In this study, the authors propose a novel virtual full-duplex relaying scheme, which is referred to as centre-partition max-link relaying by using buffer-aided half-duplex relays for multi-hop decode-and-forward cooperative networks. In the proposed scheme, they aim to select two independent available links for data packet transmission in the same time slot, which, in turn, improves the overall performance of the system. By modelling the evolution of buffer state transition as a Markov chain, the performance of the system is analysed in terms of outage probability and end-to-end average packet delay. The state transition matrix of the Markov chain is constructed and its steady-state distribution is obtained to derive the outage probability. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme has a potential to provide significant outage performance with reduced average packet delay as compared to that of buffer-aided multi-hop decode-and-forward relaying networks using the conventional max-link scheme.