"Brother Infinite Borders' Syndra… even though I've seen it many times, whenever I see his godlike performance again, I'm still unbelievably excited.
As long as he can maintain his current form, I can only say: the future is bright, the future is bright!" Principal Guan said.
But the live audience wasn't buying it.
If Wawa and Miller said it, fine—but what are you, Principal Guan?
King of caster curses—don't you dare mess things up!
You should be loudly doubting him instead, then let Brother Infinite Borders slap you in the face over and over.
"Right. And congratulations again to TES for defeating RNG 3–0 and winning the Spring Split Champion title.
From regular season to playoffs, we've seen TES's overall form get better and better. Their championship run is honestly something many people expected."
"Today's finals were also extremely exciting—especially the mind games in game two. Brother Infinite Borders' Akali pulled off a Flying Thunder God. Every teamfight he pinpointed GALA's position."
"Exactly. Brother Infinite Borders killed him numb. Now it's truly 'Akali is here!'"
Miller's line instantly set the vibe, and everyone burst out laughing.
"Once again, congratulations to TES for winning the Spring Split Champion title!"
At that moment, the arena erupted in cheers.
* * *
This was TES fans' carnival.
From the despair at the start of Spring Split to this championship moment, they'd been through too much.
Now it was finally harvest time—and of course they celebrated together.
The cheers grew louder and louder, and even infected many neutral spectators, who joined the celebration too.
"TES! TES! TES!"
"Brother Infinite Borders, godlike! Brother Infinite Borders, godlike!"
At this moment, the arena truly became Brother Infinite Borders' Plaza—most of the crowd stood up!
"Hurry, hurry, hurry—shake hands and finish interviews fast. Time is money!" Lin Fan urged his teammates as he strode toward RNG's booths.
The others were still celebrating, but seeing Lin Fan like that, they all understood.
No wonder during the match he kept yelling, "Push faster, end faster."
Fan-ge really was desperate to clock out.
Especially since game two dragged on so long—he was dying inside.
"Follow him, follow him… hahaha…" JackeyLove muttered, then couldn't hold back and laughed.
But the moment they reached RNG, the smile disappeared immediately.
Winning was winning, but shaking hands while grinning wasn't appropriate.
Especially when Xiaohu's face was pitch-black.
Game two was barely "passable," but game three was a full-on execution.
Solo-killed at three minutes, then died the moment he returned to lane. Returned—died. Returned—died.
It was clearly a deliberate plan: smash mid lane directly, instead of playing through side lanes like before.
So after game three, Xiaohu's score was 0–9.
And the game was short—only 18 minutes. It was basically a respawn simulator.
How could he have a good expression?
So yes—celebrate when it's time to celebrate. Not here.
After handshakes, everyone ran toward the championship trophy.
As for Luo Sheng, the moment TES won, he was already waiting backstage.
Seeing everyone sprint toward the trophy, he immediately charged out of the tunnel.
How could celebration be missing him?
Da Huang and Qingtian followed behind Luo Sheng.
Knight moved slowly toward the stage.
Being carried to a Spring Split title made him feel awful.
In the entire TES roster, the one who least wanted them to win was him.
And not only did they win—the guy who stole his starting spot, Lin Fan, hard-carried and completely crushed Xiaohu.
"Hmph. If it were me, I could kill Xiaohu casually too," Knight thought bitterly.
Still—Weibo and JDG had already sent offers.
Summer Split… just wait for Summer Split. I'll slaughter you then…
Let TES regret it.
They gave up a truly strong mid and chose a trash fish instead.
But everyone else was immersed in celebration. No one noticed Knight's abnormal expression.
Even if they did, they wouldn't care.
"So sick! Champion—we're champions!"
The team formed a circle and lifted the trophy overhead.
Fireworks burst, flames shot up toward the roof.
With the background music, everyone danced together.
All that Spring Split effort finally got paid back.
Not easy at all.
In that moment, the cheers peaked again.
"TES! TES! TES!"
Lin Fan glanced at Luo Xin standing off to the side without moving and waved at her urgently.
Luo Xin was confused.
She'd already given TES time to celebrate. Why was Brother Infinite Borders calling her over now?
She edged closer carefully.
"Why aren't we doing the interview?"
"Huh?"
"Interview now?" Luo Xin scratched her head quietly. "Isn't this your celebration time?"
"We're done celebrating. We're waiting for you to host the interview. After that we go back to the club and rest. Three games was tiring—I want to go back quickly."
Luo Xin seemed to realize something and smiled reflexively.
"Okay, got it, got it."
She immediately picked up her cue cards and walked from the side toward center stage.
"Congratulations to TES for winning the Spring Split Champion title. Next is the award ceremony. As champions, they will receive a prize of two million RMB."
As she finished, staff behind them handed the prize card to Luo Sheng.
For a club, league prize money was basically nothing—because it wasn't high.
A club could even just distribute the entire prize to the players.
Because club revenue was never about prize money.
It was about traffic, hype, and sponsor investment.
After all, top pros typically earn 10+ million a year.
Five players means at least 50 million.
Two million can't even cover their annual salary, let alone pay it out.
Luo Sheng mechanically held it up—just a routine. He was used to it. That's what champions get.
Everyone lined up, held the prize card, and took photos.
Then came the more important segment: Finals MVP.
To many people, this segment wasn't even necessary.
Because they already knew who the Finals MVP was.
Before Luo Xin could even ask, the crowd was already chanting:
"Brother Infinite Borders! MVP! Brother Infinite Borders MVP!"
JackeyLove's popularity was indeed huge at first, but after this stretch, Lin Fan's popularity had at least reached parity.
Some water ghost sisters tried to muddy the waters, but their voices were drowned out by the roaring crowd.
"Looks like you already predicted what I'm about to say. Let's see if the final result is what you think it is!"
Luo Xin lowered her cards.
The big screen flashed with dazzling light.
Then Lin Fan's photo appeared.
On the left were his playoff stats—every metric was absurd, completely surpassing every other mid.
"That's right—it's exactly what you all shouted: our Brother Infinite Borders!" Luo Xin extended her left hand toward Lin Fan, and the spotlight immediately snapped onto him.
The arena erupted with MVP chants.
Lin Fan stood center stage.
He really was in a hurry to clock out, but hearing the entire venue cheering him, he still felt a surge of emotion—his scalp tingling.
So this is what it feels like to have tens of thousands shouting your name?
Not gonna lie—feels great.
But he really did need to clock out and rush early progression…
This was day one. One step slow, every step slow.
By normal tempo, you should already be opening level fives at 5 p.m.
And now he hadn't even opened level fives yet.
He was dying.
The fans screamed his ID with everything they had.
Luo Xin stood to the side and let him enjoy the moment.
I know you're in a hurry, but please don't rush.
That Wang La'er really couldn't control her—she was way too mischievous.
After a couple minutes, the cheers finally eased a little. Only then did Luo Xin lift the mic.
"Congratulations to Brother Infinite Borders for becoming Spring Split Finals MVP."
Ever since the nickname "Brother Infinite Borders," casters and hosts stopped wanting to say Lin Fan's ID.
Simple reason: "dine" just doesn't feel good to pronounce.
Everyone prefers calling him "Brother Infinite Borders."
Before, calling him Dine was fine, but now that Brother Infinite Borders was hard-carrying, saying "dine" felt wrong.
And since there was a new nickname that fit perfectly, everyone started using it.
Honestly, that was fine.
"Winning Spring Split—how do you feel?"
"Um. Honestly, this result isn't surprising. Our team's overall strength is higher than RNG's.
But the process wasn't as smooth as it looked, so I'm still very excited—especially the moment we won."
"And as my first title in my pro career, I believe I'll never forget this day."
He spoke extremely fast, like he was catching a train.
After hearing him, JackeyLove completely broke.
"Hahahaha…" He covered his mouth at the side, laughing uncontrollably.
Luo Xin knew there had to be more.
And since he'd already urged her to hurry into interviews, she'd basically guessed why.
But you have to let the players say it—that's the entertainment value.
"As your first title, it's definitely unforgettable. I'm sure it's a unique experience for Brother Infinite Borders."
"JackeyLove, you're smiling so widely. You must be extremely happy too."
JackeyLove had been eating popcorn on the side and didn't expect to get called out.
For a moment he couldn't even organize his words.
"Yeah, I'm definitely happy. It's my first time winning a Spring Split trophy with TES. If possible, I also want to win MSI, because that's a blank in my career. So yeah—I'm very happy."
"In game two you played 31 minutes, and game three ended in just 18 minutes. What adjustments did you make? Everyone's curious."
"Uh… we didn't really adjust much. Mainly Brother Infinite Borders kept muttering."
"He kept urging us to push faster, so we pushed very fast. Once we had a lead, we didn't even farm—we just pushed towers."
"The reason is simple. I think everyone already guessed it: Brother Infinite Borders wanted to rush back for early progression. Game two at 31 minutes was beyond his plan, so game three he wanted to make up the time.
Once we had a lead, we grouped and pushed. 18 plus 31—average is 24 minutes per game. That's pretty okay, right?"
"And look at how anxious Brother Infinite Borders is. So interviews should be faster too—let him clock out early… hahaha."
As JackeyLove spoke into the mic, he couldn't hold back and laughed again.
The crowd laughed too.
Chat was flying.
"The moment I saw Syndra sprinting mid, I already knew Brother Infinite Borders' plan."
"Same. He was so urgent, like he wanted the match to end instantly."
"It's Syndra. If it was another champ, you might not end in 18 minutes."
"This is comedy. Winning that fast just to go play another game."
After JackeyLove finished, Luo Xin smiled and lifted the mic.
"Actually, just now Brother Infinite Borders also urged me to hurry into the next segment. You can tell he's truly anxious—he wants to clock out."
"I already said earlier: finals day colliding with Infinite Borders S2 early progression—RNG was unlucky. From the result, they really were unlucky."
"Pretty tragic. Brother Infinite Borders went full firepower in all three games—zero mercy. Quick tally: Xiaohu's 0–23–2, a top-tier war criminal."
The crowd laughed even harder.
"Brother Infinite Borders looks so pitiful. Why didn't the officials crank up the intensity and slow it down?"
"Hahaha. But I still want to watch Brother Infinite Borders stream early progression, so I hope it's fast."
"Hahaha. Carrying finals—he deserves to relax and grind Infinite Borders."
Thankfully, the next procedures went very fast.
Everyone knew: Brother Infinite Borders was rushing to clock out!
What should've dragged for half an hour got compressed into fifteen minutes.
The moment it ended, Lin Fan carried the trophy and sprinted to the lounge, grabbed his stuff, and immediately logged into Infinite Borders.
He checked the leaderboard—Brave Laoye was already at 1600 power.
That meant in under nine hours, he'd already taken at least eight level-five tiles.
Damn it.
The three to four hours of gap was huge.
That meant Brave Laoye was at least level 15.
Meanwhile Lin Fan was only level 9—gap was big.
By normal tempo, you can crash level fives at level 11.
Ghost Lu Bu's active skill isn't perfectly stable for early progression, but he could still do it.
On the bus ride, he'd grind it. Once he got back to base, he'd stream the progression.
Tonight—pull an all-nighter and catch up.
Otherwise the gap would be too annoying.
So when they reached base, Lin Fan didn't even eat. He rushed straight to the training room.
The club also delayed the celebration banquet to tomorrow night.
After all, without the biggest contributor, the banquet would be meaningless.
No one else objected.
Big bro carried us to the title—what's wrong with him enjoying a full day?
JackeyLove even ordered tons of takeout and fed everyone meal after meal.
——
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup