Sha Qing

Chapter 122: The Dark Past (2)

CONTENT WARNING: MENTIONS OF NECROPHILIA AND SEXUAL ASSAULT TO A CHILD

During the visit to the second orphanage, Leo successfully found the person who knew the inside story. He was an administrator in his early fifties with clear thinking and spoke articulately.

He took the synthesized photo and after comparing it with the old archives, he said, "It's that child, Roy Lin, whose Chinese name is Lin Qingzhu. He was admitted to our institution in 1997 at the age of 9. He left quite a deep impression."

"Nine years old? Did he got adopted immediately then?" Leo asked.

"When he first came here, his mental condition wasn't that good. I heard that he had been under the care of the Children's Hospital psychiatric department for more than a year because all of his family members had been killed. When he became more stable, he was sent to us.

He was a beautiful and intelligent child, but his psychological state discouraged many adoptive families. Look, these are the exact records. A family adopted him at the age of ten, but sent him back in less than three months because he always screamed in the middle of the night in a frenzy, smashing everything in the room to the windows ......In the following years, he moved around to several homes, but none of which lasted long. The last time was in 2002, at the age of fourteen, when he was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Laugen. He stayed with them the longest, almost a year. Later, I heard that the Laugen's house caught on fire, and the child ran away from home. We tried to find him, but to no avail."

Leo touched the yellowed files, and his fingertips twitched nervously. What was recorded on it were a few simple sentences, but he could feel the sense of depression, gloom, even pain and despair from between those lines--again and again, he was given hope, and again and again, he was hurt and abandoned.

Such a cruel thing to do to a young child! Can't any of those adoptive families who claim to be so charitable give him a little more patience and love than a normal child?

There was also that strange fire. If it was really him who did that just like what Mr. and Mrs. Laugen apparently yelled that night, then what exactly did he go through in this family that he was so angry to the point where he wanted to set the whole world on fire?

"Do you make regular home visits?"

"Yes, we do it as per regulations."

"Including the year when he was at the Laugens' house?" The dark-haired agent asked with a stern look on his face.

The administrator hesitated for a moment and said, "Mr. Laugen was one of the city's police officers so he of all people should know not to violate the law. We also didn't visit that often because we thought he was in a good place since it's rare for that child to stay with a family that long ...."

Leo asked sharply, "That is to say, if the Laugens had really abused their adopted children or something similar, you wouldn't have caught it in time, or even turned a blind eye and secretly rejoiced that you had gotten rid of a hot potato?"

The administrator was shocked, stuttering as he replied, "N-no, no! If such things happen, we will definitely pick up the child, no matter what! Those children are innocent!"

"I hope so." Leo said in an icy tone, "I will continue to investigate whether the boy got abused and how the girl that the Laugens first adopted actually died. I hope you will continue to cooperate as well."

"Of course, we will do our best to cooperate with the investigation!" The man promised hurriedly.

The black-haired agent wasn't just all talk- he drove again to the community where the Laugen family was located and interviewed more people, door to door. He got a lot of fragmented clues from the neighbors about what happened back then, and piecing them together, he concluded that the probability that the Laugen couple abused their adopted children was very high. He then rushed to the Los Angeles Police Department to investigate Steve Laugen, but the other party had already retired three years ago and left the country with his wife.