Ruthless Face Slapping Short Stories & Novels

After three years of gathering herbs, I finally returned to Green-Pouch Valley. But my master, Mr. Gu, was not there. On the ground, only a dark red pool of blood remained, soaking his cloth robes. My senior brothers and sisters, usually so lively, were nowhere to be found. My master's wife, Auntie Qin, sat collapsed beside the pool of blood. Her once-black hair was now mostly white, her voice a hoarse whisper as she called to me. "Shuang'er, your master traded his life for the valley's ascension. You must go to the Nine Heavens and offer your thanks." It was only then I understood. The Celestial Lord, Jun Che, in his quest to forge an immortal body for his mortal wife, had coveted my master's rare Celestial Bones of Healing. He used the promise of ascension for everyone in Green-Pouch Valley as bait, then brutally tore the bones from my master's living body. I was born with a strange affliction, a void where joy and sorrow should be. The others in the valley secretly called me a cold-blooded monster. Now, as I stared at the blood-soaked robes of the man who had saved me and treated me like his own daughter, my expression remained blank. "Auntie Qin, did Master do this willingly?" Auntie Qin's eyes instantly reddened. "Jun Che is the Celestial Lord. His word is heavenly law. How could we ever defy it?" I gave a faint nod. "If it was not what Master wanted, then Jun Che deserves to die." Auntie Qin's face went pale with fright. She lunged forward and clutched my arm. "Shuang'er, your master's last words were for you all to protect yourselves, not throw your lives away fighting an unwinnable war against the heavens." I pried her fingers off one by one and looked up at the glittering, golden Celestial Realm beyond the clouds. A faint smile touched my lips. "Auntie Qin, Master taught me that a healer's heart must be compassionate." "But he never taught me that gods can't be killed."

On Valentine's Day, as my girlfriend, Christy Lawrence, and I stroll along a tourist hot spot, a photographer asks me, "Care to take a photo? Oh, you brought someone new again!" I brush it off as a joke, but Christy stops the photographer and says seriously, "He told me I'm his first girlfriend. How can you make up a lie like that?" The photographer snorts. "This young man here brings a different young woman with him to take a photo here every six months. I still have the photos to prove it!" He brings out his phone and shows us a photo of a couple—the man looks exactly like me. All of the surrounding tourists start eyeing me scornfully. I take my phone out and make a call. "Hello, I suspect that someone has stolen my identity. Could you please send a police officer over?"

My mother-in-law threatened to teach me a lesson about wasting money. While I was visiting my parents, she planned to team up with my sister-in-law and livestream themselves dumping my expensive skincare serum, worth thousands of dollars, down the toilet. "Once a woman gets married, she should learn to be frugal and take care of her household! This stuff is ridiculously expensive. Today, I'm dumping every last drop just to hear it splash!" "My sister-in-law is so vain! Mom is teaching her how to be a good wife!" "Going live at 2 pm sharp! We are cleaning out that wasteful woman's vanity!" The moment I saw the announcement in the family group chat, I started panicking. I immediately called my husband, Chester Lloyd, and begged him to stop them. "Stop your mother! Don't let her pour the stuff in those bottles by the sink down the toilet!" Chester sounded completely unconcerned. "What am I supposed to do? My mom can't stand watching you waste money. "They are just a few bottles of skincare products. So what if she dumps them? Why get upset with an older woman over something so trivial? "Once you learn to stop wasting money and start living frugally, I will buy you a cheaper set." I was frantic. "But ..." Before I could finish, Chester hung up and went back to his video game. The problem was, what she had taken was not skincare serum at all. It was highly concentrated industrial sulfuric acid, the kind that could trigger a violent explosion when it came into contact with water.

I'm admitted to the hospital for gastritis, but my boyfriend shoots to his feet after receiving a call. "Chelsea has a fever. I'll go check on her; I'll be right back!" He runs off without waiting for me to say anything and doesn't return for the rest of the night. That night, I see a short clip that Chelsea Calloway has shared. "I'm not afraid of any illness with you by my side." I comment, "He is pretty good at caring for others."

The night before the World Cup, Reid Callister made a post on social media. In the photo, he wore a Portugal jersey and was smiling at the woman beside him. He had written something sweet: [Officially done with Argentina. It's all Ronaldo from here.] Our mutual friends all went quiet. Everyone knew that the night Argentina won the championship four years ago, he had cried in my arms until dawn. That was also the night he slipped a ring onto my finger. He said, "Messi got his fairy tale. Let's go get ours." Someone in the comments section asked what happened to his Messi obsession. He replied, "I was young and stupid back then. Now, I know who's worth rooting for." I stared at the post for a long time. I did not comment. I just set down the divorce papers on the coffee table. Before I left for my flight, I tucked the ring into the pocket of his blue-and-white jersey. This time, I would not be watching the game with him.

After the Ig publication S.H.I.T Journal goes viral, I search its website out of curiosity. The satirical journal bills itself as a home for all things academic garbage. The moment I open the site, the top trending article catches my attention. It reads, "A Research on How to Deceive a Gullible Foster Mother With Face Blindness and Trick Her into Raising Me as Her Biological Daughter for Twelve Years". "Keywords: deception, face blindness, self-delusion, false family bonds" I freeze and click into the full article with trembling fingers. The more I read, the more terrified I become. "1.1 Definition of face blindness and how to swap daughters to deceive the foster mother" "2.1 Practical uses and drawbacks of the foster mother" "3.1 How to profit by exploiting the foster mother through her face blindness" The content sends a chill through my entire body. The comment section is already in chaos. "Does this mean the author is actually the daughter of the mistress, and her father swapped her to be raised by his wife for twelve years?" "That's not all. Didn't you read 2.1? The wife had her own daughter, and the husband deliberately handed her over to traffickers!" "What the hell… In 3.1, it even says that because the wife has face blindness and can't tell people apart, the author makes deals with single fathers of classmates and sends the wife to…" At that point, my phone slips from my hand and crashes to the ground. The screen shatters instantly. I have severe face blindness, and I have a daughter who was kidnapped and only found again after three years.

My father had a PhD in AI, and he built me an AI little sister named Ava. He said she could see through every lie I told, so I could forget about pretending to be sick to get out of school. From that day on, every time I said I didn't feel well, my father asked Ava first. If she flagged what I said as a lie, it didn't matter whether I was telling the truth. All I got was a cold look from him and hours locked in a room. I argued. I fought it. But my father would just look at me as if I were a failed experiment. "I built Ava myself. The system doesn't make mistakes. You do." On Halloween, for the first time ever, my father took Ava and me to an amusement park. The Zombie Drop Tower stood right in front of us, rated ten out of ten on the scare scale. Pain gripped my heart. I clutched my chest and shook my head as hard as I could. But Ava coldly pulled up a data report. "Nora Whitaker's heart rate is elevated because she is lying. A full-body scan shows she is completely healthy." My father's face went hard. He grabbed my wrist and dropped his voice. "Nora, you're allowed to be scared. You're not allowed to lie. The data is right here. Get in." "Dad, my heart hurts... it really hurts..." His expression didn't change. "Here we go again. You've been embarrassing me since you were little." The moment the ride dropped and the holographic zombies lunged at my face, my heart hurt so much I couldn't breathe. My vision blurred, but beside me, he was still speaking in that same cold voice. "When are you going to stop lying your way out of things?" Tears of blood slid from the corners of my eyes. Dad, I really wasn't lying this time. I'm dead now. I'll never lie again.

I spent eight years at the company, working my way up from a green rookie to the most expensive expert on the entire East Coast. Then the company gave me an AI assistant. I thought it was a perk. It wrote my weekly reports, answered my emails, and organized my data. I loved using it. Three months later, HR called me in with a termination agreement. "The AI assistant has already distilled you into an AI clone. The company doesn't need you anymore." So that assistant hadn't been helping me. It had been replacing me. I signed and left. Eight years of my life, traded for a cardboard box and two words: "Not needed." Then my old boss called, his voice shaking as he begged. "Meridian's system crashed! The AI gave us seventeen fixes, and every one was wrong. They'll pull the contract if it's not fixed tonight. That's $450 million! Please come back. I'm begging you!" I gripped the phone and heard myself laugh. "It learned every document, every log, every action I ever took. But it'll never learn the one thing that's mine alone: my brain. "When all the data points to A, I have the nerve to pick B. "As for you? Go ahead and keep picking A."

On the train to college registration, my heart gave a sharp, agonizing flutter. I leaned over the bunk and tapped the frame below me. "Mom, Dad, my heart hurts. Can you ask Julian to grab my medicine?" Thunder flashed outside, illuminating the compartment. The five other bunks were empty. I had been forgotten again. Ever since my younger sister, Lily Hayes, fell ill last year, I became an afterthought. “She needs all our attention,” they told me. “Stop competing for love.” So I ate alone, studied alone, and learned to keep my quiet during my worst heart episodes. Then came the next excuse, my grades were too good. Seeing my success would stress Lily to the point of breakdown. So they shipped me off to boarding school. My presence at home shrank until my house slippers vanished from the entryway, unnoticed. Julian Hayes never noticed when I scrambled for medication during an attack. And now, they didn't notice leaving me behind on a train. My eyes stung. Chest tightening, I grabbed my phone to call for help, but an app notification froze me. A photo posted by Lily minutes ago. Five beaming faces under the streetlights outside the campus gates. Beside her, Seth Vance stood with his arm around her neck, flashing a peace sign. Before we boarded, I had pulled on Seth’s sleeve, asking for a quick photo together. He had pushed me aside gently while stowing Lily’s luggage. "Later. We have four years to take pictures. Go get some sleep. I’ll wake you before we stop." Seth forgot. And there would be no "later." I opened the app and changed my ticket destination to a distant city a thousand miles north. The world was wide. I would walk into this future alone.

My boyfriend belonged to the untouchables among the capital's elite, with a family fortune worth tens of billions. To "test" me, he spent seven years never buying me a single gift, never spending a cent on me. Even a stop at a convenience store for condoms had to be split down the middle. Then, my mother fell critically ill. I borrowed from every friend and relative I could, but I was still two thousand short to cover the surgery fees. No matter how much I pleaded, he refused to lend me the money. I arranged my mother's funeral on my own. When I went back to pack my belongings, I accidentally found a list of gifts he had bought for the young woman next door. A private luxury estate. Designer handbags. Jewelry worth hundreds of millions. There was also a voice chat with his friend. "Caleb, is it true Jessica actually humbled herself and begged you for two thousand?" Caleb Brooks let out a low, amused laugh, his tone lazy and indifferent. "Nevaeh wasn't wrong. Anyone who goes around begging over two thousand — what else is she if not a gold digger? "We've only been together seven years and she's already trying to get money out of me." So that was the truth. Seven years of so-called testing, it seemed, had been sparked by nothing more than a few manipulative words from a young woman next door. However, it no longer mattered. The moment my mother passed away, I had already decided to leave him.

In my dormitory, there was a poor student. With all the good intentions in the world, my roommates and I were eager to help her, not realizing how much our help would cost. She wasn't impressed by the hairdryer we offered, insisting on borrowing a branded one instead. The skincare products we gave her? They were applied to her feet. And, as if that wasn't enough, she specifically demanded luxury face cream. One day, I lent her my tablet to look up some information, and to my surprise, she secretly opened up my gaming app, spent all the diamonds and reward tickets I had saved for half a year, and left me empty-handed. When I asked her to pay me back, she turned the tables and posted a public message online, accusing me. "I'm just a poor student from the countryside, never played games before. Are the materials in the game really worth this much?" Before I knew it, the comment section was flooded with criticisms of me. In a fit of frustration, I fired back with a post of my own, throwing her into the spotlight. "Well, I suppose you've never tasted the bitterness of being cyberbullied, have you?"

My husband promises to go to my hometown with me for the New Year holidays this year after I go to his. But before the trip to my hometown is due, he suddenly tells me he doesn't want to go anymore. I argue with him about this, and he pummels me with a bat. Meanwhile, his family eggs him on, telling him to kill me. Intense pain shoots through me as the blows land. I try my best to fight back, but I can't win against the majority. As the sky darkens, everyone heads home for dinner after giving me a good beating. When I regain consciousness in a corner of the garden, I see sense.

In my past life, my selfish son stopped caring about my husband and me after marrying a woman who followed her mother's words like they were holy commandments. In fact, he orchestrates an accident to kill my husband and me under the influence of his wife and her family. It's all so he can inherit our fortunes earlier than expected. When I'm reborn, I look at my son, who's rotten to the core, and decide that I don't want him anymore!

With my first paycheck, I buy three air conditioners for my family. But when I come home from work, I find that my west-facing bedroom is still sweltering like an oven. And there's a huge winter melon sitting on my bed. Mom proudly pats its skin. "We moved the air conditioners into your brother's and sister's rooms. We had one left over, so we installed it in your sister's art studio. "The outdoor unit for your room would be right outside your sister's window, and the humming would keep her awake at night. Just sleep with a winter melon. It'll keep you cool enough." I open my mouth, but the dull ache in my chest leaves me unable to speak. She has forgotten that I was hospitalized for heatstroke just last month. The doctor warned me to stay out of the heat after I was discharged. I turn toward the studio at the end of the hallway. Cool air spills through the crack beneath the door. Dad is adjusting the lighting over my sister's easel. My brother is holding a freshly cut slice of chilled watermelon to her lips. And my boyfriend of three years is carefully adjusting the airflow for her with the remote. "Angle the vents upward. Don't let her catch a cold." I wipe the sweat from my forehead and stare at the ridiculous winter melon on my bed. Suddenly, I don't want to fight for anything anymore. I take out my phone and reply to my supervisor. "You said I could become a permanent employee early if I transferred to the new branch in Veymont. I agree." After making it through twenty-two summers, all I want is to give myself a spring that never ends.

On the day of my college graduation, I had just signed a contract with a prestigious company when my dad burst into my room, grabbed the paper, and ripped it to shreds. "Why waste your time with a crappy $8,000-a-month job? You've already been hired by the world's top financial conglomerate! A base salary of $100,000 a month, plus a luxury penthouse the moment you start! What other young woman fresh out of college gets that kind of treatment?" I stared at the flimsy piece of paper in his hand. It was stamped with a cheap-looking plastic seal that read "Global Stellar Consortium". I shook with rage. "Dad, that’s just a fake image generated with AI. This company doesn't even exist!" My dad merely snorted and shoved his phone directly into my face. On his screen was a screenshot of a prompt he had fed into an AI chatbot. Prompt: [Issue an offer letter for my daughter from the world's number one corporation. Make sure it's the highest position possible.] AI: [Operation complete. Your daughter has been officially hired as the South American President of the Global Stellar Consortium.] My throat went dry as panic set in. I tried to reason with him. "Dad, the AI is just playing along with your prompt to write a fictional story! It's a chatbot; it doesn't actually recruit people!" He simply whipped out a $200,000 transfer receipt and waved it triumphantly in front of my eyes. "What do you know?" he sneered. "The AI is real! It even gave me the payment code to cover your mandatory Employment Security Deposit!"

My brother brings home a scheming girlfriend. He wants to kick me out of the house for her sake and claims that everything at home belongs to him. I hand the company over with both hands and leave without hesitation. Less than a month later, my brother, who can't manage the company, grovels at my feet and begs me to return.

After visiting Grandpa at the care home, I got a text from my boyfriend, Lucas Mercer. “Sofia, come to the office tomorrow at ten. I’ve got a surprise for you.” I thought of the proposal plan I’d spotted on his laptop. I smiled to myself and booked the first available flight. But when I walked into that office, I froze. Lucas was down on one knee, holding out a diamond ring to my cousin, Ashley. Ten years ago, she’d hired someone to drive a car into my parents and kill them. Then she’d trapped me in the fire that followed. “Ashley, I’ve been practicing for five years. Will you marry me?” His eyes were full of nothing but her. I dug my nails into my palm. This year also happened to be the fifth year Lucas and I had been together. “Yes.” Ashley smiled and produced a document. “Since you’ve been loyal to me for five years, my father decided to throw in an extra five million as a bonus!” The room erupted. I stood there watching the celebration. The Harlow Group investment agreement I’d been holding was now a crumpled ball of paper in my fist. I turned and dropped it in the trash, then called my assistant. “Lucas Mercer. Cut him. Pull up the updated list of fiancé candidates.” Ashley had no idea I’d already returned to the Harlow family as the heir apparent. Lucas had no idea that by chasing five million, he’d just walked away from fifty.

My mother's condition suddenly takes a turn for the worse. She begins coughing up blood, and the doctor says she must undergo surgery as soon as possible. I call my girlfriend, Daniella Dooley, who is working in another state. She is the leading gynecologist in the field and the only doctor with any hope of saving my mother. The moment she receives my call, she sets out without hesitation. But halfway through the journey, she tells me that an emergency surgery has cropped up and that she can't make it back. I crouch in the hospital corridor in despair, calling her again and again. All I can do is watch as my mother's heartbeat on the monitor grows weaker and weaker. On the 99th call, she finally answers. My voice is almost pleading as I say, "Daniella, my mother's condition is really critical right now. You're the only one who can perform this surgery. I'm begging you, please come back!" For a long time, she says nothing. I wait and wait, only for her to hang up without uttering a single word. Then, I see a post from her junior, Jackson Bleeth. It shows a sunny-side-up egg that she has just made for him with her precious hands. Accompanying it is a caption that feels almost provocative. "I had a little accident during surgery today. Not only did Daniella not blame me, but she even encouraged me." So the "emergency surgery" she mentioned is actually cleaning up Jackson's mess. At the moment when I am at my most desperate, she abandons me and chooses to go to another man.

My husband spiked our child's formula with sleeping pills to sneak away for a Christmas date with his assistant. As I frantically rushed my feverish child to the hospital, I unexpectedly spotted my husband carrying his assistant upstairs. "Peyton twisted her ankle, so I'm here to help her get it checked!" Even though our child was in the operating room fighting for her life, he did not so much as glance in her direction. I tightened my grip on the ten-million-dollar winning lottery ticket in my pocket. It was time to end this seven-year marriage.

At the base entrance, the guard stopped us for the usual inspection. “Your infection test came back negative, right?” I nodded. The guard was just about to let me through when Ethan Cross, the team’s new medic, suddenly spoke up. “Wait, Captain. What about that scratch on your arm from the mutated rat?” The air froze. The guard’s expression changed at once. “Captain Hale, is that true?” I gritted my teeth. “It is. But the wound has already been treated, and I have antibodies.” “I’m carrying a top-level mission. I need to enter the base immediately.” The guard hesitated, his hand already moving toward the gate controls. But Ethan stepped across my path and blocked me. “Captain! You were coughing badly on the way back. What if you’re a carrier?” Then he turned to the guard, his voice firm and absolute. “I request immediate quarantine for Falcon Squad and a full screening for Captain Hale.” The guard’s eyes sharpened. He raised his weapon. “I’m sorry, Captain Hale. You’ll need to come with me to isolation first.” I froze where I stood. A full screening would take at least forty minutes. But the zombie king in the base laboratory would awaken in thirty. I had to lead my team in and stop it before it broke free.