Listen to Master

"Damn..."

At that, everyone took several steps back, staring at Deng Zhiwei in horror.

"I didn't mean to! My master forced me to do it. If I hadn't, I'd be the one who died." Deng Zhiwei spoke in a frenzy.

Song Linjia was shocked. "So you killed one of our classmates?"

Everyone's brows furrowed.

The people originally in the instance were like NPCs native to a game world. It was unlikely they would die or kill one another.

Deng Zhiwei said he'd killed someone, so it could only have been another player like them, someone who'd entered the instance.

He hadn't saved Zhou Miaomiao, yet he'd killed another classmate?

Deng Zhiwei seemed ready to snap. "You think I had it easy? I didn't dare close my eyes all night. Every time I did, I saw her face, all bloody and mangled!"

Everyone backed away several more steps, as though they'd seen a ghost.

Only Li Ran remained calm. "What's your mission?"

"Listen to Master. I mean, the mission's called 'Listen to Master.'" Deng Zhiwei answered in terror.

"Did you complete it?"

"Yes."

Li Ran continued, "Why did your master make you kill someone?"

At the question, Deng Zhiwei shuddered. His face filled with terror. "She... She likes collecting women's faces..."

Everyone's brows immediately furrowed.

Xiao Yi asked, "What do you mean?"

"She's practically obsessed with beautiful women's faces. She's a very alluring woman, beautiful and sexy. She lures customers into her shop under the pretense of making them beautiful with cosmetic treatments, then somehow cuts off their faces... Then... then she has me clean up afterward..."

"If I don't obey, Master will eat me."

"So I dragged that person into the bathroom... In the end, I... I flushed it all down the sink... down the toilet..."

"Actually, while I was cleaning up, she woke up... Hahaha, she was awake... She was awake..."

Everyone's expressions changed, and fear showed on their faces.

The look on Deng Zhiwei's face was no longer one of terror. It had been replaced by a manic grin and feverish excitement.

Song Linjia was furious. "You're a monster!"

"Everyone, back away..."

Xiao Yi, Chen Jiabin, Qiu Zhongji, and Song Linjia retreated in terror.

Deng Zhiwei's face contorted unnaturally, and his limbs twitched as though he were having a seizure.

"What's happening to Deng Zhiwei? This isn't right." Qiu Zhongji's face darkened.

No one could answer him.

"At the time, I... I was really scared, really terrified. I swore I'd never kill anyone again, but... but the feeling inside me was something I'd never experienced before. I lay in bed all night, unable to suppress my excitement and exhilaration..."

A line of text appeared above Deng Zhiwei's head.

(Warning: He is infected with the virus and may turn into a monster at any moment. Evacuate immediately.)

Li Ran stepped forward. "He's infected with the virus."

"We'd better get out of here first!"

None of them were fools. Deng Zhiwei's state was far beyond merely being "not right." He looked like a monster in the middle of a transformation: his eyes and nose were crooked, foam spilled from his mouth, and something writhed wildly beneath his skin, changing his body.

"Yeah."

They quickly headed for the community's entrance.

At the community entrance.

"Did you encounter a huge fat guy earlier?" Xiao Yi asked.

Li Ran nodded. "Yeah. He died. He stuffed himself until he burst."

"Burst?"

Chen Jiabin, Qiu Zhongji, and Song Linjia looked confused.

"He was my friend, an athlete with incredible self-discipline and self-control. He only ate fat-loss meals every day and kept a strict watch on his body-fat percentage. He was extremely demanding of himself. Unfortunately, when I found him this morning, he'd turned into that."

Xiao Yi pushed up his glasses, his face full of pain and self-reproach.

"What happened to Deng Zhiwei, then?" Qiu Zhongji asked.

"Just like Li Ran said, they were all infected with the virus," Xiao Yi replied.

"How did they get infected? Where?"

"Yeah, why aren't we affected?"

Deng Zhiwei's terrifying appearance had frightened everyone badly. Learning that he was infected had only made them more anxious.

The virus was invisible and intangible, with no discernible pattern. How could they protect themselves?

Wear masks?

Li Ran remembered the warning they'd received before entering the Weird World:

"This virus amplifies the desires in a person's heart. Once infected, they become monsters controlled by their desires."

He looked at Xiao Yi. "Although your friend was an extremely disciplined sports student, he'd suppressed his appetite for years to control his body-fat percentage. When the virus took advantage of that, all his repressed desire burst out like a ferocious beast breaking free from its cage. In the end, he became a monster that ate uncontrollably and stuffed himself to death."

"Put simply, the virus brings out a person's true nature in full. It can kill people and turn them into monsters."

The others agreed with Li Ran's view.

Just then, Chen Jiabin sighed. "Sigh, I've known Deng Zhiwei since we were kids. He was my next-door neighbor. Even as a child, he liked sneaking around with a slingshot to shoot girls in the butt. He was a coward and a creep. He barely stood out at school, but I knew he still played pranks on girls behind their backs. He had the nerve to want it, but not the nerve to act. He was a strange guy without many friends. I don't know how he ended up being selected for the instance."

Song Linjia said, "He's a classic case of someone who craves something but doesn't dare express himself. People like that want women's attention, yet also want to appear indifferent. In real life, they're easily overlooked and have little presence."

Song Linjia continued, "In criminal psychology, becoming addicted to killing means that killing women gives someone a sense of achievement, a feeling of becoming powerful from a position of weakness. Inferiority and cowardice make them unable to handle relationships with the opposite sex, so they choose brutality as a way to vent their emotions in secret. They go from being unable to win someone's love to enjoying the feeling of being in control."

"The Desire Virus turned him into a true serial killer."

After hearing that, everyone looked at Song Linjia with new respect.

"Impressive. I didn't know you'd studied this stuff." Li Ran gave Song Linjia a thumbs-up, then looked toward Building One. "The information I have is that someone in Building One..."

Li Ran briefly told them that Wang Gan from Building One had killed Zhou Miaomiao, and warned them that he was extremely dangerous. He said nothing about "scavenging" in the community, since that was related to his Golden Finger.

Qiu Zhongji shared what he'd learned: there was a woman dressed like a rich lady in the community's bar. He, Xiao Yi, and Chen Jiabin had all tried, but none of them had managed to trigger a mission.

Song Linjia shared something she'd found out: there was a strange old woman by the lake, muttering to herself as she stared at the bottom. It was very unsettling, and Song Linjia hadn't dared approach her.

Xiao Yi suggested, "Since we're all here, why don't we start with the first one? The old man in the security office. Who wants to try?"

Everyone nodded, and they headed for the security office.

They'd barely reached the entrance when a loud bang rang out.

"Bang!"

The noise startled them, and they immediately looked toward it.

Xiao Yi pushed up his black-rimmed glasses and said quietly, "That's the old man from the security office I told you about. He's kicking the door again. Who wants to go meet him?"

"I haven't completed a single mission yet. I'll take this one." Chen Jiabin strode forward, his feet turned outward.

Qiu Zhongji hesitated, but Chen Jiabin had already beaten him to it, so he gave up.

Li Ran didn't compete for the chance. He wanted to observe the old man, too.

Chen Jiabin went to the security office entrance and called inside, "Old man, do you need a hand?"

A slightly plump, bald old man with a white beard came out, his uniform hanging open. He carried a security guard's hat in his hand and strode out, glaring and bristling. "You want to help me?"

"Yes, sir." Chen Jiabin replied with a smile.

The old man raised his eyes, brushed the dust off his hat with one hand, and gave a slight frown. "All right."

As soon as the old man finished speaking, Chen Jiabin stared blankly ahead.

"What's wrong with him?" Qiu Zhongji asked.

"If I'm not mistaken, he's triggered a mission and is reading its description."

Xiao Yi had experience accepting missions and immediately realized that Chen Jiabin had triggered one.

Li Ran looked puzzled and thought, Talking to him is enough to trigger a mission?

Just as the thought crossed his mind, Chen Jiabin finished reading the mission. He suddenly dropped to his knees with a thud and looked up at the old man in despair.