Chapter 458: Reversed Stroke Order

"The murderer wrote with reversed stroke order.", Xu Mo stared at the note the murderer left beside the corpse, and suddenly realized a detail he hadn't noticed before.

The police officers immediately gathered around, staring at the note for a while.

But they didn't see what Xu Mo was pointing out.

"The murderer wrote with reversed stroke order? Is that important?" Han Fei was also doubtful, looking at Xu Mo: "How did you figure that out?"

Because I also write with reversed stroke order, I can naturally tell…… Xu Mo said solemnly: "If you look closely, you can still distinguish between characters written with reversed stroke order and normal stroke order."

Xu Mo recalled when he first started learning to recognize and write characters as a child.

The first three characters the teacher taught were "one", "two", "three".

The teacher said "one" is a single horizontal stroke, "two" is two horizontal strokes, "three" is three horizontal strokes; hearing this, the somewhat clever yet restless Xu Mo couldn't bear to listen any further.

He thought, "Is writing characters just that? I thought it would be much harder!"

One stroke is "one", two strokes is "two", three strokes is "three"; by that logic, "four" would be four strokes, "five" would be five strokes, right? This is too simple—why study it? Let's just play for the whole class!

Watching peers of the same age with clueless expressions staring at the blackboard, watching the teacher lecture, Xu Mo's vanity was immensely satisfied… A bunch of idiots! Do we even need to study this seriously?

Young Xu Mo's gaze unconsciously drifted to the cute face of his female desk mate…

A few days later, when Xu Mo came to his senses, he realized that "four" wasn't written with four strokes—it was already too late; the teacher had moved on to later material, classmates could write other characters, but Xu Mo could still only write one, two, three.

How could Xu Mo tolerate that? Using his little cleverness, he began copying characters from the textbook, starting to teach himself how to write.

After some study, he learned the material he had missed, but the habit of writing with reversed stroke order had formed and persisted to this day; he still hasn't been able to change it.

Thinking of this, Xu Mo spoke up.

"There are only two reasons for writing with reversed stroke order: first, not paying attention in class as a child, missing when the teacher taught stroke order; second, never having attended school, learning characters through self-study, and once the habit of reversed stroke order writing forms, it's very hard to correct."

"Let's start by screening out those who write with normal stroke order."

Xu Mo picked up the notebook that everyone in the hospital had written in, and began the screening.

Handwriting differs; perhaps someone is deliberately imitating another's writing, so relying solely on handwriting to identify the murderer is not feasible—the police had just tried this method and found it indeed unworkable; they hadn't managed to lock onto the murderer just by handwriting.

But stroke order is hard to change; even if one tries, it takes a long time, and it's difficult to undo in the short term—forcibly changing stroke order can even make one momentarily forget how the character should originally be written.

The murderer's reversed stroke order writing is a very important clue.

There certainly are people who write with reversed stroke order, but such people definitely won't be the majority; as long as we filter out everyone in the hospital who writes with reversed stroke order, we can greatly narrow down the suspect pool!

Saying is doing; Xu Mo grabbed the notebook and started flipping through it page by page.

Whenever he saw someone who wrote with reversed stroke order, he would tear out that corresponding page.

Among all the police officers present, only Xu Mo writes with reversed stroke order, and only he can tell that those people's writing is in reversed stroke order.

The screening task can only be entrusted to Xu Mo.

After spending over twenty minutes, Xu Mo finished the screening.

"These two people are the ones who write with reversed stroke order.", Xu Mo spread out the torn pages on the table.

Each page also had the corresponding name; this was also what the police had asked everyone to write along with that sentence on the paper.

This was to facilitate later comparison.

"The suspect is among these two people?", Han Fei asked.

"Probably nine out of ten.", Xu Mo also didn't dare say it too definitively.

The habit of writing with reversed stroke order is hard to change, but it's not completely impossible to change.

"Anyway, we have no leads for now; let's just check those two first."

After saying that, Xu Mo had Wang Dachuan go find the director; he wanted to interrogate those two people who write with reversed stroke order.

Not long after, the director brought those two people over.

These two people: one is a patient in the hospital, the other is the gatekeeper Lao Ding.

Xu Mo planned to interrogate each of them separately.

However, while interrogating that patient, Xu Mo nearly broke down.

He deeply realized that the reason mental patients are mental patients is because ordinary people simply cannot communicate with them.

Xu Mo: "You and the victim…… no, are you familiar with Huang Youwei?"

Patient: "Obtuse angle."

Xu Mo: "???"

Xu Mo fetched the victim's photo, pointed at it, and asked again.

"He, Huang Youwei, do you know Huang Youwei?"

Patient: "I haven't drunk water yet."

"Alright……", Xu Mo rubbed his forehead: "Where were you last night?"

The patient suddenly clutched his head: "Water, water…… I'm going to wither! I'm going to wither!"

Is he thirsty? Xu Mo handed over a bottle of water for him to drink, but unexpectedly it was knocked over in one sweep.

"Water, water, quickly give me water…… I'm going to wither! I'm going to wither!"

Afterward, no matter what Xu Mo asked, he kept repeating that sentence.

Xu Mo: "???"

All the police officers: "???"

This line of questioning couldn't proceed at all.

Originally considering that the case details couldn't be leaked, Xu Mo hadn't thought of finding someone to help with the interrogation; he wanted to try it himself first.

But there was no way; Xu Mo simply didn't know how to communicate with this patient, so he had to call the director again, asking the director to find the medical staff responsible for this person to assist with the interrogation.

The director was also very cooperative, immediately summoning the medical staff in charge of this patient to assist Xu Mo.

When the medical staff entered, they brought a showerhead and explained to the police officers.

"He has a severe cognitive impairment, believes he is a mushroom that needs regular watering; he must be watered every morning to alleviate his condition, but this morning he got caught up in this affair and forgot to water himself……"

While speaking, he also took a watering can and sprinkled some water near the patient's feet.

After watering, the patient wore an expression of enjoyment, and shortly thereafter returned to normal.

Those watching the police all looked dumbfounded.

"Help me ask him where he was last night." After seeing the patient stop clamoring for water, Xu Mo looked toward the medical staff.

The medical staff didn't even ask, and directly replied: "The ward."

Then he also explained.

"He has a habit: as soon as the sun sets, he definitely won't leave the ward, crouching by the bedside, motionlessly imitating a mushroom, and only moves when dawn arrives."

"He won't leave the ward after sunset? Is it like that every day?"

"Yes, it's been like that since the day he arrived; it's been several years now, and at night he doesn't move at all."

"Okay, I understand..." Xu Mo murmured: "Please take him back to the ward, thanks for the trouble."

……