Chapter 111: Liu Jingqi's Origin

Chapter 111: Chapter 81: Liu Jingqi’s Origin

Xu De looked up, a knowing smile in his eyes.

‘These records…’

‘Nothing’s out of place.’

‘Normally, when a welfare home wants to defraud the government of subsidies, they stuff the place with a ton of kids. If the subsidy is 300 per child, they’ll squeeze the cost of raising each one to under 300 and pocket the difference.’

‘This welfare home hasn’t taken in many kids in recent years, so it’s highly unlikely they’re running a headcount scam.’

‘But then again…’

‘Skimming off the headcount is the most low-level grift a welfare home can run!’

“Dean Zheng!?”

Cheng Tao’s heart suddenly skipped a beat, but she forced herself to swallow the words on the tip of her tongue.

She composed herself, looked up at him, and said in a grave voice:

“Dean Zheng retired six years ago. I don’t know much about him…”

‘These people… they mean trouble.’

“Relax.”

Xu De offered a placating word. He didn’t have time to keep pressing her.

The No. 18 Middle School case was going back to court in a week. A battle of wits with Cheng Tao would accomplish nothing but wasting precious time.

“Dean Cheng, you don’t want things to get out of hand, do you?”

“Don’t worry, we just want to look into a person who came from this welfare home. Her name is Liu Jingqi.”

“She entered the welfare home 12 years ago and was adopted 11 years ago by a couple named Liu Hao and Cai Fei.”

Watching Cheng Tao, Xu De said slowly,

“We…”

“…just want to verify her true identity.”

As he finished speaking,

Cheng Tao’s pupils constricted slightly. She stared at him for a long, long time.

The office lapsed into silence again, with no one speaking for a long moment.

After a long time, Cheng Tao finally spoke.

“Dean Zheng is already retired.”

“The personnel transfer archives from 1990… they’re simply impossible to find.”

‘Can’t find them, or *won’t* find them?’

Just as Wang Chao was wondering what to do,

Cheng Tao suddenly spoke again, rattling off a string of specific information.

“The welfare home didn’t take in many children in 1990. If you have a photo, I might be able to recognize the person.”

At this,

Without waiting for a word from Xu De, Lin Yue immediately pulled a photo of Liu Jingqi from her briefcase and handed it over.

Cheng Tao took it silently. She glanced down, and her brow furrowed slightly.

Seeing this,

Lin Yue’s heart leaped.

‘It’s obvious! She knows Liu Jingqi!’

Sure enough.

“I recognize this mole near the corner of her eye. But the person I remember wasn’t named Liu Jingqi… she was called Nan.”

Nan!?

Xu De’s interest was piqued. He smiled. “Dean Cheng, could you be a little more specific?”

“For example… how did she end up at the welfare home, and who brought her here?”

At his words,

Cheng Tao gave him a long, hard look, wondering if he was asking a question he already knew the answer to or if he’d figured it out himself.

Her breathing grew heavy. After a long moment, she gritted her teeth and admitted,

“I remember this child very clearly… She was very unusual.”

Wang Chao asked, “Unusual in what way?”

“She… sold herself here!”

Saying this, it was as if Cheng Tao had decided to come clean. Her expression turned serious. She sighed and said in a grave voice,

“You… Let’s just be frank with each other.”

“Whatever Dean Zheng was doing… the welfare home has had no part in it since his retirement.”

But Xu De cut in, “As I said, I’m only here to look into Liu Jingqi… that is, Nan.”

“I don’t know anything about any other matters.”

A flicker of emotion crossed Lin Yue’s face. She had a vague idea of what was going on, but she suppressed her feelings and remained silent.

Wang Chao, however, bobbed his head up and down. “Yes, yes, that’s right. We’re just here looking for Liu Jingqi.”

As he spoke,

a look of shock and confusion crossed his face. “What do you mean, she sold herself here?”

“The welfare home sells children!?”

Cheng Tao looked at him, taken aback for a moment. Her gaze darted between Xu De and Wang Chao, and for a long while, she couldn’t figure out whether they already knew or not.

A hint of conflict showed in her eyes. Finally, her tightly clenched fist relaxed, and she said,

“Six years ago, Dean Zheng was buying children. He would secretly contact human traffickers from time to time to buy a few healthy boys and girls.”

“I wasn’t involved. I only found out about it later.”

“Of all of them, the one who stood out to me the most was this girl, Nan, and the trafficker who came to sell her.”

“Neither of them were from Lusen City.”

“The trafficker and Nan came from Your Province… but neither of them was actually from Your Province. The trafficker had just been living there for a long time.”

“As far as I know, Nan wasn’t from Your Province either. For some reason, she lived there for a long time, from birth until she was five or six, so she had a distinct accent.”

“Anyway, the trafficker told Dean Zheng that Nan had sold herself to him, asking him to sell her somewhere else. Eventually, they ended up in Lusen City.”

‘She sold herself to a trafficker, who then sold her in Lusen City?’

‘But that’s a distance of two thousand kilometers!’

‘Besides…’

“What do you mean, she sold herself?”

Xu De raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“I don’t know the specifics.”

Cheng Tao shook her head. She had only held back to protect her official post, and it was for that same reason she was now speaking out.

But she didn’t know the inside story of what Zheng Tong had been involved in back then.

“From what I know… Nan must have gotten into some kind of trouble.”

“She wanted to run away, so she had a trafficker sell her. At least, that’s how the trafficker described it. I’m not clear on what the relationship between them was.”

Cheng Tao said.

‘What could Liu Jingqi have done 12 years ago that would make her actively seek out a trafficker to sell her!?’

‘This is…’

“How old was Liu Jingqi when she first entered the welfare home 12 years ago!?”

Lin Yue abruptly interrupted the conversation,

‘Right now, Liu Jingqi is 16. If we go back 12 years, that would make her 4 years old.’

‘Could a four-year-old really do all that!?’

Cheng Tao was taken aback for a second. After a moment of thought, she said,

“Five or six? I think she was around five or six years old.”

Five or six!?

Suddenly,

the three lawyers’ pupils contracted.

‘If Liu Jingqi was six years old 12 years ago… then it’s entirely possible she’s an adult now!’

“Do you have any proof!?”

Lin Yue pressed eagerly.

‘If they had proof, they might not need to find her birth parents.’

“No,” Cheng Tao said, shaking her head.

Lin Yue sighed.

Wang Chao, however, was focused on another matter. He frowned and asked, “If you thought she was six at the time, why was she registered as being four?”

Cheng Tao answered frankly, “It’s quite normal. It’s done to better secure their rights. Everyone does it.”

Welfare homes intentionally reduce a child’s age by a few years to make them more likely to be adopted and to secure more benefits for them.

And so, Liu Jingqi’s age was changed to four.

‘That monster, she might actually be an adult…’

Wang Chao muttered, an image of Liu Jingqi’s arrogant, domineering face flashing through his mind.

‘To be so brazen after killing someone…’

‘And even trying to use the Juvenile Protection Law as a shield to escape the death penalty… it really is…’

‘Utterly disgusting!’

‘Even if she’s not a full 18, from the looks of it, we can at least push her age to 17. At that point, the probability of a life sentence increases dramatically.’

“Do you know where in Your Province?”

Lin Yue pressed, then pinched the bridge of her nose and added,

“And what kind of trouble was Nan in that made her sell herself?”

“It was probably Lianshan County.”

Cheng Tao stroked her chin, recalling carefully, but finally shook her head. “As for what trouble Nan was in… that I don’t know.”

“But it probably wasn’t anything serious. After all, she was only five or six years old back then.”

‘Lin Yue considered it and had to agree. No matter what trouble a five or six-year-old got into, it couldn’t have been anything that serious.’

Finally,

Xu De spoke. “Do you have a photo of Nan from that time?”

Cheng Tao fell silent. After a long internal struggle, she finally took a deep breath, stood up, and walked out of the room.

A short while later, she returned holding a piece of a group photo… it was a single figure, cut out from the corner with scissors.

It was about the size of a thumb—color, but very blurry. Still, you could just barely make out that it was Liu Jingqi.

“Thank you.”

Xu De stood up to take the photo, a gentle smile on his face. But his eyes, fixed on the picture, glinted with a sharp light.

‘Information secured, clue in hand.’

He had no intention of staying longer and said immediately,

“We’ll be in touch if any other issues come up.”

With that,

he led his team out.

Watching their retreating figures, Cheng Tao opened her mouth, but no words came out. She remained silent.

…

…

「Meanwhile.」

The main entrance of the welfare home.

Xu De and the other two walked out of the welfare home, opened the car doors, and slipped inside.

SLAM!

The car door shut.

A moment later,

Wang Chao couldn’t hold it in any longer and blurted out,

“That old dean was in contact with human traffickers…”

Wang Chao was incredulous.

“I mean, seriously, what was he doing buying kids from traffickers!? What for!?”

Xu De let out a heavy breath and said casually,

“It’s a kind of… advanced subsidy fraud for welfare homes!”