From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

Inside Gu Ran's live stream.

"We are the champions!"

「2V5！2V5！2V5！2V5！2V5！2V5！」

"Four against two and they got all four killed? Do they even know how to play?"

The screen was flooded with celebratory comments, gift effects floated around, and various high-energy comments were mixed in, creating a chaotic and disorderly atmosphere.

[Everyone stand up! A user sends a stunningly powerful comment worth a thousand shark fins: We are the champions!]

The number of VIPs has soared, surpassing the 20,000 mark!

The atmosphere in the live stream was incredibly lively. Gu Ran was thanking the customers for their gifts when he suddenly received a message on WeChat.

He picked up his phone during a brief moment of rest and saw that it was a message from Su Xiaoman (sora):

"There's an Immortal Cup next month, are you interested in participating?"

The Immortal Cup is a tournament jointly organized by Douyu and other streaming platforms, featuring top Dota 2 streamers and many retired professional players. The intensity of the competition is second only to professional matches, and sometimes even reaches the level of second-tier professional matches. The number of spots in this tournament is limited. Gu Ran loves watching it, but never thought that he would be qualified to participate.

"Of course I'm interested, but they might not be willing to contact me, after all, I'm just a noob with only a little over 10,000 points on the ladder."

Gu Ran replied.

"It's okay, as long as you're interested. Just practice hard this month, and you might get an invitation any day now."

Gu Ran hadn't figured out how to respond to Su Xiaoman's mysterious words when the boss in the live stream sent two more rockets. He had no choice but to turn on the voice message to thank the boss, while wondering if Su Xiaoman was just saying it casually or if she really had a way to get him tickets.

But then I thought about it and felt relieved. I was going to practice hard anyway. It would be great if this thing worked out, but if I didn't get the invitation, I wouldn't lose anything. I could just take it as motivation to work harder and improve my score.

After the match ended, Gu Ran continued playing solo queue for a few more games until midnight when he felt exhausted before ending the stream. The results screen popped up:

Today's live stream duration: 12 hours and 46 minutes

Peak concurrent users: 28024

New followers: +6108

Gift income: 19320.5 yuan

Stretching, Gu Ran glanced at the calendar. It seemed that the day his parents were coming to visit him was almost here. Looking at his room, he saw that because he hadn't cleaned it much over the years, it was cluttered with miscellaneous items and dusty in every nook and cranny.

"Maybe I should clean it tomorrow," Gu Ran thought as she lay down on the bed.

The next day, I got up as usual and started my solo stream.

On the third day, I got up as usual and started streaming solo queue.

……

Time flies, and ten days have passed in the blink of an eye. During these ten days, Gu Ran practiced DOTA2 diligently every day, and successfully reached 11500 MMR. He also became more and more proficient in using "Overclock". He can now basically enter the Overclock state quickly by using hints and emotional manipulation. The cooldown time between two "Overclocks" is also gradually shortening. Perhaps soon he will be able to try using "Overclock" twice in a single match.

It was another morning. Gu Ran started his solo queue stream and played three games. After reaching 60 points, he stopped at the MVP results screen and said to the viewers in the chat:

"Brothers, that's all for today. My parents are coming to see me today. I told you all yesterday that I'd be taking a day off. I'll continue broadcasting tomorrow."

I had just turned off the live stream when the doorbell rang.

"They're here!"

Gu Ran rushed to the door, opened it, and found that his parents had indeed arrived.

"Look at your room, it's like a chicken coop. You don't even clean it unless your parents come over."

As soon as her mother entered the room, she condemned the state of cleanliness in Gu Ran's room, then picked up a broom and began cleaning.

"I feel fine. It doesn't matter if the nooks and crannies are a little dirty."

Gu Ran was a little embarrassed. Actually, he had cleaned up a bit yesterday, but he found it too troublesome after a while, so he only did some superficial work.

"No rush, we can clean up after lunch."

Gu Ran's father offered a word of advice and then sat down at the computer desk.

After fiddling around a bit, I finally opened Gu Ran's live streaming software.

"I heard your livestreaming income was pretty good this month. Could you tell me how much you earned?"

Gu Ran had never told his family about his income since he started working in the live streaming industry after graduation, because it would be embarrassing to say so. Moreover, his mother was the kind of person who liked to compare him with other people's children. So every time his mother called to ask about his income, he would make up excuses.

"See for yourself."

Gu Ran directly opened the backend of the live stream, and the statistics column of the live stream revenue clearly showed the revenue for this month: 86634 yuan.

"Wow! So many!"

Gu Ran's father's astonishment successfully caught his mother's attention. She had long been curious about how much money her son could earn in a month. She put down the broom she was holding, walked over, and glanced at it:

"You can earn 86,000 a month?"

Gu Ran's mother's eyes widened, her tone filled with disbelief.

"This is the gift revenue record. I can get about 50%, and after deducting taxes, I can probably get more than 30,000."

Gu Ran patiently explained that his parents knew very little about live streaming, partly because he had never wanted to talk to them about it before.

"Thirty thousand is not bad, but Ranran, your live streaming is still unstable. Can you really earn that much every month? What if no one watches you in the future and you won't be able to earn much money? You should take the civil service exam."

That's just how my mom is; she brought up the civil service exam again without any beating around the bush, completely oblivious to the subtle hints Gu Ran's father was giving him.

"I don't want to take the exam, and I can't pass it anyway. Besides, I have another competition coming up soon, and the prize money is even higher. I'll definitely earn more than I did this month."

Although the Immortal Cup is still far from being realized, in order to dissuade his mother from making him take the civil service exam, Gu Ran could only pretend that he was already very confident and paint a rosy picture for his parents.

He noticed his parents were wavering, so he pressed his advantage:

"What you've seen is just the revenue from gifts in this competition. There's still over ten thousand in prize money. I've already earned nearly fifty thousand this month."

Hearing this, Gu Ran's mother fell silent for a moment. She walked to the side and opened Gu Ran's wardrobe. She knew that Gu Ran would just throw his clothes into the washing machine and wash them. Summer clothes were fine, but he would probably just wear the thick winter clothes that were hard to put in the washing machine without washing them. She would wash the ones that could be washed, and if not, she would take them to the dry cleaners later.

"That's great, earning 50,000 yuan a month is pretty good. Hey, it's almost noon, what do you want to eat?"

Gu Ran's father changed the subject, saying that every time they came to visit Gu Ran, they would take her out to eat something nice, because Gu Ran had never earned much money before and was usually very frugal, eating cheap meals together.

"I'll treat you guys to dinner today. I'll look it up on Dianping later."

"Yay, it's different when you have money! Today we'll eat what Ranran treats us to, whatever she treats us to is fine with us."

Gu Ran's mother smiled and teased him.