore off and fatigue settled in, she couldn't stop waves of nausea and dizziness from crashing into her tiny body. Lives were lives, and she intentionally ended them with her own two hands. She was a strong-willed woman who made a decision, formed a plan, and followed through to the end.
But she still bore a human heart, no matter how strong her mind.
The stink of vinegar and bleach, burning charcoal and flesh, mixed with the thick cloying aroma of blood lingered like an aggrieved ghost. She couldn't make out the relaxing scent of mint that wafted from the feed making up her impromptu bedding.
Li Mei took deep breaths and counted multiples of three, forcing memories out of her mind with cold numbers. If she let herself fall into that familiar dark mire...
No. She wouldn't let those sharp claws sink into her again.
'44 suffered and died because of them, and she was just a kid who never did anything wrong! It's only fair they suffered and died in exchange. They deserved it. They deserved it!' Li Mei repeated the comforting sentiment over and over in her head until she fell fast asleep.
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Vigen stroked his long white mustache, twirling the end of the right side in a nervous gesture. The charred skeleton of Master Agilo's manor house coughed smoke, ash, and fire well into the morning hours. Entire rooms crumbled away, the base foundation of the manor completely compromised by the series of explosions that took it out.
Guards wore filtered masks as they struggled to extinguish hot tongues of flame with handheld devices meant for tackling stray kitchen fires. Hounds pawed at rubble, sniffing around for signs of life or the trail of the assailant.
"Why the house?" Elle, the head housekeeper, asked while folding her pudgy arms over an ample chest. "Of all places on the estate... Could it be them? Did they find us? Or could it be..."
Vigen sighed. Sneaking into the estate was no easy feat, doing so just to torch the manor seemed anticlimactic. "Don't think to much, our job isn't to speculate. Have the hounds found anything?"
A guard standing behind the pair held a crystal tablet, colorful graphs of data fluctuating on its transparent surface. "Negative, sir. No foreign mana signatures, no recovered magitech. There's no residue from expended Circuits. Preliminary scans indicate the manor suffered a series of dust explosions that began in the basement and spread throughout the area, compromising the internal structure. All signs point to this being an accident, sir."
"Are you implying they just fell asleep under statue plinths as a matter of habit?" Vigen scowled, causing the guard to shiver under such an intense stare.
"I-I'll need time to gather some more information before I can draw a definite conclusion, sir. Please excuse me." The guard ran so fast he almost left a dust cloud in his wake.
"All those antiques, up in smoke..." Elle craned her neck to look up at the manor, brushing bits of ash off her shoulders. It drifted in the air like greasy black snow, clinging to anything it touched with surprising tenacity.
"If the servants did their jobs properly, there wouldn't have been enough dust to cause a problem. We'll have to supervise them more strictly in the future." Vigen's intense gaze switched to the plump housekeeper who shrank in on herself in response. Satisfied that she got the point without further scolding being necessary, he returned to looking at the manor.
Five slaves wasn't a loss for the estate, they were just household help without particular skills or specializations. Even a commoner could afford to buy a contract for one of those! Of the slaves, Aviva was the most beautiful, ruthless, and eager to please him. A capable woman who fulfilled his every request, but she was just a slave in the end. Her charming smile lit up the steward's memory for a moment before he shoved it away without a second thought.
She was a distraction. Enjoyable dalliances, nothing more. But the priceless collection of antiques, ancient books full of valuable knowledge, the latest prototype magitech computer in the study... Vigen felt the pain of their loss far more deeply than that of Aviva or the other dead slaves.
"What a pity," he sighed, shaking his head. "Master Agilo will be disappointed in me."
Elle took a cautious step back, fearful of the old steward's clenched fists and stiff shoulders. The man's temper was a storm of lightning - fierce, brutal, and quick to strike at anything in range. Most of the time the housekeeper preferred to have a few slaves or servants between her and Vigen.
"I'll round up the staff for questioning!" She left in a hurry just like the guard did, leaving Vigen standing alone before the smoldering manor with a despondent expression on his weathered face. Guards and hounds alike bustled to and fro in the ruins, but no clues were unearthed even after hours of searching.
If one of the servants he hired and supervised torched the manor, he might as well wash his neck and wait for death.
Vigen sighed heavily. It seemed a dark shadow crouched above the estate, claws poised and ready to strike. The question was, could he find the beast before it devoured them all?