【Peony】 grabbed the water glass on the nightstand and smashed it hard against her father's head.
Bang!
The glass shattered, shards scattering across the floor. A few pieces sliced through her palm, leaving long, thin gashes.
Blood seeped out, but 【Peony】 felt no pain.
Her father stared, eyes wide, before he could even react to what had happened. His body slumped to the floor, blood trickling from the wound on his forehead.
“Aaaah!” Another scream came from outside the door.
【Peony】 looked up to see her mother standing in the doorway, a spatula in hand and oil stains on her apron.
She had been cooking in the kitchen and had intended to intervene in the argument between her husband and daughter. Instead, she found her daughter attacking her husband, who now lay in a pool of blood, his life hanging in the balance.
The spatula slipped from her hand and hit the floor with a sharp clang.
“Shut up! What are you screaming for, you useless thing?” 【Peony】 roared at her mother.
Her mother's eyes were bloodshot as tears welled up and flowed down her wrinkles. She let out a sobbing wail: “He's your father! How could you hit him? How could you do this to him?!”
【Peony】 stepped forward and slapped her mother twice. The sharp cracks echoed in the room.
Her mother's head snapped to the side, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. She was completely dazed.
“You worthless, spineless bitch. No wonder he beats you. He hits you every day, and yet you still protect him? You were born with a slave's fate!” 【Peony】's insults were vicious.
Her mother covered her face and wept. She couldn't understand why her once-filial daughter had suddenly become like this.
In the past, whenever her husband hit her, her daughter would rush forward to shield her, heart aching for her. Afterward, the mother would criticize her daughter a bit, and everything would go back to normal with her husband.
How could her sweet, sensible daughter change so abruptly?
【Peony】 ignored her. She looked at her father on the floor; he was still bleeding, his breathing faint.
The bastard was still alive?
She couldn't accept that. She immediately planned to finish the job, then dispose of the body and evidence!
【Peony】's mother quietly called the police. She still cared more for her injured husband than her daughter.
...
While 【Peony】 was embroiled in her family's violent domestic dispute, several other players on Blue Star were also experiencing issues.
Scattered across different cities, their gaming pods all emitted high-decibel alarms at the same time.
When they crawled out of their pods, they were in the exact same state as 【Peony】: bloodshot eyes, bulging veins, minds consumed by malice, and an urge to indiscriminately harm anyone around them.
These players went mad almost simultaneously, with a time difference of less than a minute.
If anyone had noticed the coincidence, they would have realized that all of them were closed beta players of 《Deep Red Continent》 and were experiencing the same event in-game.
In the Liming City haunted house, a long-haired man had given several players a quest to find a pet.
The players entered the depths of the haunted house, encountered something strange, and were forced offline by the system.
Upon returning to reality, they had all gone insane.
...
【Peony】 was quickly brought under control by the police.
The Huadu police were highly efficient, arriving on the scene within five minutes of the call.
Two patrol officers arrived in uniform, handcuffs and walkie-talkies hanging from their belts.
By the time they broke down the door, 【Peony】 was in the middle of disposing of the body. Her mother had already fainted.
No matter how fast the police were, they couldn't outpace 【Peony】's killing intent.
Her mother had tried to stop her, but 【Peony】 had knocked her unconscious—likely making her the next target for disposal.
Even the two officers, who had seen it all, were startled by 【Peony】.
Her eyes held a gaze that could only belong to someone who had truly lost their mind—full of madness and pure malice.
Seeing the police, 【Peony】 immediately marked them as targets and charged, screaming, “You're all useless! You all deserve to die! Why did you never show up when I was being beaten to death? But the moment I hit someone else, you're here so fast! Why?!”
An officer sidestepped her, grabbed her wrist, and pinned her against the wall.
【Peony】 resisted violently, her strength surprisingly immense.
The other officer quickly grabbed handcuffs from his belt, and with a click, secured her wrists.
【Peony】 continued to struggle, jerking her head back in an attempt to headbutt the officer behind her.
The officer had no choice but to use his knee to pin her lower back, cuffing her hands behind her before the two of them hoisted her up and dragged her away.
The police then cordoned off the scene and called for an ambulance.
They noticed that 【Peony】's condition seemed off, as if she were under the influence of illegal substances.
Consequently, 【Peony】 was immediately sent to the nearest hospital. It wasn't until an ER doctor administered a sedative that she finally quieted down.
Afterward, the doctor arranged for a full-body examination.
Strangely, however, the medical exam found no trace of drugs or alcohol in her system, and the brain CT showed no abnormalities.
Her physical health was perfectly normal, but her mental state was clearly anything but.
The doctor could only conclude that she was a suspected psychiatric patient and recommended a transfer to the psychiatry department.
...
Once 【Peony】's mother regained consciousness, she was questioned by the police.
She recounted everything that had just happened.
When the police asked if 【Peony】 had shown any unusual behavior recently, she thought for a moment and said her daughter had been in a great mood lately because she had secured a closed beta slot for 《Deep Red Continent》 and received a free gaming pod from the company.
“But her father's temper was always bad. He thought it was indecent for a girl to play online games and wanted to sell the beta slot and the pod for money.”
Peony wouldn't agree, and they had argued several times before.
The police initially judged it as a common domestic dispute—a father-daughter argument where the daughter lost control and accidentally killed her father.
They assumed 【Peony】 possibly couldn't handle the reality of having killed her father, leading to an emotional breakdown and her subsequent insanity.
Such incidents happened dozens of times a month in Huadu.
The police planned to wait for Peony to stabilize before taking her statement and proceeding with the standard legal process.
However, they soon received a notice from their superiors.
This case was not ordinary.
The reason lay with that game.
《Deep Red Continent》 was currently in its closed beta phase, so the number of players was limited.
Since this virtual reality game was an epoch-making technological marvel, Blue Star's official agencies were monitoring every player who had secured a beta slot.
The authorities wanted to identify the developers behind the game and understand what physical and mental changes players might undergo.
So, when multiple beta players showed signs of madness immediately after logging off, the authorities noticed the anomaly instantly.
This was no coincidence.
These players were scattered across Blue Star; their only common link was the game.
They had all entered 《Deep Red Continent》 on the same day and logged off at the same time, exhibiting identical mental abnormalities.
This meant the problem most likely originated from the game itself, rather than the players' personal circumstances or family conflicts.
Rate on N.U.
