Transmigration; Married to My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle-Chapter 291; Lu Yuze & Shuyin 3

"And you could only save one," he said slowly, understanding dawning. "So you made it a transaction. Made it seem like you were receiving a payment by taking Chen Xiao, when really...."

"I could save only one, and it wasn’t a must, I just pitied her," Shuyin finished quietly. "The boy chose to come with me to keep others safe not knowing he was saving himself and others..... Well... It’s their destiny."

Lu Yuze’s chest tightened with an emotion he couldn’t name, admiration? Sorrow? Awe at the burden she carried, seeing death coming and being able to save so few?

"I can’t interfere with the mortal world but I just pitied her that, after sacrificing everything and escaping, her fate was still the same.... Life is meaningless sometimes..." She softly hummed, moving closer to his chest.

"That’s true..." Lu Yuze’s arms tightened around her, feeling the weight of her words settle between them.

A comfortable silence stretched out, broken only by their synchronized breathing. He thought she’d fallen back asleep when her voice emerged again, barely a whisper.

"I wanna sleep...."

"I heard the investigators and detectors are pinning it on the coincidence of the Chen family’s deaths," Lu Yuze said quietly, his voice carefully neutral. "They’re saying it’s mysterious. And it could be man-made deaths..."

Shuyin hummed softly against his chest, the sound neither confirmation nor denial.

"It’s her parents, who got rid of them, no one else" she said after a moment, her tone matter-of-fact, as casual as if discussing the weather. "I did kill the Chen family members, but I didn’t kill her. That was her own family’s doing, her maternal family."

"Families are all different and capable of anything.... If they hadn’t saved her from her abusive husband, why do you think they would accept her when everything is gone?" Even if she had money, it wasn’t enough to quench their thirst.

Lu Yuze went still, he knew the Chen family’s death was her cause, but now, she openly confessed it, it wasn’t that shocking, but at the same time, he was marveled. After all, they weren’t any good, but the woman and her girls dying was terrible.

"Yesterday morning, I hinted to her to travel abroad, to leave the country entirely, after signing off her shares and everything," Shuyin continued, frustration creeping into her voice. "Suggested it, insisted even. Who knew she would ignore everything and go back to her maternal home instead? You never know who your true enemies are... Even families turn against each other"

There was genuine regret threading through her words now, something that might have been guilt buried beneath the pragmatism.

"I can’t follow up on people’s life decisions," she said quietly, almost defensively. "I can hint, suggest, push them toward safer paths, but ultimately they make their own choices. And she chose poorly. That can’t be my fault."

A heavy sigh escaped her. "Anyways, they can speculate all they want, but they won’t find anything. That family is cunning, they know how to hide their tracks. Everyone involved has their own secrets to protect..... So, they won’t allow something of that sort to get out..."

She shifted slightly against him, her voice becoming more measured, more businesslike. "I secured the company and shares. Everything will be held in trust for Chen Xiao. He’ll continue that legacy when he’s old enough."

Her tone softened then, carrying an unexpected note of genuine concern. "Hopefully, he grows up to be a gentleman and not a violent, abusive man. And if he does..." She paused, the implication hanging heavy in the air. "If he makes me regret saving him, I could get rid of him completely. Hopefully it won’t come to that."

Another sigh, this one laden with something deeper, exhaustion, perhaps, or disillusionment.

"The human world is full of such mundane lifestyles, yet somehow it’s more complicated than anything in the celestial realm..."

She trailed off, and Lu Yuze held her quietly, processing everything she’d just confessed with that same unnerving casualness.

"Do we tell him?" Lu Yuze asked quietly, the question weighing heavily on his mind. "That, his mother and sisters are dead? Or do we just... leave it like that?"

He didn’t know how to handle this situation at all.

When his own wife had died, when Yuyan was born, he’d had time to process, to plan the approach carefully. Little by little, he’d begun introducing the concept of her mother when his daughter reached that age of understanding. They’d talked, looked at photos together, shared stories and memories, building a gentle relationship with a ghost until Yuyan could finally grasp what had happened.

But now? This was entirely different.

How do you tell a child something like this? That he was supposed to die alongside the others? That his entire family was meant to perish together, but he survived because he chose to protect his siblings, unknowingly saving himself in the process?

Won’t that be traumatizing?

Won’t that knowledge destroy something fundamental inside him?

Won’t it push him into guilt so deep he might never climb out? Survivor’s guilt that would shadow every moment of his life, poison every happiness with the thought that he lived while they died?

Lu Yuze’s chest tightened just thinking about it. A child carrying that burden was the unluckiest. A boy learning he should have been dead. Knowing he was only alive because someone interfered with fate itself.

How do you explain that to a five-year-old without breaking him completely?

"You’ve been a parent longer than I have," Shuyin said, a slight snort escaping her. "How could I possibly know how to go around it? It’s you who should be assisting here...."

There was almost amusement in her tone, as if she found his question absurd.

This man was truly funny sometimes. He was asking her, for parenting advice when she’d only just adopted the boy yesterday. She knew absolutely nothing about raising children, had never wanted to know. She’d lived for centuries without once considering motherhood, and now suddenly she was supposed to have answers about navigating childhood trauma?