The doctor looked profoundly uncomfortable, caught between dical ethics and the reality of dealing with one of the city’s most powerful families. "Technically, yes, it would be possible. Sperm collection can be perford on patients who cannot provide consent, and the genetic material could be used for assisted reproduction. But the legal and ethical implications...."
"Will be handled by our lawyers," Lu Cheng interrupted. "I just need to know if it’s dically feasible."
"It is," Dr. Chen admitted reluctantly. "But I would strongly advise consulting with ethicists and legal counsel before pursuing such a course."
Lu Cheng nodded, his mind already working through the logistics. If one grandson was lost, and he was increasingly convinced the baby was simply gone, disappeared through whatever supernatural ans the security footage suggested, then they would create another. They would ensure the Lu family line continued regardless of what obstacles stood in their way.
Mrs. Lu watched her husband’s calculating expression and felt a chill run down her spine. She’d known when she married into this family that power and legacy mattered more than sentint. The Lu family had always prioritized dynasty over individual happiness, wealth over compassion, and control over love. She’d accepted those values when she chose to join them. But the cold determination in Lu Cheng’s eyes as he planned to harvest their brain-damaged son’s genetic material, to use Lu Zeyan’s body for reproduction while he sat in his room playing with toys like a child, felt like crossing a line even she found it deeply disturbing.
"Wait," she said suddenly, an idea crystallizing that seed less ethically troubling than what they were discussing. "What about finding your brother? Lu Yuze?"
Lu Cheng’s expression shifted to sharp irritation at the ntion of his younger brother. "What about him?"
"His daughter recovered from a coma that lasted six months," Mrs. Lu pressed, her voice gaining confidence as she developed the thought. "Yuyan was in critical condition, the doctors gave her no hope of recovery, and yet sohow she’s not only awake but functioning normally. Walking, talking, showing no signs of brain damage." She looked around at the gathered family mbers, seeing comprehension dawn on several faces. "There must be a way. So treatnt or doctor or specialist that Lu Yuze found. If we could access that sa dical expertise, perhaps we could help Lu Zeyan. Or at the very least, understand what happened to him."
Several heads nodded in agreent. The idea made logical sense, if one brain-damaged family mber had recovered against all odds, perhaps the sa treatnt could work for another. It was certainly more palatable than the route Lu Cheng had been proposing.
"The doctor who treated Yuyan," one of Lu Cheng’s cousins spoke up eagerly. "Lu Yuze must have contacts we don’t know about. Specialists, he’s been keeping private for competitive advantage. If we could get that information...."
"If," Lu Cheng interrupted sharply, his tone making it clear he’d already considered and dismissed this possibility. "If we could contact him. But we can’t."
"Why not?" Mrs. Lu asked, though she already knew the answer would frustrate her.
"Because Lu Yuze doesn’t answer our calls," Lu Cheng said with barely controlled anger. "He hasn’t taken a single call since Lu Zeyan fell ill. His phone goes straight to voicemail, or more likely, he’s blocked our numbers entirely. His assistant screens everything, and she’s been instructed to deflect all family inquiries." His hands clenched into fists at his sides. "My own brother has made himself completely unreachable to his own family."
"Surely he would answer about sothing this serious," Mrs. Lu tried. "His nephew is brain-damaged, his grand-nephew is missing...."
"You think he doesn’t know?" Lu Cheng’s laugh was harsh and bitter. "The whole city knows by now. The hospital incident made headlines. The violence, the arrests, the mysterious disappearance of an infant, it’s all been all over the news. If Lu Yuze cared enough to help, he would have reached out already."
The truth of that settled over the group like cold water. Lu Yuze’s silence in the face of a family crisis spoke volus about the complete breakdown of relationships within the Lu family. Brothers who should have been united by blood had beco strangers, separated by conflicts that had apparently grown insurmountable.
"We could go to him directly," another family mber suggested. "Show up at his residence, his office. Make it impossible for him to avoid us."
"And you think that would work?" Lu Cheng’s tone was scathing. "Lu Yuze has security at every property he owns. Guards who answer to him alone, not to the family. If we showed up uninvited, we’d be turned away at the gate before we ever saw him. He’s made himself deliberately inaccessible, specifically to prevent situations like this."
"What about through business channels?" soone else offered. "We still have shared interests, joint ventures...."
"Which he’s been systematically divesting from for the past year," Lu Cheng interrupted. "Every shared business arrangent, every joint investnt, he’s been quietly extracting himself from all of it. Buying out our shares, restructuring agreents, and creating separation. I didn’t pay enough attention to the pattern until recently, but it’s clear now. He’s been preparing to completely sever ties with the family."
The implications of that revelation rippled through the assembled relatives with uncomfortable recognition. Lu Yuze wasn’t just avoiding communication, he was actively removing himself from every connection that might give them leverage or access. A younger brother systematically cutting himself free from the family that had raised him. And there had to be a reason for such complete severance. Nobody abandoned family wealth and influence without cause.
Mrs. Lu found herself thinking back through the years, trying to pinpoint when exactly the distance had begun. She’d married into the Lu family nearly thirty years ago, and even then, Lu Yuze had been notably absent. She could count on one hand the number of tis she’d actually seen her youngest brother-in-law during those three decades.
The pattern had started early. During his primary school years, Lu Yuze had lived at ho like any other child of a wealthy family, attending classes and returning to the Lu mansion each evening. But the mont he’d advanced to junior high school, everything changed. He beca a boarding student, living in dormitories rather than the family estate. His visits ho beca rare, limited to mandatory holidays and special occasions where his absence would be noticed and comnted upon.
High school had been worse. Lu Yuze had chosen a prestigious boarding academy in another province entirely, making even holiday visits difficult to arrange. He’d avoided family gatherings with increasingly transparent excuses, academic commitnts, special programs, anything that provided justification for staying away. The family had tolerated it, assuming it was teenage rebellion that would fade once he matured.
Then university had co, and with it marriage to a woman the family had never approved of, never really known. The distance that had been growing for years beca a chasm. Lu Yuze and his wife had lived separately from the family compound, maintained their own household, and built their own life outside the Lu family’s influence. No one had known where they lived, where they worked, how they spent their ti. They’d existed in parallel to the family rather than as part of it.
And when his wife had died, when the circumstances of her death had sparked conflicts Mrs. Lu still didn’t fully understand, when the family had refused to allow her burial in the ancestral cetery for reasons that had never been adequately explained to the younger generation, and Lu Yuze had simply vanished. Cut all ties. Disappeared so completely that even family investigators had struggled to track his movents.
Now, looking at how Lu Cheng described his brother’s current behavior, Mrs. Lu realized the severance was deliberate and comprehensive. Lu Yuze had spent decades building toward complete independence, and he’d finally achieved it. But why? What had driven him to such extres? Why couldn’t he even answer his own brother’s calls during a family crisis?
"Maybe he would answer Mother and Father’s calls," one of the cousins suggested hesitantly. "If the eldest generation reached out directly rather than through you....."
The Lu family structure was complex, sprawling across three generations. At the top sat the current patriarch, the eldest brother, Lu Chen, who occupied the President’s seat of the Lu Conglorate and maintained primary authority over family business decisions. Beyond him existed several other siblings, spread across a range of ages and levels of involvent in family affairs.
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