Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 180 - 177: Competitors

After all the "guests" had left, Yan Yan received a phone call from Qi Yi.

"You knew that Lei Pili was in Florence all along, didn’t you?" Yan Yan asked Qi Yi as she picked up the phone.

"I didn’t know," Qi Yi answered from the other end of the phone, "I only knew he was going to Italy."

"Then why have you never mentioned this to me?" Yan Yan was still somewhat puzzled.

"Mention it to you? Everyone knew about it, I think it was his mom who mentioned it first, and later he mentioned it himself. You didn’t know about this?" Qi Yi’s confusion was even greater than Yan Yan’s.

"It seems like I really was the only one out of the loop, hey, let me tell you, I made a huge fool of myself today," Yan Yan said with a self-deprecating laugh.

"What happened? A handsome guy brought a bouquet of flowers to pick you up at the airport, how could you still say you made a huge fool of yourself?" Qi Yi inquired.

"Wow, do you have to be so well-informed? Do you have any intention of leaving me just a little bit of personal freedom?" Yan Yan said, although she wasn’t genuinely surprised.

Qi Yi’s close friend had witnessed the whole scene of her "private meeting" with Lei Pili at the airport and, out of curiosity, it was quite normal to discuss the matter with Qi Yi.

"To be honest, I actually would like to give you personal freedom. After all, knowing such news is not something to be happy about for me," Qi Yi really didn’t intend for Antonio to go to Peretola Airport to pick up Yan Yan.

Antonio had volunteered to come to Peretola Airport to do a "safety check" radar.

It was during a conversation when Antonio had asked Qi Yi if he needed someone to pick up his girlfriend from the airport.

Of course, as an avid hot dog enthusiast, he thought Yanyan would first arrive in Rome, which is why he mentioned it.

At the time, Qi Yi had declined his roommate’s kind offer, simply saying that Yan Yan’s cousin would arrange an Italian hunk to "take care of" Yan Yan in Florence.

Qi Yi said this, but he wasn’t really worried about any strange hunks Yan Yan would encounter in Italy; after all, his girlfriend wasn’t someone who had never seen the world or handsome men.

However, the fact that Antonio indeed identified new danger signals at the airport was a bit unexpected for Qi Yi.

"Today, when I saw Lei Pili at the airport, I got so surprised and kind of assumed things, so I just snapped at him. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

I even started thinking of ways to reject him.

But turns out, he had no intentions to confess his feelings to me at all.

Can you tell me if there’s any cure for this terminal self-love I’ve got?" Yan Yan told Qi Yi about her embarrassment.

"What did he go to the airport for?" Qi Yi asked her.

Qi Yi’s "security radar" was a bit too far away at the time, and he didn’t know what Yan Yan and Lei Pili had talked about.

Even if he had been within "monitoring" distance, he still wouldn’t have understood the conversation between Yan Yan and Lei Pili because of the language barrier.

"He just said that there’s a designer dinner at the consulate tonight and handed me an invitation before he left," Yan Yan said, watching Lei Pili hurry away, unsure about what she was feeling.

Lei Pili came with good intentions to invite her, and she ended up snubbing him.

Lei Pili’s hasty departure could have been him feeling that staying any longer might make Yan Yan even more embarrassed.

When Yan Yan rejected Lei Pili in the past, she never felt the slightest embarrassment.

This was a situation that had never arisen from the beginning. Lei Pili might have been quite upset the first time, but after several occasions, there was a bit of teasing between them.

Today’s incident was truly unprecedented.

"It looks like I’ve encountered a rival," Qi Yi concluded, a conclusion that did not match Yan Yan’s current mood at all.

"The guy didn’t even make a confession, who are you competing with?" Yan Yan didn’t understand and even sensed a bit of schadenfreude in Qi Yi’s tone.

"Of course with Lei Pili, if he confessed to you upon seeing you today, wouldn’t you find that offensive?" Qi Yi asked her.

"Absolutely, at the beginning, I felt no joy of seeing an old acquaintance in a foreign land, just shock.

Then I realized I was the only one ’deluding myself here’, both embarrassing and humiliating," Yan Yan said, though rare for her to cause others embarrassment.

Putting herself in such an awkward position was indeed a first.

"So now that he hasn’t confessed, aren’t you less offended?" Qi Yi continued to probe.

"Yeah, now I just feel bad," Yan Yan’s most genuine feeling now probably included a bit of apology.

"So, it’s not that he isn’t confessing, it’s just that he’s stepped up his game," Qi Yi explained the reason behind his earlier conclusion.

"Really? I think you’re overthinking it just like I did.

I just recalled that he didn’t confess back in Melbourne either.

He was just a bit more enthusiastic when we hugged upon meeting.

This time he saw me, and even the enthusiasm is gone.

The phrase ’loved by all, flowers bloom at their presence’ coming from me, probably only you would actually believe it," Yan Yan decided to recognize the issue with blind confidence.

"You don’t understand men," Qi Yi did not change his mind because of this, still very confident in his deduction, although it wasn’t something to rejoice over.

"Uh, that comment was—could it be you spend every day trying to understand men?" Yan Yan’s words deliberately carried a hint of questioning Qi Yi’s orientation.

"I have the most basic understanding of my own kind.

There’s no need to go out of my way over such matters.

You’ve been flying for so long, are you tired?" Qi Yi changed the subject.

Qi Yi knew his deduction was correct, but with that, the topic became even less pleasant to discuss.

"Not too bad, the last stretch from Zurich to Florence was just an hour’s flight, unlike the previous two segments which were over ten hours each. The stretch from Hong Kong to Switzerland felt the worst," Yan Yan switched to the new topic.

Flying from Melbourne to the northern hemisphere, as in returning to the country or heading somewhere like Singapore is relatively convenient. Heading to Europe or North America can be rather distressing.

"Then you should take a shower and rest up. I hear you have a lot of luggage – don’t rush to pack now," Qi Yi’s roommate’s "radar" conducted a thorough check.

"Alright, I’ll listen to you considering how handsome you are. You should go to sleep now, goodnight~" With a six-hour time difference, while it was morning for Yan Yan, it was already the deep of the night for Qi Yi.