When is it in a child’s best interest for its parents to kill it? One Chinese father believes he has found one instance that action is justified.
Well, sort of...
A 23-year-old named Xiao Feng quit his job at a software development company in China after only three months because he was, reportedly, unhappy with the work.
With little else to do, Xiao promptly went home, turned on his computer, tuned into some online gaming, and dropped out of the workforce.
Leaving the adult world behind, Xiao gave up his quest for gainful employment. His father (who goes by “Mr. Feng” in all of the reports) decided that he would have to take extreme measures to break his son free of his crippling addiction.
After contemplating the ifs for a bit, he came up with a clever solution: kill his son.
Well... kill his son’s character.
So, Mr. Feng sought out and hired “online assassins,” who would kill his son each and every time his son logged into games with his character.
(That’s the job I want! Why didn’t they ever tell me in middle school that I could make money by killing people in video games? Heck, most people pay on a monthly basis to get to do that!)
Anyway, after seeing his character killed upon login time after time, Xiao began to get the feeling that something was wrong. Xiao asked around the gaming world a little before he unearthed Mr. Feng’s plot.
Instead of beating around the bush, Xiao went directly to his father to confront him, insisting that he had no intention of quitting before he found fulfilling work.
Hmm. That’s one way to do it.
I’m still waiting on the report that says that Mr. Feng upped the ante and hired a real assassin for his son...

Printed in the January 10, 2013