Cardcaptor Sakura: The New Trials (Wish-luv)

Chapter 73.5: The Hong Kong Encounter

A Side: A Birthday to Remember

Author's note Sept. 1, 2018: The second part of the chapter has been added.

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Hong Kong...

Li Syaoran, dressed in a dark green silk cheongsam with stiff golden brocade collars and hems, was seated behind a big mahogany desk in the office of the Great Elder. He twisted the heavy obsidian clan seal ring around his forefinger, deep in thought, oblivious to the sound of the heavy oak door swinging open.

"What are you sighing about so deeply? Did you just get another earful from Uncle Wutai?" asked Li Fanren, his third oldest sister, setting a new stack of documents in front of him. "You've made no dent on these all afternoon long. It's summer vacation, and the world's not going to end if you take a break, you know—you've been burying yourself in work ever since you got back to Hong Kong."

"It's fine," said Syaoran, picking up the fountain pen again. "I'll finish those, leave them here."

"Why, because work takes your mind off things?" asked Fanren, whose long auburn hair was clasped by a butterfly barrette on one side. "What have you been worrying about so much over the past week? I know you have a resting frowning face, but you've got a permanent line carved right over here." She pointed to the center of his forehead, between his dark brows.

"Not worrying—regretting," replied Syaoran with a groan.

"What, about the horrible job you did as the Beast in your school play?" Fanren asked, referring to Syaoran's high school cultural festival fairytale production. "I saw the video. Did you actually fall asleep on stage, or was that brilliant sleep-acting?"

Burying his head in his hands, Syaoran mumbled, "Don't even remind me of that."

Fanren leaned over the large mahogany desk, knocking aside several stacks of files. "Or, is it relationship problems? Now, I'm quite an expert in that field."

"Says the person who's never dated someone over a month," mumbled Syaoran.

"Who told you that?" asked Fanren, lips curling into a sinister smile.

"I've got my sources."

Tucking a strand of long auburn hair behind her ear, Fanren whispered into her brother's ear, "I don't want to hear that from someone who's never even dated anyone before. Have you even held hands with a girl? I hope your first kiss wasn't with Kaitou Magician!"

Syaoran snorted at the mere notion of this.

Fanren stared at her brother's carefully expressionless face in scrutiny, and her jaw dropped instantaneously. "You didn't! Who? Oh, don't tell me you and Sakura! No, you wouldn't have the nerve to!" She failed finish any of her sentences. Wait till she had a moment to chat with her other three sisters.

"So, I heard you went out with Wu Zian," interjected Syaoran. "Hopefully that's not while he was still seeing Feimei. Or was it because he was with Feimei that you felt compelled to date him?"

Graceful Fanren slammed her foot clad in stilettos on the polished desk, quite like a local thug. "Who's been going around spreading such rumors? Why would I ever go out with that moronic gangster egoist with the worst sense of fashion in Kowloon?"

"I don't know, maybe you in your own way were trying to help him make up with Feimei," murmured Syaoran, flipping through a budget report.

Li Fanren, 21 years old and a fashion major in university, was the most fashion forward of the four sisters. She was also considered the social butterfly of the family, which always made her in the loop about all the clan gossip, but it also stemmed from her natural curiosity as the middle child of five. Fuutie, as the oldest, was the leader-figure in charge of accounting, Shiefa was the inventor and toughest hand-to-hand martial artists, and youngest of the four, Feimei, was a prelaw student in college. And then there was Syaoran, the reinstated Chosen One of the Li Clan and youngest-ever Great Elder.