Blackstone Code-Chapter 482: The Fuse

“I remember… there should have been a plate here!” A foreign merchant in his fifties looked blankly at his display cabinet. One compartment was empty, but he clearly recalled a pure gold plate once placed there.
The plate wasn’t particularly heavy. Although international gold prices had risen, its value lay more in its commemorative significance than in its material worth.
He hadn’t paid attention to these items for some time. Now, preparing to leave, he realized the plate was missing.
“Did you already put it away?” the butler quietly asked.
“Impossible!” the merchant shook his head. “I haven’t been in this room before to pack. Who usually takes care of this place?”
The butler named a woman in her thirties from Nagaryll.
For Nagaryll locals, thirty was considered middle-aged due to their shorter lifespans—unofficial statistics showed their average life expectancy was under sixty, limited by medical conditions, environment, and chemical pollution.
The merchant nodded but looked displeased. “Bring her here.”
The butler silently complied, quickly fetching the maid responsible for cleaning this room.
The room contained many valuable or commemorative items, so it had always been entrusted to this middle-aged woman.
She was married with children, stable socially, and unlikely to risk serious consequences by breaking rules or stealing.
The merchant had relied on her for years without issue. Though angry now, he wasn’t yet furious.
Soon, the maid arrived. The merchant, still upset, barely noticed her uneasy expression as he pointed at the empty display slot. “Where’s the plate? Don’t try to lie—I know it was pure gold!”
The maid said nothing, her hands tightly twisting her apron, fingertips purple, the edges white from strain.
Her body trembled slightly. The merchant’s expression grew cold and disappointed. He sneered, “You stole it?”
Though phrased as a question, he already believed it to be true and wasn’t going to reconsider.
The maid remained silent. His anger flared. He saw her silence as defiance, even an attack.
The federals wanted him gone. Locals sometimes threw trash at his home, shouting for him to leave. Anyone could make things difficult for him—now even a timid maid dared to steal.
The frustrations and rage Lynch and the other federal merchants couldn’t vent erupted in this moment, twisting the merchant’s face into something fierce. “Hang her…”
In Nagaryll, divine law and secular law ran parallel, with divine law slightly superior. This caused legal chaos and widespread vigilante justice.
Like Mr. Simon, many foreigners punished servants physically. This merchant was no different.
The butler bowed slightly, grabbed the maid’s shoulders, and pushed her out of the room.
Walking toward the large tree in the courtyard used for executions, the butler whispered where no one could hear, “I’ll keep my promise. God watches over me, so… don’t blame me.”
The maid’s trembling subsided somewhat.
“Hope you keep your word. God watches over you…”
Under the tree, she faced the butler and spoke. He nodded gravely, fastened the noose around her hands, and turned on the motor.
The noose lifted her into a half-hang. She was close enough to the ground to just touch with her toes.
Shortly after, the merchant appeared from the room with about ten servants—household staff.
For theft, locals vented first through vigilante punishment before considering the police.
One reason vigilante justice was common was its deterrent effect—punishing a servant publicly warned others.
Both locals and foreigners made all servants watch during private punishments.
“Strip her… everything. No underwear. Thieves like her should be exposed to the sun!” The merchant, enraged, snapped.
The butler silently cut off all her clothes. Naked, she stood exposed.
The merchant whipped her hard. The lash left a bloody, swollen stripe.
“Where did you hide my plate, bitch?”
She screamed but said nothing else. Her stubbornness infuriated him further. Another whip cracked across her back.
By this point, even if she might have spoken before, she no longer would.
Stripped and whipped, she understood that even if she survived, her life would soon have to end. Her body, seen by men other than her husband, would mean disgrace—ruin. Her thoughts, however, were consumed only by the deal with the butler.
Her silence was a provocation. The merchant’s temple throbbed. Not yet driven away, now even servants dared defy him. His anger boiled over. Cursing wildly, he lashed her again.
Perhaps noticing his exhaustion, the butler kindly brought him tea.
After drinking, the merchant grew even more agitated, restless, furious.
“Bitch! Bitch!”
In his mind appeared the arrogant eyes of federal merchants, their veiled mockery, and his own impotence.
Negative emotions surged. The watching servants twisted their smiles, whispering insults and ridicule behind his back.
His anger, body, and mind lost control. He even saw servants attacking him, deepening his terror and rage.
After an unknown time, the ringing and hateful whispers faded. He looked at the terrified faces around him, then down at the maid.
His hands gripped her neck tightly. The maid, covered in wounds, had died.
“Someone’s been killed!” The servants panicked, fleeing toward the door, shouting.
The merchant snapped back, tried to chase, but could barely move. After a few steps, he gasped, vision darkened, and he collapsed.
Tender green grass blades brushed against his cheek, and he could even smell the fresh, slightly sharp scent of the young grass—full of vibrant life.
He knew something terrible had happened.
The butler, dutiful as ever, lifted him up, threw him into a car in the garage, and started the engine.
“Master, if there really is a god, please tell him when you see him that I didn’t do this for myself…” The butler started the car and rushed to take his master—the unlucky merchant—to a close friend before the situation spiraled out of control.
His explanation was that his master had gotten into a conflict with the servants and somehow fallen. Before losing control of his body, he named this close friend, so the butler brought him here.
The merchant’s friend—another foreign merchant—accepted the story, as was usual among them; these merchants had been helping each other for a long time. He welcomed the merchant into his home and planned to contact the police to understand the situation.
What he didn’t know was that, within a short time, a large group of Nagaryll locals stormed the merchant’s house. Upon seeing the maid hanging from the tree, covered in whip marks and strangled to death after torture, their fury ignited.
Some broke into the merchant’s home, taking whatever they could and smashing what they couldn’t. They even dragged the merchant’s local wife, stripped and pulled by her hair across the ground, as if only such an act could appease the dead maid’s anger.
The Nagaryll Youth Party soon joined in. Somehow they learned where the merchant was hiding and surrounded the friend’s house.
Seeing the furious crowd outside, the merchant’s friend suddenly felt he had seriously meddled in trouble.
He called the police repeatedly, but no one answered.
As he debated whether to hand the man over or negotiate outside, an unknown group appeared. They attacked indiscriminately and shouted for the crowd to keep away from the merchant’s friend’s house.
The already heated crowd exploded.
“Beat these foreigners to death!”