Hand of Misfortune

Hand of Misfortune is a long-running urban supernatural serial by the web author Li Xueye, roughly one million characters in total and about two hundred ninety chapters in the main text. The protagonist, Gong Ping, is an ordinary low-level employee—honest, dutiful, and unable to say no. For three years he has not only completed his own work but also been casually saddled by colleagues and superiors with one miscellaneous task after another; the credit goes to others, the trouble to him. His fate is not exactly tragic, yet it is gray enough that he can see no way out. The turning point comes one day after a sudden accident, when Gong Ping unexpectedly awakens a special ability: he can "see" the fortune attached to people and things, distinguish whether good or bad luck clings to a person, and strip misfortune from its original host and plant it elsewhere. The ability seems gentle but is in fact razor-sharp—whoever the stripped misfortune lands on may fall into relentless calamity, even die a violent death. Thus a long-suffering low-level employee gains, for the first time, a means of striking back. Facing bullying financial conglomerates, underground gangs, underworld forces, and rivals equally endowed with special powers, Gong Ping chooses to stay hidden in the shadows rather than confront anyone head-on, using the "fate" that others can neither see nor control to act as arbiter and repay the humiliation and injustice inflicted upon him, one debt at a time. The work takes as its starting point the proposition that "character determines destiny, wisdom determines success, and strength determines everything," building layer upon layer around the thread of a nobody's counterattack and the mastery of fate; it blends urban supernatural powers, vengeance, and a dark, edgy character temperament, with tight pacing and direct conflict.