“Your pearls?!” asked Yingtai, “Why were they yours?! I had them first, you know!”
Helmuth was surprised. They both became close to each other. Yingtai wanted revenge on the boy who stole her precious pearls.
She unruffled her pockets and found the acupuncture needles. She ripped them out and gave a humorous glare at Helmuth.
“I doth not knoweth how one functions these useful, yet sharp needles. But I would have to defend myself by using them.”
Helmuth felt quite vulnerable as he kept stepping back from Yingtai, who still had the needles in her hands.
Suddenly, Helmuth tripped and fell on his back. Yingtai put his one foot on a footstool and attempted to scab him with the needles. But Helmuth protested.
“Please! You must never hurt another student that is older than you!”
And then, both Jadeus and Damian arrived at the scene.
“What is going on?” asked Damian, “Why have you been hurting the girl terribly, Helmuth?”
Yingtai then put the needles in her pocket, stuffing them immediately.
“He is not hurting me, my love,” said Yingtai, caringly, “He merely stole my pearls! I had them in my dresser drawer! The moment I returned to my room, they were gone!”
“And what has this got to do with me?”
“Just admit that you stole the pearls and I won’t kill you with my needles!”
Helmuth shuttered.
“You have needles?”
Yingtai nodded.
Helmuth stood up, ruffled his hanbok and then said, “You can keep the pearls. I didn’t mean to steal.”
Yingtai smirked. And then walked away. Jadeus was surprised.
“She can defend herself, can she?”
Damian sighed, “You have no idea!”
During the days in Shilla Academy, there was always time for play. Everyday, Yingtai would always play Hide and Seek and Tag-You’re-It with the other students.
Damian then somehow noticed how playful she was. That was how he liked the girls in the school: playful and full of fun.
In their lesson times, the schoolmaster would teach them how to read and write in a formal manner. But Yingtai’s favorite thing to do was read many love stories from around the world.
One of them was Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy that was recently published by the one and only William Shakespeare.
Yingtai simply adored Shakespeare and quickly became her most favorite author. And she would come back to the school’s library every single day to read it.
A month had passed since Yingtai had come to a school that was only eighteen miles from Zǐjìnchéng. Yingtai had not noticed, though. The absolute bookworm she was.
It was while she was at the lake with Damian when she suddenly saw two monarch butterflies flying away together, never ever separating from each other.
“Those colorful faeries are lovers, aren’t they, Damian?”
“No, they’re not,” replied Damian, “The two insects are friends, not lovers.”
This had angered Yingtai on the inside of her body.
But butterflies are ones that carry dead souls of lovers from the past! What if they are Romeo and his darling Juliet?
But Damian didn’t want to love Yingtai, but wanted to only befriend her, even after their only kiss.
Yingtai tried everything she could to let him know that she had such indescribable feelings for him. But all of her planned schemes had failed!
How can I tell him that I love him?!
She took matters into her own hands. She grabbed a piece of paper, a feather pen, and wrote a poem, stolen from Shakespeare.
Once she had finished writing, she placed the piece of paper in a little bamboo roll and put it near the door to the Counseling Court’s room, where Jadeus was the first to see it.
“Damian!” he called.
Shall I compare Thee my rosy, fair lips?
Thou art more softly and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling ‘lids that clip,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hard the color of red shines,
And often is His pink complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, your beauty’s changing course untrimm'd;
But Thy eternal smile shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair Thou ow’st;
Nor shall disfortune take Thou wanderer in the devil’s shade,
When in eternal kiss takes time to grow’st:
So long as human can kiss and tongue can take,
So long lives this, and this gives life to…a cake?
“Such a beautiful poetry,” said Damian, satisfied with the stolen Shakespeare that Yingtai certainly did, “But, sadly, I must reject this confession.”
Jadeus was surprised.
“But why, Damian? She seems to have indescribable feelings for you!” “Indeed, she does. But…ever since the legend of Romeo and Juliet, I’m afraid of anything happening, once I’m in love.”
“But if you love, truly, then you would grow old and die together, while still in love!”
Damian looked at his only friend.
“But I’m frightened…what if she pleads insanity?”
“I promise you…she won’t!”
Following his friend’s advice, Damian learned that Yingtai would never plead insanity. But on their final days in school together, Damian stole a letter that was only meant for Yingtai. The letter said:
Zhu Yingtai,
You have been gone for too long!
You must return to Zǐjìnchéng right away!
You must leave for your departure to England,
Where his majesty, Henry VIII shall be waiting!
- Zhu Huímì (your mother)
Fearing that he would never see Yingtai again, Damian found Yingtai laying down in the grassy spot outside in the school’s garden.
I must keep her close until she goes, he thought, Otherwise, I’m all for nought without her!
And so, Yingtai and Damian’s hands were touching and interlocking their fingers together, a sign for their eternal and true forever love for each other.
When Yingtai’s coach had arrived to take her home, Damian knelt down.
“Dear Sister,” he said, “Please return home, well and in health. If I don’t see you again, if we don’t share a room together, and if we don’t sleep in one bed. We shall be buried in one grave!”
Yingtai took these words as if he was reciprocating her indescribable feelings for him.
And then, Yingtai pulled herself into Damian's arms. Soon enough, they parted ways and Zhu Yingtai had then burst into tears on the way home.
Then, two other boys had entered the scene.
“I’m sorry, kind sir. I am called Bayard, and I had seemed to have watched your bittersweet parting with a maiden you might have encountered.”
“And I am called Sallé; I had also watched the scene myself. How are you getting on, m’lord?”
But Damian did not know these kind men.
He then said, “Gents! It is the Lady Yingtai Zhu of the Forbidden City. She had to leave because she had been summoned by her family. In my opinion, I am suspecting she is also the princess of England as well.”
Bayard then scratched his head, “We have been to England, kind sir. But we cannot re-enter, since we are not citizens and we don’t have a special reason!”
“And he is also a Spaniard as well, kind sir!” said Sallé, “The country is in conflict with Spain as well.”
“I want to see my love again!” Damian announced, “If we are going to be together again, I must travel to England. For I am an English myself!”