When faced with injustice, revenge is an alternative to acceptance. Although illegitimate tasks have been studied as a specific form of perception of injustice, the mechanisms underlying their triggering of retributive behaviors remain inadequately examined. The present research aims to investigate how illegitimate tasks influence two types of passive counterproductive work behaviors (interpersonal/organizational) among employees. As unreasonable or unnecessary task assignments from employees' perspective, illegitimate tasks convey a sense of perceived injustice that can directly weaken the trust between employees and their supervisors, which in turn provokes covert retribution in the form of passive resistance. Drawing on retributive justice theory, it is proposed that employees' affective trust in supervisors mediates this process while power distance orientation moderates the mediating effect. Based on a three-wave survey of 488 employees, it was found that employees' perception of illegitimate tasks undermined their affective trust in supervisors which in turn led to an increase in passive interpersonal counterproductive work behaviors (passive CWBI) and passive organizational counterproductive work behaviors (passive CWBO). Furthermore, it was also found that power distance orientation moderated this indirect effect. Specifically, the positive relationship between illegitimate tasks and passive counterproductive work behaviors (interpersonal/organizational) mediated by employees' affective trust was attenuated among employees with higher power distance orientation.