With so many people in Lin Fan's stream, plus Pig Farm dropping three million—1500 Super Fires spamming the screen—it instantly dragged the entire Douyu platform over.
Because a scene like this was truly rare.
Especially with today's economic environment.
Bad. Not booming.
The big spenders who used to gift without blinking now had to think for half a day before even sending an airplane.
And now suddenly: 1500 Super Fires. Three million in gifts.
Whether they'd ever been in Lin Fan's stream or not, everyone was curious at that moment—what the hell just happened?
So they followed the broadcast guidance and poured into the room.
It might not have been literally the whole platform—but at least more than half showed up.
Popularity skyrocketed, from 8 million to 40+ million.
Douyu officials got scared by the numbers.
They immediately opened special permissions to stabilize the room—routing and splitting traffic so everyone could have the best viewing experience.
They couldn't let the heat blow up and then have backend operations collapse, right?
If word got out, competitors would laugh themselves to death.
Especially Huya—you could already imagine their smug, sour tone:
"You can't handle Brother Infinite Borders. Give him to me."
Then they'd go crying to the major shareholders.
If the shareholders actually made a decision with their ass—listened to a few whines and let Huya steal Brother Infinite Borders—then Douyu would have no way to argue.
So the stream absolutely could not collapse.
All staff went full throttle, tuning everything and keeping the stream stable.
But seeing viewers keep flooding in still made them jump.
"Boss Zhu really has guts… if he wants to smash money, he just smashes."
"Three million to Pig Farm is pocket change. The goal is just topic and heat. NetEase stock will probably tick up tomorrow. That's at least tens of millions earned. Three million gets recouped instantly."
"True. Brother Infinite Borders is already out of the circle. I glanced at Weibo—everything is about this. Heat is crazy. His commercial value is absurd. If you want him in an ad, you probably can't get him for less than five or six million."
"Way more than five or six. Boss Zhu's gifts alone—double that. Offering only that for an ad would be embarrassing."
"Jealous. If you're good at games, you can truly change your life. Unlike us, stuck maintaining the stream."
"No, we need even more traffic splitting. Viewers are still rising."
Ten minutes after the gift spam ended, people weren't leaving.
They weren't slowing down at all.
They were still pouring in.
From 40 million "heat" to 45 million "heat."
Douyu recently changed their algorithm.
45 million heat meant 450,000 viewers had entered the room.
If it were a few years ago when heat was counted in "hundreds of millions," that would've been 170+ billion…
It would've broken Xuxu Baby's old peak concurrent record—by more than 100,000.
Nobody expected that a pro player who'd only been famous for two months could reach this height in streaming.
Damn. Absurd!
It was mainly because Weibo heat got stirred up.
People who love watching drama naturally opened Douyu the moment they saw it.
And Lin Fan was grinding early progression, so he'd be live for a long time.
Everyone piled in to see what was going on.
JackeyLove next to him was completely stunned.
"Damn it… Infinite Borders can do this? Can you bring me along?"
When he streamed, 3 million heat was already great.
Lin Fan was at 45 million.
Big streamer.
Douyu's absolute number one.
He could walk sideways. Which super admin dares to mess with Fan-ge's stream? Fired instantly.
Insane!
Backstage even throttled chat.
It used to be one message every 30 seconds. Now it became one message every three minutes.
It matched a lot of people's "longest time."
Nobody knew what Douyu was hinting at.
"Damn it, three minutes per message. And it's still too short. Long messages don't even send."
"Douyu programmers suck. With this level of traffic, they weren't prepared?"
"So annoying. I just finished cursing once, now I have to wait three minutes to curse again."
"If Brother Infinite Borders were ranked like a celebrity, wouldn't this be A-list?"
"Small thinking. Top-tier!"
"Honestly I'm worried about backlash. The heat is terrifying. What if MSI ends and they don't win?"
A lot of League fans thought about that.
They started threads on Zhihu, Tieba, and Weibo.
TES had been smooth sailing, and Brother Infinite Borders looked like "debut equals peak."
But every year, nobody knows what will happen at the end.
Just like IG's 18-win streak and then 4th place that year—yet they won Worlds without taking a single domestic title.
And RNG that year won everything except Worlds.
The world is unpredictable.
So where TES goes next, nobody knows.
But one thing was certain:
If Brother Infinite Borders collapses, it'll be cataclysmic. No one can withstand the backlash.
Loyal fans were worried.
Some even went to TES's official Weibo and commented: let Brother Infinite Borders rest, pay him more, stop letting him stream for money.
If budget is tight, we fans can pitch in.
We'll file in advance—we won't do any illegal fundraising.
And there really were a lot of comments like that.
In just 10–20 minutes, there were 2000+ new replies.
Of course, compared to the earlier "champion" post with 50,000 replies, it still looked small.
But it still caught TES operations' attention.
As usual, they reported it upward.
Guo Hao was sitting in the manager's office, smiling.
He was extremely satisfied with Pig Farm's operation.
Money didn't matter. The topic and heat were maxed.
Every platform was talking about Brother Infinite Borders.
Pig Farm got heat, people casually mentioned them too.
Double win!
Among all clubs, TES wanted topics the most.
In other words, they're a traffic team.
Results aren't necessarily number one. Traffic must exist.
That's why from the start, they built around popular players.
Back then there wasn't a good operating environment. The contract was too strict. Uzi was forced to retire—no chance.
Luckily later JackeyLove left IG. Before he fully stepped onto the pirate ship, TES reached out.
Even if he already had one foot on the ship, as long as he wasn't fully aboard, TES paid 8 million to cut the intent contract.
Plus their "business is business" attitude—so they got JackeyLove.
Huge profit overall.
But then he received a message from operations.
He opened Weibo and sank into thought.
Lately Lin Fan's noise really was huge.
Heat and topics were terrifying.
He really had broken out of the circle—strongest spotlight in the league.
If TES ever lost, what the fans said could really happen.
Wouldn't that ruin a player?
Maybe… they should cool things down a bit.
Maybe at tomorrow's celebration banquet, he should talk to Lin Fan.
Even if TES needs traffic, sometimes a player being too good at stirring things up isn't great.
* * *
At this moment, Lin Fan prepared to crash the second level five.
Before that, he solo-trained Ghost Lu Bu for a bit.
Those 25 minutes let Da Qiao and Zhen Luo recruit troops—using time efficiently.
After Ghost Lu Bu finished training and returned to main city, Da Qiao and Zhen Luo had just finished recruitment too.
He spent 100+ to refill reserves, and the squad finally hit full troops.
Time to fire at the second level five.
Ghost Lu Bu was level 14 now, Da Qiao level 12, Zhen Luo level 13.
With 3900 troops, there was some pressure—but not too much.
So the second level five was taken easily too.
"Charge. If I grind a bit tonight, I should be able to hit top ten."
Since he wasted some time, his opening speed was already slower.
No matter how perfect your macro is, you can't recover lost time.
So he could only do his best.
Now the 24-hour power goal became 4000.
The battle losses on the second tile were acceptable.
After returning, just recruit for half an hour. With level ups, troop cap increases too.
The pace should accelerate.
Not at "farm level fives" speed yet, but comfortable.
Still, the waiting time was boring.
Heat dropped from 48 million little by little.
Infinite Borders is niche.
And recruiting/tile-farming takes too long.
So lots of people find it boring and leave.
The ones who truly stay are few.
Plus the planners keep self-sabotaging—players leave year after year.
So people say: even if Infinite Borders shuts down tomorrow, they wouldn't be surprised.
Also, it was late.
Time to sleep.
So the heat gradually fell to 20+ million.
Douyu officials finally sighed in relief.
Holding that kind of load is exhausting.
At least they didn't blow up the room.
Smoothly, Lin Fan reached his 9th level five.
At the 10th, something went wrong.
Zhen Luo got blown up first.
"Damn it—why is Empress Mu so strong? Earlier it was all first-clears, no difficulty. Now it's a sudden hammer to the head?"
Chat immediately exploded into laughter.
He'd been too smooth—never even frowned once.
People wanted to see chaos but got nothing. They'd waited so long just to see him flip.
"LMAOOOO."
"LMAOOOO. Serves you right."
"Do you understand 'joy turns to sorrow'? This is it!"
"Because it's past midnight. Yesterday's happiness ended. Today's pain begins."
People who understood started memeing instantly.
People who didn't understand still typed "hahaha" with chat.
It was pretty funny.
"Seeing myself flip, I'm honestly upset. But think about it: failure always runs through life. That's life."
The moment he said that, chat froze.
Thinking about it—he was right.
This wasn't toxic motivational garbage.
It was actually real.
In the manager's office, Guo Hao originally wanted to talk to Lin Fan after the banquet.
But hearing that line, he froze.
Brother Infinite Borders' perspective was insanely huge.
That kind of mentality—few people his age could match it.
Then he thought of Knight, two years younger, and his "bad pants" issues…
The last two months had been constant headaches to handle.
He even had to post a Weibo message against his will: "Knight is pure…"
People still mocked him for it.
Every time Knight made another joke of himself, people would comment under Guo Hao's posts.
Dragging it out again and again.
Guo Hao even deleted that Weibo.
But the internet remembers.
Thinking about it made him regret it deeply.
Knight is truly hopeless.
Paid such a high salary, but his mentality didn't match.
If he had even half of Lin Fan's mentality, things wouldn't have become so awkward with the club.
At least leaving the club later could still have a farewell dinner.
Instead, right now, the company wouldn't even approve a budget.
Guo Hao watched Lin Fan on screen keep talking calmly.
He abandoned the idea of talking privately.
No need.
Even if TES loses later and fan attacks hit max intensity, Lin Fan would never mentally kaboom.
No wonder, back when team and fans piled pressure on him, he never reacted—he just accepted it.
That pressure resistance was maxed out.
And thankfully, Luo Sheng identified who the team's "trap" was—the biggest pit—and had the guts to bench Knight and start Lin Fan.
That's how they found the correct five, win-streaked all the way, and won Spring Split.
Seriously good.
Back then, if Guo Hao were Luo Sheng, he definitely wouldn't have dared bench Knight.
After all, Lin Fan was a sub mid a year ago. This year he swapped to support and played like trash.
Yet Luo Sheng still dared to gamble.
Massive guts.
Afterwards Guo Hao asked him about it.
Luo Sheng only smiled mysteriously and didn't explain.
To this day, Guo Hao still doesn't know what confidence Luo Sheng had to make that substitution…
Maybe that's what coaching is—hide your thoughts so opponents can't read you.
Back to Lin Fan's stream, chat kept scrolling.
"Honestly, where did the real Brother Infinite Borders go?"
"My god, that line is philosophical. I'm a fan now."
"'Failure always runs through life, that's life.' Damn. Sounds like he's already seen through it. Is it real?"
"The craziest part is he said it because he flipped an early progression tile. If he said it after losing a match, the level would be insane."
"Damn it!"
At 1 a.m., "Failure always runs through life" climbed onto trending lists across platforms.
——
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup