Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 31 - 30 Not Very Good

"Um, it wasn’t good. When I was a freshman, I suffered from severe mental exhaustion. I couldn’t sleep the entire semester, and medication didn’t help much. Later, I even saw a psychologist several times," Yi said, as if he were talking about someone else’s experience.

"Ah? How could that happen?" Yan Yan couldn’t quite believe what she had just heard.

Although Yi had lost contact with all his classmates after getting to Peking University, the rumors about him were all about his "alien" achievements, like going to Stanford.

Yan Yan really couldn’t reconcile the Yi she thought she knew with the one Yi had just described himself as.

"Because I couldn’t see you," Yi answered Yan Yan’s astonishment succinctly.

"You’ve started making up stories as if they were true again. When you went to Peking University, we had been broken up for over a year. If you had said this right after we broke up, I might have believed you, but a year later, how could you suddenly lose sleep because you couldn’t see me?" Yan Yan did not believe him.

"But even though we had broken up, throughout my senior year, as long as the school wasn’t on holiday, I could see you every day," Yi responded matter-of-factly.

"When you were in your senior year, you must have really hated me, acting as if I had won the lottery all the time," Yan Yan still didn’t fully believe what Yi was saying.

"I did hate it, but I hated myself more. Every time I saw you, I would remember how you told me you had never loved me, but I still couldn’t help watching you. I was completely a masochist," Yi said with a touch of self-mockery.

"Are you feeling better now? Do you still have trouble sleeping all the time?" Yan Yan asked with concern.

"Yeah, I had been better, but after reading your ’Tombstone Inscription,’ I started having relapses," Yi spoke the truth.

"Cherish sleep, stay away from Yan Yan," Yan Yan said with a laugh, but she was already feeling quite guilty.

This time when she met Yi in Melbourne, Yan Yan had a very special feeling.

The Yi before her seemed not to be the real Yi, but rather the one who had existed only in the letters back then.

The old Yi only communicated with her like this when writing letters.

Yan Yan was no longer that Yan Yan. Yi was no longer that Yi.

...

January, the coldest winter in the Northern Hemisphere, yet the most passionately hot summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

They arrived at Brunetti, an Italian dessert shop, and chose a good spot to sit down.

"You wait here for a bit, I’ll go to the counter to see what tasty Italian cakes and biscuits they have today, then I need to ’free up some memory.’ I’ll take care of choosing the food, you decide what coffee you’d like to drink," Yan Yan said and walked toward an array of desserts.

Brunetti had Melbourne’s longest dessert display.

At the moment, Yi couldn’t care less about what to drink; what he cared most about was when he could return.

Yesterday, before running into Yan Yan at Eureka, Yi had planned to return this morning.

He called the airline to change his ticket, but the airline said that this morning’s flight was fully booked, and there were already several people on the waiting list. The earliest flight he might get was tonight.

The operator mentioned that they had just received a call from another passenger who wanted to postpone their flight to the time Yi was scheduled to depart.

Thus, when Yi said he had another two or three days before returning, it wasn’t because he was being imprecise, but because he didn’t know when he could change his flight to.

The three days Yi spoke of yesterday was before his ticket was rescheduled.

Last night, after coming down from the Skydeck and heading back to the hotel, the customer service at the airline was already off duty.

Yi couldn’t call to change his ticket again.

This morning, he wasn’t even fully awake when Yan Yan called him out.

So, Qi Yi’s ticket issue still hadn’t been resolved.

Taking advantage of the moment Yan Yan left to choose desserts and to go to the restroom, Qi Yi decided to take care of business first.

In late January, nearing the Chinese New Year, Qi Yi should have already returned home yesterday to prepare for the celebrations.

However, after watching "Tombstone Inscription," Qi Yi couldn’t suppress the impulse to visit Melbourne first.

Because the visa was delayed, Qi Yi had to tell his family that there were still some matters to deal with at school, and he would return a few days late.

After all, whether returning from San Francisco or from Melbourne, he needed to transit through the mainland or Hong Kong to reach Wenzhou.

His family wouldn’t know exactly where he was returning from.

Changing the ticket was supposed to be a simple matter.

But at this time, students studying abroad and overseas Chinese are also returning home for the New Year, and it is the peak travel season.

When Qi Yi called the airline again, the answer he received was that from today until Chinese New Year, there was not a single ticket available, and if he didn’t want his current seat, there were already several people on the waiting list.

Qi Yi’s ticket required a transfer in Hong Kong to return to Wenzhou. It wasn’t a big issue that he couldn’t change it, because he could still choose to transfer through Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou or other places.

Tickets from the United States to Australia are easy to buy, so Qi Yi hadn’t expected that tickets from Melbourne back to the mainland would be so difficult to get.

What stunned Qi Yi even more was that upon calling the ticketing agency, the result was:

January is the best time to visit Melbourne and it is also when the winter vacation begins in mainland, flights from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou to and from Melbourne were all fully booked.

Singapore Airlines via Singapore, Malaysia Airlines via Kuala Lumpur, Emirates via United Arab Emirates, and even ANA taking a detour through Japan to transfer back home, were all sold out, not a single ticket available.

Yesterday, when Qi Yi was changing his ticket, the Cathay Pacific staff had already informed him about the tight availability of tickets, but Qi Yi could not have imagined it would be this tight.

The situation now was that if he didn’t leave tonight, he wouldn’t be able to return home until after the New Year.

His family would soon find out that he had left the United States a long time ago if they called his residence there.

And now, it just wasn’t a good time to let his mother know that he came to see Yan Yan.

When Yan Yan came out of the restroom, she saw a very dismayed Qi Yi.

Qi Yi, who wore his emotions on his face, was a rare sight in the past.

But from this morning until now, in less than two hours, Yan Yan had seen it several times.

Qi Yi really didn’t want to leave today. How could he just leave like that.

"Did you just go to clear your memory or something? Why do you look like you’re waiting a thousand years?" Yan Yan couldn’t help teasing Qi Yi.

"I might have to go back tonight," Qi Yi said, feeling down.

"What? Didn’t you say, not counting yesterday, we still had three days?" Yan Yan was surprised that Qi Yi had to leave so soon.

If Qi Yi had said yesterday that he would have to leave tonight, Yan Yan probably wouldn’t have found the idea too hard to accept.

Suddenly, three days turned into one day and Yan Yan suddenly felt an indescribable feeling inside.