## Chapter 40 – He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best
* * *
-Bbrrr. Bbrrr.
Julia Lee opened her eyes to the sound of the alarm clock ringing, waking her from her morning slumber.
The ringing was coming from the table next to the bed.
Still half-asleep, she picked up the receiver and heard a polite voice.
-Good morning, Madam. This is the front desk. We apologize for the intrusion, but we are calling to inform you that your check-out time is in one hour. Please let us know if you would like to extend your stay or if you require any assistance.
Only then did Julia Lee remember that she was in a hotel, not her home.
She had been sleeping so deeply that she had forgotten.
“Ugh.”
She tried to sit up in the plush bed but stopped at the sudden pain.
The pain was in her lower body, especially inside her genitals.
Could she be bleeding?
She reached down and touched herself, her fingers coming away sticky with fluid.
It wasn’t blood.
It was semen, left behind by the man.
“Haa…”
The sight of the semen brought back all the memories of the previous night.
The desperate act with the man.
Julia Lee got out of bed.
The ground swayed. Her steps were unsteady.
She looked around the room, but there was no sign of the man.
His clothes were gone, so he must have left already.
“Heh.”
To knock Julia Lee unconscious and then leave without a word.
His attitude, as if she meant nothing to him, made her feel like he was flaunting the difference between them.
Julia Lee staggered to the bathroom.
Standing in front of the mirror, she saw her naked body, flushed red.
As if she had been in an accident, or even assaulted.
It was far more extreme than what would be expected after normal lovemaking.
“Heh heh.”
But Julia Lee laughed.
Because she wasn’t the only one who had suffered.
His body would also be covered in the hickeys, bite marks, and scratches she had left.
The woman who brought him would be furious when she saw them.
“Jung Se-in.”
She thought of the girl who had brought the man.
When she first saw the two of them, she had wondered, ‘Why would she bring a man like that?’
Just to pass off a troublesome story to a friend?
That was the only reason Julia Lee could think of.
But now she knew.
The reason Jung Se-in had introduced her to the man.
It was to send her a message.
A truly terrible message.
“Is this what they call overwhelming talent…?”
Talent. Innate ability, determined from birth.
Ballet is a discipline where destiny is determined by talent more than any other.
There’s even a saying that ‘skill in an unattractive body is a curse.’
Julia Lee didn’t have talent.
Well, she might have had talent compared to other Koreans.
But when that scope was expanded to the world, it was simply insufficient.
Body shape, bone structure, appearance.
The country bumpkin from the Asian backwater was inferior to even an average Russian student.
During her time as an international student, she had to swallow her tears every day, resenting her origins.
The only reason she had made it this far was that she hadn’t given up.
When women more talented than her gave up because they didn’t think their talent was enough, when they couldn’t endure the harsh training, when they couldn’t resist the sweet temptations around them, Julia Lee didn’t give up.
Because all those who had been above her had given up and fallen, Julia Lee was able to remain in the highest position.
And when she was left alone in that position.
Finally, Julia Lee’s ‘insufficient talent’ became a weapon.
The penalty of being Asian.
But that was actually a strength in a world dominated by Caucasians.
White people praised the career she had built from her insufficient talent and harsh environment.
Julia Lee was able to rise to a high position that didn’t match her talent, thanks to the charity that the superior ones had thrown her way.
But even that luck came to an end.
The appearance of a black ballerina.
It brought a shock that shook the industry.
In a world dominated by white people, being black was an overwhelming penalty and, at the same time, the most powerful weapon.
It was on a different level from Julia Lee’s case. It was enough to take away all the advantages she had received as an Asian.
Having lost the advantage of being Asian, Julia Lee had no choice but to announce her retirement.
There was no place for her anymore.
And she returned to her home country and became a ballet professor, teaching young students.
To the young students, Julia Lee was a dream, a hope, and a shining goal.
As a pioneer of Korean ballet, she wanted to teach her students and nurture the next Julia Lee.
However.
However, Julia Lee couldn’t forget. She couldn’t forget.
The moment she had overturned the overwhelming difference in talent and been cast as the lead. The shining days when she had been applauded in the center of the stage.
The reason Julia Lee had been able to reach that position was that she hadn’t given up.
Having never given up in her life, she had even forgotten how to give up.
She thought she had given up, but she hadn’t. The unfulfilled dream continued to torment her.
In the midst of all this, she heard a rumor.
A rumor about a powerful student who had a foot in Korean politics.
The moment she heard the rumor, a missing puzzle piece fell into place in Julia Lee’s mind.
The government. The university. And the British National Ballet.
It’s not uncommon for the state to support artists. It’s rare, but not unheard of, for universities and ballet companies to run exchange programs. And as a national institution, the British National Ballet was subject to political influence and actively engaged in exchanges with foreign universities.
If the university and the ballet company were connected with the support of the government, and if someone were to play the role of cultural ambassador in the process, there would be no one more suitable than herself.
After quickly finishing her calculations, Julia Lee contacted Jung Se-in through a student she was teaching.
The first step was to make contact with the political world. After that, she would link the political world, the university, and the ballet company, and put herself at the head.
It was a terrible shortcut, but she would be able to participate in the audition, and she thought it would be worth a try once she got there.
Even now, after retiring and becoming a professor, Julia Lee’s skills had not deteriorated. Rather, this unique career would be a new weapon. The superior white people were thirsty for the drama of an inferior race climbing up.
The long-awaited meeting with Jung Se-in.
There was another young man by her side.
‘Hello. I’m Jung Se-in’s friend, Joo Ji-wan.’
‘My nickname is Juji King.’
‘Hey. Why are you saying that?’
He was a very naive and innocent friend.
Compared to herself, who had competed on the world stage, and even compared to her friend Jung Se-in, he was like an adult compared to a child.
Julia Lee thought that Jung Se-in was just keeping him around as a pet.
But she was wrong.
He wasn’t just a pet, he was a hunting dog, no, a tiger cub.
To think that he was hiding such a thing under that innocent face.
In the hotel room she had invited him to, Julia Lee was able to see the man’s true nature in detail.
She thought he was a naive and innocent friend.
But in bed, Julia Lee was the child and the prey.
She cried like a virgin and gasped like a girl.
It was the first time she had experienced anything like this, even though she thought she had been through everything in her life.
The overwhelming difference in physique.
There was a shining talent there that could not be overcome by any amount of experience or effort.
Even though she had done her best, she had fainted for the second time at the end.
Julia Lee realized once again.
How foolish it was for a commoner to struggle in the face of overwhelming talent.
“Heh…”
Julia Lee washed her body with hot water.
The pain she had forgotten for a moment returned as the hot water touched her.
It was a bitter, but sweet pain.
“Ugh… Heuuut….”
Julia Lee felt a slight spasm.
Fragments of orgasms that had been lurking since the night before when he had covered her body.
Even after a day, her body remembered what had happened yesterday.
“Haa…”
She slowly calmed her body by regulating her breathing.
Drip. The semen that had been stored inside her flowed out.
It was the semen that the man had left behind last night.
What a waste.
Julia Lee unconsciously thought.
It was the semen of a man with overwhelming talent.
Even though that talent had nothing to do with ballet, Julia Lee, who had lived her life being swayed by talent, could see how valuable that talent was.
“Heh heh… Give up if you don’t have talent?”
The message that Jung Se-in had sent her through her friend.
‘Give up if you don’t have talent.’
Jung Se-in had indirectly conveyed that message to her by introducing her to a friend with overwhelming talent.
Even though she realized that, she didn’t feel so bad. On the contrary, she felt refreshed.
It was as if she had opened her eyes. She had been trapped in the narrow world of ballet all her life. Until now, the blindfold of ballet had been covering her eyes. Julia Lee had finally taken off that blindfold.
“Even if I can’t bloom the flower myself, I can still sprout new seeds.”
The flower of talent.
Even if she couldn’t bloom that flower herself, there was another way for a woman to create flowers.
“Heh heh….”
Julia Lee blocked her lower hole with her hand.
To prevent the contents stored inside from flowing out any further.
Julia Lee was already curious to see how Jung Se-in’s expression would change when she brought her the man’s child.
“Mr. Joo. Joo Ji-wan.”
What would be a good name for a child with the surname Joo?
Julia Lee smiled quietly as she thought of a name that would suit her talented child.
