Transmigration; Married to My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle-Chapter 269; Lu Zeyan 2

By 3 AM, the private waiting room was filled with Lu family members.

They sat in expensive chairs, wearing hastily thrown-on designer clothes, their faces etched with exhaustion and confusion. Lu Zeyan’s parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins, nearly twenty people in all, crowded into a space meant for ten, all trying to make sense of the impossible.

In the room down the hall, Lu Zeyan slept fitfully, his thumb occasionally finding its way to his mouth, soft whimpering sounds escaping even in sleep.

"This doesn’t make any sense," Lu Hao muttered, running his hands through his hair for the hundredth time. "How does someone just... deteriorate like this? In hours?"

"The doctors keep saying there’s no medical explanation," Lu Hao said, his voice trembling. "They’ve run every test, every scan. Nothing. It’s like his mind just... emptied out."

"There has to be something," Lu Cheng said, his voice tight with barely controlled emotion. "People don’t spontaneously lose thirty years of cognitive development. There has to be a cause."

An older aunt spoke up, her voice thin with worry. "What about that accident? Could the trauma have..."

"The doctors already ruled that out," the neurologist said wearily from where he stood near the door. "The injuries from the car accident were superficial. Certainly nothing that would cause this level of neurological damage."

"Then what?" Lu Cheng’s control was fracturing. "Poison? A stroke you can’t detect? Some rare disease?"

"We’re consulting with specialists internationally," Dr. Chen offered. "Running additional bloodwork for toxins, rare pathogens, and autoimmune conditions. But Mr. Lu, I need to be honest with you, we’ve never seen anything like this. His brain shows no physical damage, yet functionally, he’s regressed to infancy."

A heavy silence fell over the room.

"Lu Cheng, have you contacted your brother?" One of the family members spoke up, an uncle with silver hair and sharp eyes. "If Yuyan was able to get better, perhaps he could have a solution... or at least know of specialists we haven’t considered."

Lu Cheng’s jaw tightened. "His phone is turned off. We are unable to reach him directly, and when I contacted his secretary earlier, he said he agreed to see me over the weekend, not even tomorrow. He’s... unavailable."

"Unavailable?" Lu Hao’s voice rose. "His nephew is in crisis and he’s unavailable?"

"You know how Lu Yuze is," someone else muttered. "Always been separate from the family. Does things his own way."

Mrs. Lu sat slumped in her chair, her face ravaged by tears, her perfect composure completely shattered. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks as she spoke. "Well, his own way isn’t helping us now. My son is in there acting like an infant, and Lu Yuze can’t even be bothered to answer his phone?"

"Perhaps in the morning....." the silver-haired uncle began.

"In the morning my son might be even worse!" Mrs. Lu’s voice cracked. "You didn’t see him. He doesn’t recognize me. He doesn’t recognize his own mother. He tried to eat with his hands. He giggled when they tested his reflexes like.... like a baby."

Her voice broke completely, and Lu Cheng moved to her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"We’ll find answers," he said, though his voice lacked conviction. "We’ll bring in the best doctors, from anywhere in the world if we have to."

"But what if there are no answers?" Mrs. Lu whispered. "What if this is just... it? What if our son is gone and this... this thing is all that’s left?"

"Don’t say that," Lu Cheng said sharply. "Don’t even think about it. He’s still in there. He has to be."

But even as he said it, he remembered the vacant eyes, the empty expression, the way Lu Zeyan had stared at his own hands as he’d never seen them before.

Dr. Chen cleared his throat gently. "Mr. and Mrs. Lu, the sedative we gave him is working. He should sleep for several hours now. The rest might... well, we’re hoping the rest will give his brain time to stabilize. Sometimes in cases of acute neurological events, sleep can be restorative."

"Sometimes?" Lu Hao challenged. "You’re hoping? That’s all you can offer us?"

The doctor’s expression was pained. "Right now, yes. I’m sorry. We’re doing everything we can, but until we understand what’s happened, we’re working in the dark."

The silver-haired uncle stood, his expensive suit rumpled from hours of sitting. "Since the boy has fallen asleep and the doctors need time to run more tests, perhaps we should go home and rest. Most specialists won’t be available until the morning anyway. We can regroup then, start reaching out to international experts, private clinics, anyone who might have insights."

"Rest?" Mrs. Lu looked at him like he’d suggested abandoning her son.

"You’ve been here for hours," the uncle said gently. "You’re exhausted. You won’t be any good to Zeyan if you collapse. Go home, sleep for a few hours, come back fresh in the morning when we can actually take action."

Lu Cheng looked at his wife, saw the dark circles under her eyes, and the way she was swaying slightly on her feet.

"He’s right," Lu Cheng said quietly. "We’ll leave a caretaker with Zeyan, have the hospital call immediately if anything changes. But we need rest if we’re going to fight this properly."

Mrs. Lu looked ready to protest, but then her gaze drifted to her hands that were pale and shaking.

"Okay," she whispered. "But if anything changes, anything at all....."

"They’ll call immediately," Dr. Chen assured her. "We’ll have a dedicated nurse monitoring him around the clock."

Slowly and reluctantly, the family began gathering their belongings. Others filed out in small groups, speaking in hushed, worried tones.

Lu Cheng arranged for one of the family’s most trusted servants to stay, a middle-aged woman who’d been with them for decades. "You don’t leave his side," he instructed her. "And you call me the second anything changes."

"Yes, sir," she said softly, settling into the chair beside Lu Zeyan’s bed.