March 31st.
A day everyone in the LoL community had their eyes on.
JDG vs WBG.
JD Gaming against Weibo Gaming!
The winner would take the final top-four spot—and also the long-awaited revival life.
At the very least, the pressure in the upcoming bracket would be much lower.
Lin Fan got up early and started his stream.
Since he'd wasted over an hour yesterday, he'd only done a bit of grinding in Genshin, and no one even organized a Goose Goose Duck lobby, so he ended the stream early.
To satisfy viewers who still wanted more, Lin Fan promised he'd stream earlier today—so he got up at the crack of dawn.
When Luo Sheng opened the coach's office door and saw the lights on in the training room, he nearly jumped.
He quickly checked his watch.
He'd come early—6:30 a.m.—and after breakfast it was only 7:00.
And someone was already in the training room. Could it be JackeyLove and the others pulled an all-nighter?
Even with a full fourteen days off, pulling an all-nighter on day one would still wreck their bodies.
He'd already warned them: no all-nighters, no all-nighters—why wouldn't they listen?
These players were harder to manage one after another.
With one, he worried they trained too much.
With the other, he worried they didn't train at all.
Two extremes.
If only Lin Fan and JackeyLove could average each other out—then it would be perfect.
No, he had to hurry and get them to sleep.
He pushed open the training room door—then froze.
Why was it Lin Fan?
Up this early?
Luo Sheng had watched Lin Fan log off right at midnight last night.
Punctual. No chance he'd stayed up.
So… he rested properly, then woke up early to secretly practice?
The thought made Luo Sheng even more excited.
Finally caught you.
I knew it—how could someone who never practiced on camera suddenly pull out new picks so effortlessly?
He'd always suspected Lin Fan trained in secret, but never found proof.
And now he'd stumbled right into it.
Everything finally made sense.
He played other games at normal times, but got up early to train.
Perfect time allocation. A true time-management master.
That was actually… pretty damn good…
So Luo Sheng tiptoed into the room, wanting to see what champion Lin Fan was practicing.
Damn.
What am I even hoping for?
I've fallen for this trap so many times already.
Last time, wasn't he listening to a Guo Degang crosstalk routine?
And this time was even crazier—why the hell was he playing CrossFire this early in the morning?
Watching Lin Fan toss a grenade forward, Luo Sheng felt his brain start echoing nonstop:
"Fire in the hole!"
"Fire in the hole…"
The word "clown" was basically written on his face.
"Lin Fan, you're playing CrossFire this early?"
"Morning, Coach. If I don't play CrossFire, it's too early and I don't know what to do. I said I'd make up the stream time today, so I came earlier."
"Looking at the room, I didn't expect there'd still be so many people in the morning."
Luo Sheng subconsciously glanced over.
The backend showed 11,000 viewers—real, live viewers.
Good grief.
Over eleven thousand people, this early, watching a League pro play CrossFire?
Damn it—has the world gone crazy?
A League pro refuses to stream League and plays all kinds of random games instead…
And as the coach, I'm somehow thinking he's playing pretty well?
Something's wrong. Something's really wrong.
Need to breathe. Need to breathe…
This afternoon, he still had to watch WBG vs JDG.
He felt JDG had the better odds, but WBG's performance in Round 3 had been kind of insane.
TheShy seemed fully back in form.
TES's top lane was relatively weaker—Zoom was steady, but against someone like TheShy, the pressure would be huge.
So they had to study—watch everything and figure out how to draft and set up tactics.
If they really ended up facing WBG later… then if it came down to it, they could only send in Da Huang.
His Tryndamere was pretty good at countering TheShy's champion pool.
They hadn't given him stage time for a simple reason: the "correct five" had been on a win streak, so there was no need to change.
But in playoffs, when you're planning tactics, you have to consider everyone's champion pools and the right fits.
And there was one more issue… Knight's arrangement.
Per Guo Hao's instructions, they had to let him play to build up his market value.
That did make sense.
His regular season performance was awful, and he hadn't played at all later on.
No one really knew what his true level was anymore.
Sure, he'd been on a ranked win streak, which suggested great form—but ranked was ranked. Match play was still a question mark.
At least, Luo Sheng didn't trust him.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have benched Knight for the entire LNG series.
Luo Sheng circled Knight's name and fell into thought.
By his own logic, Knight shouldn't get any chances in the coming matches.
But he also had to consider the club's interests.
Lin Fan's five-million salary sounded high, but compared to Knight's, it was nothing.
Knight's annual salary was the highest of any mid laner in the league!
Letting that asset rot on the bench would be a huge loss for TES.
…
"Just tell me I'm not cracked! On a map like Transport Ship, I farm it—easy ACE, no sweat."
"I'm not even joking. I've played this since I was eight. This sniper? I'm telling you, I can flick anyone."
He jumped out, scoped in, aimed—
Bang!
It was cool.
But the one who died wasn't the enemy.
It was Lin Fan's own character.
"…"
A bit awkward, but Lin Fan was born thick-skinned.
"The other side has a pro too. He scopes faster than me."
The chat spammed like crazy.
"LMAO—this is Brother Infinite Borders' pre-education symptom: stubborn trash talk!"
"That mouth is so hard, he can go toe-to-toe with Gangzi!"
"Yare… are you playing games with your mouth?"
"Don't force it—Gangzi can't out-mouth Brother Infinite Borders. But in CrossFire, Gangzi did win a championship once. On that point, Brother Infinite Borders can't compare."
"Honestly, I kind of want to see Brother Infinite Borders compete in other games. If he really makes a run and wins a title, that'd be hilarious."
"Brother Infinite Borders started this early—when are you ending stream?"
"CrossFire looks fun. I just want to know when it ends. I want to see the streamer play other games."
"At this hour, he's probably the only one awake. So he can only play these shooters."
"Ten-thousand-person petition: we want League of Legends."
"Morning feels like a good time for a game. What rank is Brother Infinite Borders now?"
"He hasn't logged in for over a month—what rank do you think? I just checked, the decay already dropped him off."
…
"There are plenty of good players, but the overall intensity is still lower than before. It's too early—there just aren't that many people."
"Also, who else gets up before seven to stream for you?"
"Everyone still here at this time truly loves CrossFire. You didn't live through the era where you walked into an internet café and every screen was CrossFire—that was real glory."
"But later, more games came out, and CrossFire couldn't hold on. No joke, I even wanted to go pro back then."
"Bai Sha was strong, right? I'm telling you, when I dueled snipers with him, he couldn't beat me…"
Bang!
If the corpse on the ground wasn't Lin Fan's, that would've been more convincing.
"Ahem. My sniping form isn't great today. Two rounds in a row, I scoped slower than the other side. I'm old—my reactions can't keep up."
"Even in pro matches, I already feel it's hard."
"Come on—let me show you what a Defuse King looks like!"
With Team Deathmatch about to end, Lin Fan queued for Bomb mode.
"? 'Old and slow'? In matches I only see you hand up, knife down—one kill per slash."
"Brother Infinite Borders never says anything honest. Smiling while he slaughters people."
"But watching Brother Infinite Borders play CrossFire is nostalgic. Back then, the moment I walked into an internet café, I'd open this game."
"Same. I even got chased five miles by my dad with a broom because of this game. Youth was reckless—guns looked cool."
"Might be worth downloading again, just for casual fun."
"Life pressure is too high. Even entertainment has become a luxury. I don't even play League anymore—watching Brother Infinite Borders' streams is still pretty relaxing."
"Hahaha. League is work, other games are life. I get it. It's helpless… the game you like least ends up being the thing you live off."
Since he started early, a bunch of oldheads showed up in the room, reminiscing about the past.
But this time slot really was commuter time.
Before eight, it was mostly miserable office workers.
As for college kids, they wouldn't wake up until the sun was high.
They had no feelings for CrossFire—if anything, it felt nostalgic.
Young people preferred PUBG.
Otherwise, CrossFire's daily active users wouldn't keep dropping. Now it relied on giving away weapons just to lure people to log in.
Like QQ Speed—log in and they throw huge piles of coupons at you.
But giveaways were giveaways. The dog-planner still tried like crazy to scam money out of players' pockets.
Lin Fan's stance was simple: he only took the free stuff.
Not a single paid tier would get a cent from him.
The chat talked about life and the old internet café days.
But Lin Fan was slaughtering in Bomb mode!
"Brothers, am I cracked or what! Solo wipe. Forget my nickname already? Gunfight Prince. Anyone who tries to gunfight me here has no good ending."
"Holy shit, Brother Infinite Borders is this insane?"
"666666—really solo wiped?"
"Wild. Sniping like trash, but rifles like a demon?"
"Feels like me. I can't snipe either."
"That's talent. Brother Infinite Borders was born for this—he's good at every game. Ridiculous talent."
"Yeah. Which other pro streams all day? There is one: doinb streams constantly, but doinb streams League."
"Only Brother Infinite Borders doesn't stream League, yet still slaughters on the pro stage. Absurd!"
Starting early had one upside: there were almost no haters in the room.
All fans—so of course there was no shortage of praise.
But most were League fans, so the topic naturally drifted back to League anyway.
"Today there's still WBG vs JDG. After that, there's over ten days off. Then there won't be any matches to watch."
"I'm more bullish on WBG. Shy got three MVPs—form maxed."
"JDG is more team-oriented. 369 isn't bad either. I think JDG's odds are higher."
Lin Fan was an old CrossFire gun, and with his boosted reaction speed, his skill hadn't faded—if anything, it was stronger than back then.
After a little warm-up, he started spraying hard.
Everyone was stunned.
Did he swap players midstream?
Two games in, it felt insanely satisfying.
Wait—was what he said actually true?
Could Bai Sha really not beat Brother Infinite Borders in a sniper duel?
"You guys don't actually believe that, right? Bai Sha was born in '87. When he was pro, Brother Infinite Borders was still in elementary school…"
"Sure, but he's actually playing really well. Personally, I think it's pro-level."
After Lin Fan put on a two-game show, more people started arriving in the training room.
JackeyLove saw Lin Fan and nearly jumped.
"Holy shit, Fan-ge—up this early?"
"Mini vacation. Relaxing. So I got up early on purpose."
JackeyLove didn't find it strange.
"Two games?"
"Huh? I can't. I don't know how. I can't play with you." JackeyLove shook his head like a rattle drum.
"I'm not a freak like you. I can't avoid League for a whole month and still keep insane hands. You're basically training League through other games. We're not the same."
"Maybe you're just that good at CrossFire because the way you aim in League is good."
"In the next match, if you pull out Graves, I wouldn't even be surprised…"
Holy—
Was today's task reward something you set up for me, JackeyLove?
Perfect timing.
The slacking task reward: max proficiency Graves…
If I master this champ after today, that'll be impossible to explain.
'Training through other games'—confirmed.
"Ahem. I'm good at Graves. It has nothing to do with me playing CrossFire."
"Damn it, Fan-ge, I didn't wrong you. Why are you trying to take my spot? You even practiced Graves?"
"Mid Graves is pretty normal, isn't it? Clear waves, clear jungle, explode your economy!"
Tian rolled his eyes.
"Armpit stink."
The chat, hearing the three of them, spammed again.
"Don't, don't corrupt JackeyLove. The kid woke up early to train and you're dragging him to play CrossFire. Ten years of merit gone."
"True. Watching TES lately, JackeyLove being normal is rare. If he plays snipers and then ints on stage, Brother Infinite Borders is guilty of death."
"Open Genshin. Single-player game—don't hurt anyone else."
"But I do think Brother Infinite Borders' champ pool is weird. Is he really trying to take Tian's position?"
"I think he should, then buy Rookie, then buy TheShy for top. TES championship roster instantly complete."
"Bold… so IG's true lineage is TES, huh?"
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup