Rebirth is fine, but I get eight hundred dollars right from the start?

"Boss, two steamed buns and a cup of white rice porridge, please."

Lin Shu stood in front of the breakfast stall, rubbed his hands which were chilled by the cold wind, and pointed towards the steaming baskets.

"Meat buns or sweet buns? Three meat buns, two sweet buns." The proprietress lifted the lid of the steamer, and steam billowed up, blurring half of her face.

"Meat buns." Lin Shu pulled out a few small bills from his pocket. "How much is it in total?"

"A sincere offer of seven dollars!"

"Here you go, young man, your steamed buns." The proprietress quickly packed the buns into a bag and handed them over.

"Thanks!"

Lin Shu took the breakfast and poked the straw into the cup of white rice porridge.

Then, at the entrance of the grass market, just one street away from the rented house, Lin Shu, who had come for an early morning walk, half-opened the plastic bag and took another bite of the meat bun.

The steaming buns, fresh out of the steamer, burst with juicy goodness, dispelling much of the chill of the winter morning.

This shop is his go-to spot for his daily breakfast routine.

Long hours of live streaming, plus the occasional need to work overtime editing videos, mean that even though he tries to go to bed early as possible, he still can't escape the misfortune of staying up all night.

If you go to bed late the night before, it's actually very difficult to get up early the next day, and even if you manage to get up, you don't have much of an appetite.

However, for the sake of his health, since this brand-new body was now his most precious possession and he couldn't afford to waste it, Lin Shu forced himself to get up and leave the house before ten o'clock every day.

Even if you don't go for running or any other kind of exercise, at least take a walk to stretch your muscles and relieve the strain on your lumbar and cervical spine caused by spending too much time in front of the computer.

"10:30...it's still early."

Lin Shu glanced at his phone. The meeting time with his shop's first official employee was scheduled for noon, so he had an hour and a half to go.

It takes at most forty minutes to walk there from here, which is more than enough time.

"In that case, let's go over there."

He glanced down at the route on his phone's navigation app, confirmed he was going the right way, took a small sip of rice porridge, hung the plastic bag on his wrist, and then slowly started walking along the sidewalk toward his destination.

In reality, when they talk about accelerating things, it's really just about business expansion.

Lin Shu has always maintained a good mindset.

He knew perfectly well that, given his abilities and strengths since his rebirth, he was already in the ideal stage of starting from scratch.

His gaming talent has been perfectly realized, and he firmly holds the top spot in the Chinese League of Legends server. This reputation is as solid as it gets.

Relying on the massive player base, the live streams and video tutorials were quite successful, and the small amount of money earned each week would have been a dream come true when I was eighteen in my previous life.

Going forward, all you need to do is stay calm, avoid getting carried away, and steadily convert traffic into tangible economic benefits.

The creation of the fan-made animation "La La La Demacia" is essentially aimed at further expanding its influence in the League of Legends esports circle and deepening the stickiness of the player community.

Ultimately, if you make instructional videos, not only is the audience relatively small, but people may also leave immediately after learning the material.

When you make animation, people watch it eagerly, waiting for each episode to air; the level of engagement is completely different.

That's why they hurriedly finalized the project.

Therefore, for the foreseeable future, Lin Shu only needs to address the current shortcomings in development, such as manpower.

Video editing needs someone to do it, store operations need someone to manage it, and animation production needs someone to oversee it.

He can't be divided into eight parts by himself; he has to spend money where necessary and hire people where needed.

"As for what comes after that..."

"Uh, how did you end up here?"

Thirty minutes later, Lin Shu unknowingly arrived at the place where the dream began.

He looked up at the "See you there" sign above the internet cafe entrance. The neon lights were not lit during the day, hanging there in a dusty gray, completely different from the crowded night two weeks ago.

The banners on both sides of the internet cafe entrance have been replaced with new ones.

[See you there! Climb the League of Legends ranked ladder and win free internet access!]

[Warmest congratulations to Team WE from the Chinese League of Legends region for successfully advancing to the ILP5 finals!]

Red background with white lettering, it can be seen from a great distance.

Lin Shu was stunned for a moment.

"So fast—"

With the last bite of his bun still in his mouth, he mumbled, "WE is in the finals now."

I felt a strange stirring in my heart.

Judging by the dates, the IPL5 tournament is just around the corner.

On the night WE won the championship in his previous life, he had just started playing League of Legends and could only sit in front of his computer and watch the five people lift the trophy.

That was the first world championship in League of Legends esports, the brightest ray of light in the youth of countless people.

And now, that light is about to arrive.

Lin Shu swallowed the last bite of the steamed bun, threw the plastic bag into the roadside trash can, and patted the crumbs off his hands.

"It seems we need to finalize the move to a larger site as soon as possible."

For most players and viewers, WE's victory in the IPL5 championship is probably just a celebration, a trending topic, and something to brag about on forums.

But for Lin Shu, who has been reborn, it means that Season 3—the year when League of Legends is developing rapidly, the LPL region will eventually be established, and the Chinese government begins to support esports as an important means of engaging with and developing the new era economy—is coming soon.

S3.

The inaugural year of the League of Legends Pro League.

With initial capital inflows, team reshuffling, and player valuations skyrocketing, the entire industry transformed overnight from "playing games as a waste of time" into "an emerging competitive sport."

By then, if he only has the identities of "game streamer" and "tutorial video blogger," it won't be enough for him to grab a slice of that huge esports traffic pie.

As for how big the cake is?

So big that even giants like JD.com and Weibo will have to get involved, so big that just thinking about it makes his heart race.

……

Lin Shu held up his phone, checked the address on WeChat several times, and then looked up at the coffee shop sign hanging on the right.

"There's a coffee shop in the distance... this must be it."

He muttered the shop's name, and the corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily.

It must be said that when it comes to naming their shops, the proud and competitive Chinese people always manage to come up with all sorts of bizarre yet inexplicably interesting names.

Some are puns, some are internet buzzwords, and some are simply a sentence without beginning or end—like the one in front of us.

You might call it a shop name, but it sounds more like a line of poetry.

You might call it a poem, but it's also hung at the entrance of a coffee shop as a sign.

Lin Shu shook his head, looked away, and pushed open the glass door of the coffee shop.

The wind chimes on the door frame tinkled a few times, and the aroma of coffee beans wafted in from the heater, fogging up his glasses.

He wasn't nearsighted; these were non-prescription glasses. He only got them from an optician because he needed to use a computer for extended periods and needed eye protection.

Lin Shu took off his glasses, wiped them on the hem of his clothes, put them back on, and glanced around the store—then he saw Zou Lin by the window.

She was looking down at her phone, a latte on the table in front of her that was more than half full, and a tissue next to her was folded into a small origami crane.

"Weren't there still thirty minutes left? Why are you here so early?"

Lin Shu walked over, draped his coat over the back of the chair, and plopped down in his seat, his tone slightly surprised.

Zou Lin looked up, saw the person who had come, and her eyes immediately lit up with a smile.

She placed her phone face down on the table, rested her hands on the edge of the table, leaned forward slightly, and said in a tone that was half serious and half joking:

"You're my savior, and my future boss—what kind of boss makes his employees wait?"

Lin Shu was taken aback by her serious tone and waved his hand, "What savior or not, stop with the nonsense."

"We can leave things as they are, but we still have to wait."

Zou Lin smiled, picked up the menu and handed it over, "What would you like to drink? It's on me."

"You're treating?" Lin Shu raised an eyebrow, took the menu and casually flipped through it. "You haven't even received your salary yet, and you're using my money to treat me to coffee? You're just passing the buck?"

Perhaps because of the life-saving debt, the two were still very relaxed with each other, even though he was the boss.

Zou Lin wasn't embarrassed at being exposed; she said matter-of-factly, "I still owe you money. Even a penny is still a debt. What's wrong with buying you a coffee?"

Lin Shu stared at her speechlessly for two seconds, closed the menu, turned to the bar and called out, "Cappuccino, hot, with sugar."

"Cappuccino is already sweet enough, why add sugar?"

"Sorry, that's just how I am; I can't stand any hardship."

While waiting for the coffee to be made, the atmosphere suddenly became quiet.

The background music in the shop changed to a lazy jazz tune, the warmth of the heating made people drowsy, and the sunlight outside the window shone through the glass onto the table, bathing both of them in a warm yellow light.

Lin Shu felt that sitting there like this wasn't going to work, so he unzipped his backpack, pulled out a bound document, and pushed it in front of Zou Lin.

"Take a look at this, it's your official contract."

The white document on the table had the words "Employment Contract" clearly written on the cover, with the "Esports Goodies" logo printed at the top.

She looked up, her eyes filled with obvious surprise: "My dear Boss Lin, are you serious?"

For the past week or so, the reason she played the role of a nuclear-powered ox or horse, working tirelessly for Lin Shu, was initially with the idea of ​​"paying off a debt."

You have to pay back the money you owe others, and you have to repay the kindness you owe others even more. Zou Lin may not have come from a wealthy or noble family, but she still understands the principles of being a good person.

But as she worked, she realized that she seemed to have underestimated this young man who was three years younger than her.

An 18-year-old boy who never went to college managed to turn a Taobao store, which had only been open for a week, into a business with a weekly turnover of 600,000 to 700,000 yuan by playing games and making videos.

When she first saw the backend data, she thought she was seeing things. She checked it several times before confirming that the numbers were not a dream.

Later, after she learned more about him, she discovered that this young man, who wore hoodies all day, ate street food for every meal, and didn't even have a decent chair in his rented room, was actually the number one player in the Chinese League of Legends server—a gaming genius with a commanding lead in Rank points.

The live stream room boasts hundreds of thousands of fans, and a single instructional video can easily garner millions of views.

Those exaggerated sales figures are built on his massive personal following.

Zou Lin had to admit that, putting aside the relationship with her savior, even if she were a stranger, she would be willing to submit her resume to a store with such great potential as "e-sports goodies".

Not because of its current size, but because of its immense potential.

And now, this young man with terrifying influence has presented her with a formal contract.

Zou Lin took the contract with both hands, turned the cover with her fingers, and read through it page by page.

Sunlight fell on her eyelashes, and her expression slowly changed from surprise to seriousness, and then from seriousness to something more complicated.