Chapter 3 Did He Recognize You

At the Hope Orphanage...

Jayden was sitting in the director's office and staring at the stack of photos in hand. Though his lowered eyelashes had hid the coldness in his eyes, his presence had still brought the entire room to the freezing point.

"Mr. Spencer." The man standing next to the director was the private detective hired by Jayden, who was observing Jayden's expression cautiously. "We've found these. Is she the person you're searching for?"

There was a little girl in the picture.

The little girl's clothes were tattered, and they were so dirty that there was barely any color visible. And she looked about six years old.

The photo was a screenshot from a video. Though it was a little blurry as it was taken years ago, Jayden was confident that the girl in a ponytail, whose eyes were shining and smile was bright, was the person he had been looking for fifteen years.

With his grip on the photos tightened slightly, Jayden lifted his head to look at the detective. "Can you confirm her identity?"

The private detective shook his head. "That's difficult."

Tamping down the unease inside, he continued, "We've searched all the orphanages in White City over the years but haven't found half a clue about that girl. You only remember her appearance at an early age but not her name or where she once lived. We've got the pictures in your hand only because we happened to recall that there was a shopping mall near the Hope Orphanage, which had been running for over twenty years. It was an utter surprise that they have the surveillance backups of years ago, and it was our luck actually to notice and obtain the images."

The detective paused for a second, and his voice was then tinged with a trace of regret, "It's been so many years. If we could find the girl, we should have obtained some clues already. What do you think if..."

Jayden's expression grew colder as he gave the detective a sidelong glance. "Keep looking."

He took one of the photos, inserted the rest of them back into the file bag, signed a piece of check, and tossed it on the desk. "Contact me when you get any other information."

With that, he stood up and walked out the room with a grim expression.

"Mr. Spencer," The Director followed after the man. Upon sensing Jayden's gloom, he let out a sigh.

Jayden stopped, put the photo in his hand into his pocket, and turned to stare at the director expressionlessly.

The director said in a helpless tone of voice, "It's been too long. It's no exaggeration to say that these pictures are a miracle. Don't get your hopes up even if you refuse to give it up."

Jayden had been looking for someone.

As Lorna had been weak and ill and almost passed away several times, her parents had been doing charity work since their daughter was very young with the aim to accumulate good deeds for her.

The Hope Orphanage was founded by the Spencer Family at that time.

As Jayden and Lorna's parents used to be incredibly busy, they actually left Jayden once at the orphanage. It was on that day that Jayden met a little girl at the entrance of the Hope Orphanage, which opened up a fifteen-year long search.

The director sighed inwardly.

Fifteen years ago, monitoring equipment was not popular. All Jayden could remember was that little girl's outfit and features. As the available information was so little that even the Spencer Family had a dominant power in White City and had searched all the orphanages in town and even those homeless children on the street over the past fifteen years, what they got was only a few photos.

The director had always thought that the girl Jayden was looking for might no longer be alive.

Jayden gradually clenched his fingers into fists, nodded at the old man before him while tamping down the hostility surging up in his heart, and then turned to stride away.

At the same time, in a bedroom on the second floor of the Spencer Family's old mansion, Lorna hurried to lock the door and then threw herself at Karen, asking in an excited tone of voice, "Honey, did my brother recognize you?"