Transmigration; Married to My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle-Chapter 268; Lu Zeyan 1

"Ma... ma..." Lu Zeyan made the sound, not because he recognized her, but because his mouth had formed the syllables randomly. He reached out toward her, fingers grasping at air.

Mrs. Lu flinched back like he’d tried to strike her. "No. No, this isn’t.... this can’t be...."

"We don’t have answers yet," Dr. Chen said quietly. "All his scans are clear. There’s no physical cause we can find. But the cognitive decline is... significant."

"Significant?" Mrs. Lu’s laugh was borderline hysterical. "My son has the mental capacity of an infant! That’s not significant, that’s catastrophic!" She whirled on him. "Fix it! Do whatever it costs, bring in specialists from anywhere in the world, I don’t care..."

"We’re doing everything we can," Dr. Chen assured her. "But Mrs. Lu, I need you to understand, we’ve never seen anything like this. Whatever has happened to your son, it’s not following any known medical pattern."

Lu Zeyan had lost interest in their conversation. He’d discovered the bed control buttons and was pressing them repeatedly, giggling as the bed raised and lowered. Up, down, up, down. Simple cause and effect. Press the button, and the bed moves. It was the most complex thought his mind could currently hold.

Mrs. Lu watched him, her face draining of color. "Get out," she whispered.

"Mrs. Lu...."

"GET OUT!" She was screaming now, tears streaming down her perfectly made-up face. "All of you! Get out!"

The medical team retreated, and everyone else left her alone with what remained of her son.

Mrs. Lu approached the bed slowly, like approaching a wild animal. "Zeyan? Baby, it’s mother. Can you... Can you understand me?"

Lu Zeyan looked up at her. His expression was placid, empty. He reached for her hair; it was shiny, and he wanted to touch the shiny thing.

"No, no, don’t...." She caught his hand, and he whimpered, that same confused infant sound.

She let go immediately, and he went back to playing with the bed controls, already having forgotten she was there.

Mrs. Lu sank into the chair beside the bed, her carefully constructed world crumbling around her. Her brilliant son, her heir, the one who was supposed to carry on the family legacy, reduced to this. This... this thing that couldn’t even recognize its own mother.

"What happened to you?" she whispered.

But Lu Zeyan just giggled as the bed went up again, lost in a world of simple sensations and immediate stimuli, everything else, identity, memory, thought itself, burned away like morning fog under a merciless sun.

By 2:30, the hospital was in controlled chaos.

More family members had arrived. Lu Cheng, Lu Zeyan’s father, stood in the hallway with the medical team, his face carved from stone as they explained the impossible situation.

"You’re telling me," he said, each word precisely enunciated, "that my son has somehow lost thirty years of development overnight, and you have no explanation."

"That’s correct," the neurologist admitted. "We’re running more tests, consulting with specialists internationally, but so far...."

"This doesn’t just happen," Lu Cheng interrupted. "People don’t spontaneously become... become..."

"Mentally regressed to infancy," the neurologist supplied quietly. "No, Mr. Lu, you’re right. This doesn’t just happen. But it has happened, and we’re working to understand why."

Lu Cheng’s jaw worked. "The accident. The car accident. Could that have...."

"The trauma from the accident was minimal. Certainly not enough to cause this level of damage. And again, all imaging shows no physical injury to the brain."

"Then what?" Lu Cheng’s control was fracturing. "Poison? Disease? Some kind of... of attack?"

The doctors exchanged glances. They’d been thinking the same thing, but saying it out loud felt like crossing into territory that didn’t belong in a modern hospital.

"We’re exploring all possibilities," Dr. Chen said carefully.

In the room, a young nurse was attempting to change Lu Zeyan’s hospital gown. He’d spilled his entire breakfast down the front and needed fresh clothes.

"Arms up, sweetie," she coaxed gently.

Lu Zeyan stared at her blankly. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

She lifted his arms manually, and he let her, passive and pliant as a doll. As she pulled the soiled gown over his head, he suddenly grabbed at her hair, bright red, so pretty, wanted to touch....

"Ow, no, let go...."

He didn’t understand the words. Didn’t understand that he was hurting her. Just pulled harder, fascinated by how the red strands slipped through his fingers.

"Mr. Lu, please...." She managed to extract herself, breathing hard.

Lu Zeyan’s face crumpled immediately. Loud noise... so mean. Scared. He began to cry, huge, gulping sobs that shook his entire body.

The nurse felt tears prick her own eyes. "Oh god, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell...."

But Lu Zeyan was inconsolable now, crying with the abandon of a toddler who didn’t understand why the world had suddenly become frightening.

His mother rushed back in at the sound of him crying. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing, I just, he grabbed my hair and I...."

"Get out," Mrs. Lu hissed. "Get out and send someone who knows how to handle patients properly."

The nurse fled.

Mrs. Lu approached her son, who was still crying, rocking slightly. She reached out hesitantly, then pulled him into her arms.

Lu Zeyan buried his face against her shoulder, his sobs gradually quieting. Not because he recognized her as his mother. Not because he felt safe with her specifically. Just because the warm presence was comforting, the way any frightened infant might calm when held.

Mrs. Lu held her adult son as he sucked his thumb, actually sucked his thumb like a baby, and felt something break inside her chest that she knew would never be repaired.

"Who did this to you?" she whispered into his hair. "Who could do this?"

But Lu Zeyan just made soft, meaningless sounds against her shoulder, his mind already drifting to the next simple sensation, the next moment of immediate experience, untethered from past or future or any concept of self at all.

The curse had worked even better than she’d hoped.