Chapter Five: Time Waits for No One! Make Money! Make Big Money!

“Wow! Miss Chang, look—
Tai just went off and stole another kiss!
He kissed her again… he really kissed her!
Tai, that’s incredible!
You two broke up, and yet you can just kiss whenever you want?
What kind of breakup is that?”

From a distance, Xue Xiaoshan watched, and from his angle, it really did look like the two were kissing again.
So bold? Is this still the Tai he knew?
Xue Xiaoshan clearly remembered that the Tai he knew had always been reckless and daring since childhood.
But after confirming his relationship with Liu Rumeng, he had become cautious and timid.
Hesitant and indecisive, he didn’t even dare to hold hands; not at all carefree.

“Tai, you’ll always be my brother! That’s awesome!”
Seeing Huo Qitai return triumphant, Xue Xiaoshan gave a thumbs up, while Chang Lu standing nearby felt a twinge of jealousy.
Pouting, she glared at Huo Qitai and asked, “Is Liu Rumeng’s little mouth sweet? Does it taste good?”
“Yeah! Tai, I want to ask too! What does it feel like to kiss a girl?
Is it soft, fragrant, and sweet?”
Xue Xiaoshan inched closer, curious.

“Talking about it spoils the fun. You’ll know when you do it yourself.”
Huo Qitai smiled, knowing they had misunderstood him once again about kissing, so he didn’t explain further.
But looking at Xue Xiaoshan’s carefree expression, a wave of sadness welled up inside him.
In his past life, during a university outing, Xue Xiaoshan had encountered two robbers mugging passersby.
He stepped in and was stabbed thirteen times, dying instantly.
In other words, poor Xue Xiaoshan died a virgin, never having experienced a romantic kiss.
That was why, when Huo Qitai saw Xue Xiaoshan’s acne-ridden face after rebirth, he felt both surprised and pleased.

As for Chang Lu, who was quietly nursing her jealousy, she was the person Huo Qitai was most grateful to in his previous life.
After graduating university, Huo Qitai’s initial funds and connections for several startups were all arranged by her.
She had even given up a million-dollar annual salary as a senior investment manager on Wall Street to be his “assistant general manager,” running errands for him.
Huo Qitai was well aware of her feelings.

In his previous life, after being heartbroken by Liu Ruyu, who was pretending to be Liu Rumeng, Huo Qitai had been dating various girls nonstop, barely having a single break.
Chang Lu silently stayed by his side as a “brother.”
Once, after dragging a drunken Huo Qitai home from a bar, she leaned against the sofa, tears streaming, muttering to herself,
“Why can you date so many people but never consider me? Am I really that bad?”

In a daze, Huo Qitai heard her complaints.
His heart seemed to empty suddenly, aching terribly, yet he could do nothing.
When he woke up, Chang Lu was back to her usual energetic self, helping him manage everything in and out of the company.

“Lulu, here’s three hundred yuan! For pizza, and…
Really, thank you so much for always being by my side.”
Recalling the past, Huo Qitai handed the money to Chang Lu.
But his sentimentality made her uncomfortable; fearing he might see through her feelings, she casually patted her chest and said,
“Aren’t we a tight trio? No need for thanks.”

“That’s right! Tai, now that the college applications are done,
What’s your plan for the summer?
Want to learn to drive? I can ask my dad to enroll us in a driving school.”
Xue Xiaoshan chimed in.

Huo Qitai shook his head. “Summer’s precious. My family isn’t as well off as yours.
I have to find a way to make more money, especially big money!”

“Make money? Tai, you don’t mean get a job, do you?
No future in that! Summer’s barely two months, and you’d be lucky to make three or four thousand working hard.”
To Xue Xiaoshan and Chang Lu, a few thousand yuan was trivial.
But for Huo Qitai, his father was a genuine farmer, and his mother a substitute teacher in town.
His father farmed and did heavy labor carrying wood in the mountains, earning two to three hundred yuan on good days.
His mother earned less than eighteen hundred yuan a month, only half the salary of a full-time teacher.
Since high school, Huo Qitai’s monthly allowance was only five hundred yuan, covering food and other expenses.
He often relied on Xue Xiaoshan and Chang Lu treating him to meals; otherwise, he had no money for internet cafes or to write novels.

“Getting a job? Impossible. Not in this life,” Huo Qitai said with a smile as he walked.
“You guys rest well for a few days. When I’m ready, I’ll come find you to make big money together!”

“So mysterious! Miss Chang, do you think Tai’s acting a bit strange today?”
Xue Xiaoshan watched Huo Qitai’s retreating figure, worried. “And he really only applied to Peking University.
Plus that sudden kiss with Liu Rumeng—it looks like he’s sinking deeper and deeper!”

“Hmph!”
Chang Lu stomped her foot hard, looking in another direction. “What’s so special about Liu Rumeng to have him so captivated?”

…

Hurrying back to his rented room, Huo Qitai quickly dug out all his high school review materials from the past three years, sorting through them one by one.
He discarded most and only extracted the essentials.

“These review materials aren’t comprehensive enough! Many of next year’s exam question types are new and not in these books. I’ll have to look online…”

Yes! Huo Qitai knew that making money from Bitcoin purchases would take years.
Having started several businesses before, he immediately identified a fast way to earn cash.
That was selling top-notch college entrance exam review notes—specifically, notes from students admitted to Peking University.

Time was tight; July was just around the corner.
Huo Qitai had to quickly compile a complete set of science notes from top students within three days to make a substantial sum.
With that money, he planned to buy the domain “55.com” from a foreign domain owner—a deal from his past life he regretted missing.

In university, during the internet boom, Huo Qitai had worked part-time promoting “Wowo Group.”
In July 2011, Wowo Group had bought “55.com” from a domestic domain investor for three million dollars, to use as a short domain strategy.
Records showed the domain was purchased from a European owner in mid-2010 for 200,000 euros.
Huo Qitai had often thought: if only he’d bought it earlier, he could have flipped it for a huge profit.
Now, time had reset. He checked the current ownership—it was still held by that European domain investor.

This gave Huo Qitai a chance to buy it first.
But time was running out. He had to earn at least 200,000 euros within a month to have a shot at buying the domain.

“Time waits for no one!
Looks like I’ll be pulling all-nighters at the internet cafe again—gathering online question types and finishing the complete set of science notes from top students within three days.”

…