You Chose Your Male Best Friend, So Why Are You Crying After I Let Go? - Chapter 14:

Chapter 14: Speeding All the Way

Now that one thought about it, Gu Zhe had clearly spent so much time around Lin Nuo’er lately—so why hadn’t he ever brought up the project?

The truth was… Gu Zhe had completely forgotten about it.

In his previous life, Gu Zhe had a very healthy, eco-friendly, and energy-saving hobby: saving money. Watching his wallet slowly fill up gave him a kind of unmatched, indescribable joy. Even after being reborn, this good habit remained firmly in place.

On the very night he arrived in this timeline, lying in his quiet dorm room, Gu Zhe instinctively checked his bank account balance.

76.24 yuan.

He was loaded.

That number made Gu Zhe sit up in bed with a jolt, gritting his teeth.

Damn it.

He wanted to slap himself right then and there.

He was about to run out of money for meals, yet he had still spent so much buying gifts for Song Yihan.

Seriously…

Wait?

Gifts?

A lightbulb went off in Gu Zhe’s mind. He dug out the perfectly packaged necklace, along with the receipt and other related items, and headed straight for the mall the next morning.

After pestering and negotiating endlessly, the store attendant was so exhausted by him she could barely think straight.

She couldn’t handle it anymore and called the manager.

The manager made it clear immediately: no refunds.

Gu Zhe was not pleased. He launched into a full offensive using every trick from future consumer protection tactics—complaints, rights protection, 315 hotline, and a barrage of buzzwords.

The manager was left dizzy and overwhelmed.

In the future, consumer habits and awareness of rights had evolved significantly. Even in the environment of 2014, using these methods was still an absolute power move.

In the end, the manager clenched his jaw and gave Gu Zhe a full refund of over 2,000 yuan. As he watched Gu Zhe walk away, he gritted his teeth and muttered, “Damn it, feels like I just ran into a law student. And a professional one at that!”

Looking at his now four-digit bank balance, Gu Zhe felt slightly better. Just slightly.

Having lived two lives, Gu Zhe understood a fundamental truth of this world.

Money can’t solve everything, but without money, you’re completely stuck.

Reborn, Gu Zhe had to firmly grasp everything he could control.

With that thought, countless ways to make money flooded his mind.

The first that came to him was his old profession—programming.

In his previous life, Gu Zhe had spent most of his energy on Song Yihan and had little time for social maneuvering. Even though he was incredibly skilled, he never advanced into management. He remained a full-fledged tech expert.

Of course, everyone knows that relying on pure technical skill alone will never earn the most money. The person who holds the standard and the voice has the final say on who earns the most.

But because of his diligence in his past life, Gu Zhe had touched on and learned nearly every major programming language and design logic.

And because he always had to coordinate with Song Yihan’s schedule, a structured group job with fixed hours never suited him.

Otherwise, every time they held a group meeting or worked on a project, and he had to suddenly leave to pick up Song Yihan from work—maybe once or twice would be okay, but after a few times, people would definitely start forming opinions.

This eventually led to Gu Zhe becoming an all-around, highly capable, and technically precise individual contributor over his years of work.

In other words, a max-level corporate slave.

But now, he was reborn—with those same skills and knowledge—into the year 2014, before the internet economy had fully matured.

In times like these, even a pig could fly if caught in the right gust of wind.

And he was Gu Zhe—how could he not soar?

That night, after returning to his dorm, Gu Zhe immediately logged into a website called “Geek.”

It was created by top-level tech experts and was originally meant for technical exchanges. But over time, it began to include features for posting jobs and finding collaborators.

Just as Gu Zhe expected, the Geek site was already quite mature at this point. The admin had even set up a special section just for job postings.

Because the user base was relatively clean, even without strict moderation, there were rarely any scams or shady dealings.

Perhaps it was because most tech geeks took pride and sincerity in their work.

With the ease of someone who’d done this before, Gu Zhe quickly registered his account. His ID: philosophy—the philosopher in the world of programming.

While scanning for opportunities, Gu Zhe soon locked onto two job listings.

The first was an optimization task for a data management system. The database was too large, often causing system crashes.

Honestly, it wasn’t entirely the fault of the original developers.

Some things are simply bound by the era they were born into.

Like how nowadays everyone knows gasoline or new energy vehicles are better. But if you time-traveled back to the ancient world where even steam engines didn’t exist, you’d still have to admit that horse-drawn carriages were the most efficient.

But at the same time, as someone with advanced knowledge, even if you can’t build an engine, you can still use basic mechanics to upgrade the carriage.

So, within just two hours, Gu Zhe finished the first task.

The payment came in fast—5,000 yuan instantly landed in Gu Zhe’s account.

Everyone knew what kind of work and thought was worth what kind of price.

His account balance shot up to over 7,000 yuan.

The second job was about batch data processing.

In later years, as deep learning and iterative algorithms matured, many capable university students could assemble decent frameworks using online materials.

But again—what was cheap and outdated in 2024 was cutting-edge in 2014.

To avoid any complications, Gu Zhe added the client’s contact info and gave them a call to discuss the details more thoroughly.

The more they talked, the more shocked the person on the other end became.

He sounded young, but from his knowledge and way of thinking, this guy seemed incredibly deep and mysterious.

The call started with, “Who is this?”

By the end, it was, “Teacher Gu, please go ahead. If you need anything, just let me know.”

Gu Zhe didn’t take long to complete that task either.

But then, he did something every freelancer would understand.

He deliberately waited two days, then called the client at around 1 a.m.

“Hello, Mr. Liu? The algorithm you requested is complete. You can send over some test data, and we’ll run it now.”

Liu Yuan, on the other end, shot up from bed, dressing in a panic while expressing his gratitude and guilt over the phone, wishing he could slap himself.

“Ahh, Teacher Gu, thank you so much!”

“It’s really our fault for being so rushed and making you work so hard!”