A Masterpiece of Spite
By @john1208
I handed over my last stack of cash to a landlord missing half an ear. The deal was struck: the smog-choked warehouse in the heart of Mekara was mine, no questions asked. After my ex sabotaged my career and claimed my magnum opus as his own, I needed a chaotic, anonymous metropolis to spark my stalled comeback project and plot his absolute ruin. I didn’t plan on sharing the rooftop with Soran, a brooding, camera-toting drifter capturing the city's neon grit. Over three months of dodging monsoons and eating street food, my frozen, vindictive heart slowly thaws. It’s the perfect, low-stakes escapism. But when my secret sculpture is finished, I return to high-society Breccon to spring my trap at a mutual friend's wedding - only to spill champagne on Soran, who is suddenly wearing a ten-thousand-dollar tuxedo. As my ex’s spies close in, I find a hidden, time-locked digital diary. It proves I didn't choose Mekara spontaneously. My past, heartbroken self wiped her own memory and manipulated me into coming here, knowing Soran was the vital key to ruining my ex. If my own past played me, can I trust the feelings I have for the man standing in front of me?
4
The Candied Sabotage of Orazhat
By @john1208
I cried the perfect amount at my mentor's funeral, dabbing my eyes with a cheerful, oblivious smile as my coworker Dalya sneered. She thinks I am just a scatterbrained baker who stumbled into the candidacy for Head Confectioner. She is right about the cheerful part. But when I caught her plotting to ruin my banquets, I decided to orchestrate a quiet, ruthless revenge. I play the airhead, subtly manipulating her into swapping my sweet-root with bitter-ash right before the Governor's tasting. I then proudly present it as a daring palate-cleanser, securing my own success while she seethes. What I don't know is that Dalya isn't just a petty rival - she is harboring a cosmic System trying to steal my destiny through public humiliation. I merely think I am outsmarting a mundane saboteur. But as I gleefully steer her plots into walls, her desperate failures force her to claim the System's ultimate 'reward' to destroy me. Will my entirely mundane revenge accidentally spring a fatal cosmic trap on a parasite I don't even know exists?
3
A Sun-Drenched Vengeance
By @john1208
"I am far too kind for my own good," I told myself as Rong Xueli, the ambitious educated youth, humiliated me before the entire commune for having zero work points. Instead of fighting back, I smiled, surrendered my city-return ticket, and traded my grain rations for the barren Whispering Crag. All I wanted was a quiet place to sleep with my fat badger, Daodao. My cold revenge? Letting Xueli exhaust herself working the "prime" East Fields she stole from me, knowing full well the soil was a toxic sinkhole. My nemesis, the terrifyingly strict Team Captain He Zhenting, publicly lectures me daily about my laziness. Yet, every afternoon, I wake up to find malted milk candies secretly left by my pillow. While Xueli works her fingers to the bone trying to escape to the city, I am perfectly happy napping. But when my useless crag cracks open to reveal a priceless vein of jade - and the missing state artifacts Captain He has been hunting - my lazy life is turned upside down. Will I ever get a full eight hours of sleep again?
1