"It was so awful. I jumped out and saw a gun aimed right at my face. In that moment I completely lost it."
After laughing for a long while, Teacher Piao finally recovered.
"No way. Playing you is just feeding. I'm not even close—I can't play with you," PDD said in voice chat.
"I wasn't even trying… just messing around," Lin Fan said helplessly.
The main thing was PDD just swaggered out.
If Lin Fan saw a silhouette, he just shot once and got the kill—there was nothing he could do about it.
With PUBG eyes, everything looks crystal clear. Add in fast reactions, and Transport Ship is ridiculously easy.
Just a glance and you can fire instantly.
"You weren't even trying? It felt like you were going hard. You beat me until my brain went numb."
As PDD spoke, he opened Lin Fan's stream. Seeing the heat already at seven million, he showed a hint of envy.
But he adjusted quickly—no choice. League's heat is huge, and Brother Infinite Borders' streams are always entertaining. Even he liked watching, let alone everyone else.
Then he directly sent a Super Fire.
"Oh! Thanks Teacher Piao for the Super Fire—thank you, Teacher Piao."
"A bet's a bet. One kill is 100 yuan."
"Hahaha, we were just messing around."
"It's fine, it's fine. You played beautifully today. I'm your fan. Fans giving gifts to idols is normal."
"Ahem—viewers in Teacher Piao's stream, did you hear that? You all understand what Teacher Piao means, right? Hurry up and take action."
Lin Fan raised his eyebrows.
After that, chat started typing instantly.
"Is Brother Infinite Borders hinting at something?"
"Asking fans to send gifts? Openly asking for gifts!"
"What are you black fans talking about? Brother Infinite Borders never said that… hahaha, I can't hold it."
"A bunch of black fans!"
"Chicken what?"
"Our big brother works so hard. What's wrong with wanting some gifts?"
But at that moment, plenty of people actually did send Lin Fan gifts.
Lin Fan looked and quickly stopped them.
"Everyone, only spend what you can afford. My pro salary is pretty high. I can't tell you the number, but I can tell you it's already increased twice. My finances are much better than most people's.
And I also have a streaming contract. I really don't need gifts—I was just joking with Teacher Piao."
"Yeah. Same for my stream viewers too—only spend what you can afford. Don't send gifts in the morning and then have no money for dinner at night. That's not worth it." PDD hurriedly added, because seven or eight airplanes had already flown through his stream.
If kids were sending gifts, that would be even more troublesome.
"Not sure how their match turned out."
"I'll check."
Lin Fan and Teacher Piao were both on Douyu, so they could check streams freely.
But Xiao Gou and Gangzi were on Bilibili and Huya.
Three platforms competing—so they couldn't just stream it directly.
Lin Fan pulled out his phone to watch.
"No way, Gangzi. This is the strength of a champion? How am I one-tapping you?"
"Relax, I haven't warmed up yet. In a second you'll see what the AK God really is."
"I only know you're down six kills."
"There's still two minutes, what are you panicking for?"
Gangzi still had his style. Even though Xiao Gou was beating him up, his aura didn't collapse at all.
"I can still come back. Back when I played against Zzitai and the others, I still farmed them easily."
"Then why did you die again?" Xiao Gou popped his head with one shot.
Their talk plus the gunfights had Lin Fan laughing nonstop.
But you could tell from this that Xiao Gou really was good at CF.
In the end, Xiao Gou led by eight kills.
"It's over. They should be coming back to voice."
"Yeah. I saw it too. Xiao Gou is genuinely good at CF. He probably played a lot."
"He and JackeyLove used to play CS all the time. ADCs tend to have good aim—usually super accurate. One shot and someone's dead."
"True. Me as a top laner, my aim is rough. Half the time I just donate myself. After one game I'm exhausted."
"Heh heh heh… you sure it's not because the weak-side role exhausts you?" Gangzi said as soon as he came in.
Both Teacher Piao's and Lin Fan's chats started spamming like crazy.
"Gangzi really gets it. Even the national rank-one weak-side Shen Lingmin knows."
"Of course. They're from the same era…"
"Is it possible Teacher Piao is the one on bottom?"
"Damn, that angle is sharp. I think it's possible."
Once the chat went there, the whole thing derailed instantly.
"Gangzi, is your mouth still that hard?" Xiao Gou entered voice and asked.
"Come on. My form was bad today. Try again tomorrow and I'll shoot your head off!"
A man with nothing left but his mouth—behind him is just a flowerpot, but in his mouth his honor is still sky-high.
Everything can be soft—except the mouth.
Lose your mouth and your combat power drops ninety percent.
"Hahaha. Keep yapping, keep yapping. Anyway I took the money. If Brother Infinite Borders hadn't said 100 per kill, you'd owe me 8000 right now."
"Damn it! You show off after one win? Come, come. Another one. I'll show you what a real gun god is!"
"Forget it. Don't forget why we're here. The main thing is to run bomb mode with Brother Infinite Borders and practice coordination." Xiao Gou knew when to stop. Gangzi did have skill. If they played another, it wasn't guaranteed he'd win.
He'd already won—time to dip.
If Gangzi got his face back, then today's miserable one would be him.
Win and run—Gangzi would sulk all night, and tomorrow morning he'd still be muttering about it.
Better to let him mutter.
"Then get in the room. Erzi, you here yet? Five-stack, five-stack!"
"Why are you calling me? I said 8:30 sharp. Here I am."
"Start start start—time to show the power of five-stack!" Gangzi shouted, like he could vent all the frustration of losing to Xiao Gou with that one roar.
Now the main event finally began. The viewers instantly woke up.
After waiting so long, it was finally happening.
"Damn, they're really ridiculous. Five League pros, and they're five-stacking CF."
"I'm dizzy. Five-stack smurf stomp, huh?"
"Not gonna lie, with Brother Infinite Borders here, I feel like they can't lose."
"In five-stack it's easy to match into pros or top streamers."
"They matched into someone!"
"They matched into a top streamer carrying a boss for rank. If that's the case, the teams feel about even."
"Who?"
"Huya streamer Quechao and his group."
"Streamers are nothing. Brother Infinite Borders will one-tap them."
"His skill is actually really good. He's matched into pros a bunch of times before and still won."
"Not gonna lie, pros play ranked joking around. They don't really try. I think Brother Infinite Borders is already at pro level."
The ranked map was Black Town.
In game one, Lin Fan didn't take it that seriously.
He ran out looking for fights. If he saw someone, he clicked their head.
But when he reached A site, someone popped out and instantly killed him.
He reacted, but the shot he fired didn't hit a vital spot.
That was… unexpectedly fast.
Maybe the opponent had a god player—but the probability felt low.
After all, Lin Fan's reaction speed was top-tier in any circle.
If the other guy shot first, one step ahead of him, then his reactions were even faster than Lin Fan's.
Which meant… he pre-fired.
He definitely pre-fired.
Getting killed by a good player didn't feel like this. Getting killed by cheats felt extremely awkward.
"This Quechao has a problem," Lin Fan said immediately.
"Huh? What's up?"
"He has a problem. Pre-firing."
The moment he said it, the chat exploded.
"Cheating? I thought his skill was really good. I watched him clutch a bunch of rounds."
"If Brother Infinite Borders says he's cheating, I believe it. I trust him unconditionally. His judgment won't be wrong."
"Seriously? Losing means the other guy is cheating?"
"I used to like watching Brother Infinite Borders play CF, but after hearing that, I feel like he's all hype and no substance."
"Isn't it just because you don't want to lose face in front of friends? If you lose, you lose."
After that, Xiao Gou and the others got picked off one after another.
Quechao wiped the whole team by himself.
At the same time, in Quechao's stream:
"Tell me—am I strong or not? This is too easy. Just shoot."
"Brother Infinite Borders said you're cheating. And you're still acting big?"
"Cheater?"
In that instant, a massive wave of viewers flooded in.
Mainly because they were all talking in voice chat—when Lin Fan said it, the other streams all heard it too.
A ten-thousand-view streamer instantly jumped to 1.7 million.
"What cheat am I using? I'm just a small streamer, but isn't it inappropriate for them to frame me like this? They're just League pros—does that mean they have to be strong at CF too?"
"First, thanks to Brother Infinite Borders for thinking my skill looks like cheating. But I really didn't cheat."
His fans immediately stood up for him.
"Playing well equals cheating? A ton of people said Quechao cheats before. And in the end? There was never any official proof."
"Used to it. Quechao is the type who's very skilled but has low popularity. He just takes orders in his stream. He hits too hard and disturbed the big streamers' ranked fun."
"Definitely cheating!"
"Brother Infinite Borders' judgment can't be wrong. He could literally go pro."
"I agree. Pre-firing really is suspicious."
"It's fine. Just check replay later. With Brother Infinite Borders' heat, if it's submitted to officials, they'll deal with it."
"I also believe Brother Infinite Borders…"
Seeing that wall of chat, Quechao felt a little panicked.
He quietly turned off the cheats.
Once it was off, his previous level disappeared instantly.
He stepped out and Lin Fan headshot him immediately.
"Ahem… seeing so many people rush in is making me nervous. Big pressure."
His fans started flaming right away.
"Big streamer privilege? Brother Infinite Borders is a League pro with results. Having more people gives you pressure? Disgusting!"
"Support the streamer—blast them!"
"Throw one game and it's fine."
"Hahaha. This is obviously guilt. He turned the cheats off. Game one looked normal. Game two he plays like a tadpole."
For two or three rounds straight, he didn't even see the enemy—just got one-tapped.
If Lin Fan killed him every time, that would still be normal, but Gangzi and Zzitai also killed him. That was not normal.
His viewers started suspecting it too—did he get caught on the spot and now he doesn't dare use cheats?
Quechao got anxious.
Especially since the other side only had one game left.
He hurried into the backend and re-enabled wallhack and bullet tracking…
CF streamers basically all cheat—so what if he cheats one game?
He wasn't banned before. This time he surely wouldn't be banned either.
He turned into a god again on the map, spraying everyone down.
The moment Lin Fan saw the kill feed, he knew the opponent turned cheats back on.
"A site, A site!" he shouted in comms.
"Got it."
Lin Fan knew the opponent had wallhack. No matter what he did, he couldn't sneak.
With bullet tracking, Lin Fan only had one instant.
He had to land a headshot with a single bullet.
All he could do was hold a corner—ideally from farther away.
With cheats on, Quechao's confidence came back. Watching Lin Fan's position on wallhack, he ran over.
"Brothers, I was off earlier. Now I'm back."
"Watch me 1v5!"
He stepped out from A site's main door, instantly holding left click.
Lin Fan snapped in with a smooth scope-in and fired.
Bang!
One sniper headshot!
Lin Fan didn't even die to the stray bullets. He survived with 12 HP.
A hard-fought bomb-mode win.
After it ended, Lin Fan immediately pulled up the match record for replay.
Xiao Gou and the others did the same.
"Look here—he hadn't even seen me yet and he was already firing. Wallhack for sure!"
"You know how I judged it? The instant he appeared, I already shot. I'm not bragging—globally, you won't find reactions faster than mine…"
"With no vision, there's no way he reacts faster than me. If his firing is faster than mine, something's wrong."
"And look after that—he didn't even scope in while aiming. Just random clicks."
"In the last round, I predicted he'd come for me, so I waited here. Different from round one—I was mentally prepared. Plus I had a sniper. One shot is death."
"Damn it, that bastard really was cheating," Gangzi cursed.
"I'm reporting him."
"I'm reporting him too!" Zzitai had an awful time this game. He was already annoyed—and this guy actually cheated.
They contacted Huya management…
As for Lin Fan, he also clicked Report from the video interface.
Cheating streamers had become more and more rampant.
After all, when several million-view streamers played CF together, the heat was insane.
Any one of them alone could cause huge buzz—let alone all of them together.
In the blink of an eye, it hit Weibo trending.
Tencent officials noticed immediately.
They contacted CF's technical team and told them to investigate this ranked match thoroughly.
If this streamer "Quechao" was cheating—punish him hard!
The official Weibo also spoke up right away.
When Quechao saw the notice… he went dizzy.
——
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup