Lin Fan's livestream room.
"Keep going! Brother Infinite Borders and JackeyLove duo queue from start to finish is just bullying noobs."
"My mentality's broken. Brother Infinite Borders hasn't streamed League in over two months, and when he finally played two games… he was still support."
"Ahhh, Fan-ge! I want to see Fan-ge's Akali lesson—so damn cool!"
Even though this happened after eleven last night, it fermented overnight and spread like crazy across short-video apps. It already had a ton of heat.
Along with it, the pro players' Goose Goose Duck lobby shot straight onto Weibo trending.
Goose Goose Duck instantly blew up too, with a huge wave of new players rushing in.
"I also think Akali is insanely cool. If Brother Infinite Borders could do a tutorial, that'd be great."
"You guys are too greedy. I don't want anything else—I just hope Brother Infinite Borders plays a few more games of League of Legends."
"Yeah, same. As long as he trains more, he's a good comrade."
"My head hurts. Xiao Gou's yelling yesterday was way too demonic. Fan-ge is still echoing in my ears…"
Before TFT started, the chat was full of worry.
But once Lin Fan loaded into the game, the screen filled with question marks.
"This is the first time I've seen someone more ridiculous than Shen Chao in TFT."
"Shen Chao's washed. If you want real tech, you gotta watch Xun-ge. If you want immortal arts, only Brother Infinite Borders—everyone else is third-rate."
"Damn it—three-star Nidalee just drops in uninvited. I've never seen a 2-4 three-star in my life."
"Absurd. I'd already call it high-roll if you rolled it at 3-1, but he free-high-rolled the whole thing at 2-4. Brother Infinite Borders just eats, huh."
"This patch, Shapeshifter Nidalee isn't that strong. Without Shyvana it's hard to take first."
"Brain-dead take. If you hit early, your economy's huge. Plus, three-star Nidalee is strong enough. Stabilize, rush level nine, roll one Shyvana and you just eat. With this kind of insane free-hit, you don't even need to save econ."
Because of that, the other players all ran over to Lin Fan's board to spam question marks.
Mainly because he had way too much money. Doing almost nothing and still getting 40 gold in interest by neutrals!
That was the charm of win-streaking plus free-hitting a three-star Nidalee.
But Nidalee really did rely on Shyvana to be the carry.
Later on, he only found one Shyvana and couldn't even two-star it—he was dead in the water.
Even with a god-roll start, he only managed second place.
"What a pity. I've got a bad feeling—the system is going to target me today! And today's date is kind of sensitive, so the pressure's huge. I'm a pro player and I'm still struggling."
"That's right, I'm a TFT pro. This tournament is very important to me…"
"Quick, watch two more games and see how the luck goes."
Another game ended. This one's luck was still great—he got a Dragonmancer Flame emblem, so obviously he went for the Fireworks Daeja line.
Then he smoothly hit the full comp at eight, pushed nine, and splashed a Soraka.
The strength shot through the roof.
He successfully punished Dragonmancer Nunu and took a big win.
After three games, the time was already 11:00.
As usual, Luo Sheng came to the training room to check in.
Seeing everyone still grinding, he nodded.
But when his eyes swept over Knight's seat, there was no one there, and his brows instantly furrowed.
"Where's Knight?"
"No idea. He didn't come train yesterday either. When I got up this morning, I didn't see Knight," Da Huang quickly said when he noticed Luo Sheng staring at him.
After all, their dorms were close, and a lot of club news got learned through him.
"Alright. I got it." With a dark face, Luo Sheng walked out of the training room. His dissatisfaction with Knight had clearly hit the limit.
After all, esports is all about strength. The match against V5 made it obvious Knight was useless—he couldn't carry the banner.
Add in the negative rumors, plus Lin Fan emerging during this period, and TES had long since kicked Knight out of their future plans.
Originally they wanted to part on good terms, but wasn't Knight basically trying to tear the relationship apart like this?
Skipping training yesterday could be understood, but if he wasn't even at the club today, that was way too far.
Luo Sheng planned to pass a message to Guo Hao and see what management decided.
"Ugh… I should've played Dump Truck. Why are there so many Dump Trucks this game?"
Just as he was about to leave the training room, Luo Sheng heard Lin Fan's regretful voice.
"Ahem… Lin Fan's the same—pure talent. How did we not discover his potential in S11? Only eyes for Knight? If we'd found him and put him mid, we wouldn't have missed playoffs and gotten knocked out without even getting to play in the gauntlet."
Thinking that, Luo Sheng felt even more regret.
Based on everyone's analysis, S11 Lin Fan was absolutely at his peak as a pro.
After this, if he didn't train, he'd slowly decline bit by bit.
As a coach, the pressure was huge.
He almost wanted to pull out his phone and post on Zhihu:
What do you do when you have a rebellious pro player who refuses to train?
…
After three hours of morning "training," he quietly gained another 200+ points.
Lin Fan's rating reached 1540—top ten on the server.
For the viewers, this was the first time they'd seen such a shocking climb.
Before, to avoid getting sniped, he'd always climbed in secret.
Even on stream he only played one or two games—an hour and done.
It was rare to see him grind at high intensity like today.
"Brother Infinite Borders is hilarious. For a second I don't even know if he's a League pro or a TFT pro."
"Can't you tell? He's obviously a TFT pro—high-intensity training here every day."
"The tournament's this afternoon. Training hard in the morning—isn't that exactly what a pro should do?"
The chat was ridiculous too.
It left Lin Fan not knowing what to say.
"Alright, alright, alright~"
"Morning training's about done. How about we run Apex this afternoon? It's been five or six days since I played—feels a bit rusty."
The Apex fans who had been lurking instantly got hyped.
"Holy crap! Been waiting forever—finally!"
"I really love Brother Infinite Borders' Lifeline."
"Log in, log in—let me snipe Brother Infinite Borders once."
"I watch other streamers play—none of them play as well as Brother Infinite Borders."
"Gonna learn some tech."
"Why play a healer? Isn't Wraith cooler? The mechanics are insane."
"Solo-queue Wraith—get knocked, instant quit."
"Keep it simple: Gibraltar. Missile strike—doesn't that bombing feel good? Just solo carry. Teammates? Who cares. In this environment I'll one-tap everyone. Save teammates? Save my ass."
"True. The game's already low-popularity and the environment's trash. Isn't that just asking to die?"
While the chat argued, Lin Fan quietly logged into Apex Legends.
To be honest, this game's competitiveness in China was still far behind. Even Naraka: Bladepoint had overtaken it…
It was just too slow to grab market share. Besides, League of Legends siphoned off a huge crowd—those players didn't play anything else.
Even if they heard something was popular, they wouldn't try it. At most they'd look for chill Steam games—like Among Us before, and now Goose Goose Duck.
As for all the other random stuff, people talked about it, but they really wouldn't go play.
In that situation, promotion became very difficult.
And the broader environment later wasn't great either—mainly for new players.
The newbie experience was so bad that they naturally wouldn't keep playing.
No newcomers means old players quit one after another, and it becomes a vicious cycle.
Of course, that's a general trend in the game industry.
That requires the designers to adjust the patch and slow the decline.
But people play games to relax—who cares how long a game survives?
Still, matchmaking was fast. Sixty players filled instantly.
"…Not bad. The two teammates I matched with are kind of ridiculous."
Seeing both of their KDAs were under 1.0, Lin Fan treated them as transparent.
This game, he had to carry alone.
"Jia Jia, protect the healer. Jia Jia, protect the healer." In voice chat, a Smoke Lady player spoke up—and it was a girl's voice. Her ID didn't look like a voice changer either.
More importantly, with a KDA under 1.0, it added credibility to her identity.
"The healer looks like a god. His stats are kind of crazy… The two of us should just behave and not cause trouble."
Hearing that, the viewers lost it.
"L. Suggest Brother Infinite Borders knife them one by one—send them off. Man-sisters are disgusting."
"Rare to see a 'net princess' who can actually recognize her own position?"
"That many words together and I can't even tell if you're praising her or roasting her."
Lin Fan didn't respond to their chatter.
Since he was carrying, there was no need to spend time babysitting teammates.
Unfortunately, he picked Lifeline at the start. If he wanted to play like a macho man, grabbing the free-kill kid and hard-carrying would've been better.
But healer was fun too. When you ran into good players, it was a lot of fun—you could feel that long-lost teamwork.
It was the same in Naraka too: Lin Fan leaned more toward playing Kurumi rather than Matari.
Teamwide healing always held a core position in battle royale games.
Back in Naraka's healer meta, every match had Kurumi.
You could even rely on Kurumi's healing to loot in the zone—absurd.
Lifeline's balance was done well, though. The drone couldn't keep healing inside the zone forever—zone damage would break it.
That was reasonable…
"Damn—what is this, Brother Infinite Borders? You've got issues. How do you get full gear this fast at Hydro Dam?"
"Blue helmet is normal, but what the hell is that purple armor?"
"Assault rifle is there, shotgun backup is there, so much ammo—now just get a few Shield Batteries and it's over!"
"Not gonna lie, Brother Infinite Borders' luck is ridiculous. Lucky Goddess is definitely blessing him. Landing on gear like this—who can beat you right now?"
Before the chat could even finish, a free-kill kid ran straight at him.
Lin Fan moved in, point-blank Lifeline with a shotgun—two blasts dropped him, then one more to finish.
"So strong, big brother!"
"Already killing people this fast."
"I'm going to loot the box…"
"Instead of that, go find your own stuff. He didn't even have armor."
"But your purple armor is so cool."
"Yeah. I think so too."
"Hahahaha, Brother Infinite Borders is hilarious. I know what you mean but I won't say it."
"What's there to say? If you want purple armor, go find it yourself. You're a beggar, huh?"
After he killed the free-kill kid, the nearby teammates rushed over.
They wanted to grab the banner and revive their teammate.
That was obviously dangerous.
Especially since Lin Fan was deliberately camping the body—he spotted the approaching dog immediately.
Bloodhound reacted fast too, popping their scan and spotting Lin Fan hiding on the side.
But with both gear gap and mechanics gap, the squad got wiped.
Those PUBG-honed shots weren't a joke. With his insane reactions, going pro would be no problem at all.
Next, it was pure highlight time.
From Hydro Dam he sprinted toward the bridges, heading for Bunker.
This area was a tier-one loot zone. Even though Lin Fan had purple armor, his helmet was still a bit lacking.
On the way, he wiped two more squads.
It scared the two teammates he'd matched with.
At first, when Lin Fan said he was running into a tier-one loot zone, they didn't want to go. They wanted to rat the edge and enter late.
From what they said, that way they could survive longer and place higher.
But if the healer is charging first, why should Smoke Lady and "Hermes" be hiding even further back?
Sure, they were bad—but you have to remember Apex's first principle: protect the healer! You can lose the teamfight, but the healer must be the last to die!
That's Apex players' last shred of dignity.
Protect every team healer!
And then…
They died fast. Charging in front, firing two shots, and instantly got focused and deleted.
Lin Fan took a deep breath and started operating.
His recoil control was steady; shots hit heads. He knocked one first, and the pressure immediately dropped.
Then he mowed down the other two—1v2, full spray.
"Go go go go go go!"
"So cool, so cool~"
Even while downed, the two sisters crawled toward Lin Fan's Lifeline, shouting in voice chat as they went.
With a jump-shot finishing the last one—
"Ahhh, woohoo, that aim is so cool!"
"Res me, res me…"
"Res me first! They look so fat—loot, loot."
"…"
Lin Fan could only deploy the D.O.C. drone to pick them up.
After that fight, everyone upgraded from peashooters to real guns.
"Ranran, we can win this one."
"Big Hammer Bro, you're really so safe to be around. Can I add you after the game?" She ignored her own teammates and tried to cling to Lin Fan.
A top player carrying you, letting you loot every time—how could that not be amazing?
While the game wasn't over, hurry and get the friend slot.
If the game ended and he left, there might not be another chance.
She wasn't new to duoing with strong players, but this experience was completely different—so effortless.
"My head hurts. One game and I'm already done. You still want to play more with me? No. Rejected!"
"Big brother~ little sister is begging you…"
"Damn it, hurry and kill. After we're done, we leave. If you're a man-sister, that's even more disgusting."
As soon as Lin Fan said that, the stream chat instantly got the imagery.
"Just quit, Brother Infinite Borders…"
"Damn it—I'm a pro player. I don't get involved with women. Don't do this."
With teammate pressure, Lin Fan went full map hunting for kills.
Battle healer—today!
"You are the new kill leader!"
But later on, the enemies were all high-level players.
With two deadweights, the pressure really was too big.
After he went down, he even got pinched from both sides.
A 1v3 was still maybe operable.
A 1v6? No chance.
In the end, he didn't manage to win. He took third place.
"Damn it… I wanted to relax before the tournament, not raise my blood pressure!"
——
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup