#to see the family he could've had after being miraculously plucked from poverty

[devilgene1]

I think it’s easily possible Lee was adopted before Kazuya was thrown off the cliff due to the sheer vagueness of when Heihachi picked him up in China. There’s no timeframe listed and on the wiki, we only get an assumption of “since Lee was old enough to impress Heihachi with his fighting skills, he was likely adopted after the key events of Kazuya’s early childhoood”.

I don’t think that holds very much weight after seeing 5yr old Kazuya pull off a ten hit combo string in t7. Why wouldn’t Lee be able to show off he has the foundation of a fighting prodigy then, even if its just dodging and throwing a few kicks while trying to scrapping with other kids? If he was adopted after Kazuya was thrown off a cliff, when then? A week after it just happened? 6 months? Two years?

We only know that Chaolan is listed as younger by one year. The only reasonable date of birth I could find between these two was for Kazuya ( November 2 - which simply means he needed to be thrown off that cliff before he turned 6 ).

As an example of how this could work, let’s use September as a placeholder for Lee’s birthday and Heihachi adopts him in August. Ok, that meant he was adopted at the age of four and a couple weeks later he turns five, briefly being the same age as Kazuya. Let’s say Kazuya is thrown off the cliff in October and survives, turning six a little while later in November. The age gap remains intact while presenting an equally plausible flow of events.