"But he's an autistic patient," Zhang said.
Shen Xiyin asked, "Who is the artist of the painting?"
"Lin Qianyan, Jiang Yun's son," Chen Xue replied.
Shen Xiyin paused as she was flipping through the paintings. She looked closely at that particular painting, then showed it to the others: "Doesn't the person in this painting look like Mu Mian?"
The content of the painting was: a girl lying in a pool of blood, her hands and feet had been cut off, the facial features were very clear, and it looked a bit like Mu Mian.
Everyone fell silent because it really did look like Mu Mian, and a photo of Mu Mian had also been found in Lin Qianyan's room. Lin Qianyan knew what Mu Mian looked like, so this certainly wasn't a coincidence. But they didn't understand why this autistic child would harbor such hostility towards Mu Mian.
"Why would he paint me like this?" Mu Mian complained, "I've never offended him!"
They reviewed surveillance footage for an entire day and finally discovered a suspicious person: Li Min, the acting director of "Star Home". Every few days, she would bring Yuanyuan along with Teacher Jiang to this villa. Sometimes Director Zhang would bring Yuanyuan over. But Yuanyuan came very frequently.
Li Min used to be a therapist at Teacher Jiang's institution. After resigning, she volunteered at "Star Home", helping autistic children with intervention therapy. She was very responsible in her work and was well-liked by the children.
"Chen, what were they coming here to do?" Fang Rui pointed at Li Min and Yuanyuan in the surveillance footage, asking the Lin family's housekeeper.
"Yuanyuan came to keep Yanyan company. Miss Jiang was afraid he'd be lonely, so she occasionally invited children from the welfare home to come play. Yanyan didn't like those children, but he quite liked Yuanyuan."
Li Min was one of the few people besides Teacher Jiang who had contact with both children. Now that Teacher Jiang had been attacked, Li Min was the prime suspect.
"But how can we prove that she induced Yuanyuan and Yanyan to kill? It's hard to leave evidence of verbal manipulation," Zhang sighed.
"Indeed, and given Yuanyuan and Yanyan's special circumstances, and the fact that they're both children, even if they pointed out that Li Min told them the knife was a magic wand, this testimony might not hold up in court. We need substantial evidence," Chen Xue said.
Fang Rui first asked Zhang and Wang to go to the welfare home to get Li Min's drawings and handwriting samples.
He and Mu Mian stayed in the office to piece together the torn drawings.
There was a thick stack of paper scraps in the cookie tin. The drawings had been torn into very small pieces, making it difficult to reassemble them, but fortunately, Mu Mian was skilled at puzzles.
Fang Rui handed her the paper scraps, and Mu Mian matched their positions based on the shapes of the edges and the content on the scraps.
As each drawing was completed, they sealed it with laminating paper to prevent it from being messed up.
Working late into the night, Mu Mian and the others finally finished piecing together all the scraps, totaling thirty-nine drawings.
"Finally finished. I don't want to do any puzzles for a long time, except for corpses," Mu Mian took off her gloves and rubbed her sore eyes. "Judging by the painting styles, these drawings should be by two different people."
The drawings had already been separated into two piles based on technique and style. One pile was very thick, with thirty-five drawings, while the other had only four.
The thirty-five drawings were likely drawn by Yuanyuan, with an immature technique.
The other four drawings had a style similar to Yuanyuan's, both with a fairy tale style, fluid lines, and reasonable color combinations, but with mature drawing techniques.
Fang Rui picked up one of the four drawings. It was very sparse, with only a fruit knife drawn on it.
Another drawing depicted a hand holding a knife stabbing into a woman's chest, with splashing blood drawn as red magical effects.
Among the thirty-five drawings, there was also a similar one. The content of that drawing was: a boy holding a fruit knife, stabbing it into a woman's chest, but without any blood drawn.
The woman had a face they were familiar with.
Fang Rui invited Li Min to the interrogation room.
Li Min sat in the chair and asked in confusion, "Officer, I'm not a criminal, is it necessary to take my statement in a place like this?"
Zhang didn't answer her question, "Miss Li, do you know Lin Qianyan?"
Li Min thought for a moment and asked, "You mean Yanyan? Yes, I know him. I occasionally bring Yuanyuan to play with him. His mother often donates to our welfare home."
"Do you know what a magic wand is?"
"Why do you ask? A magic wand is used to cast spells."
"If we found a more professional hypnotist to hypnotize Yuanyuan, do you think he would remember who told him the knife was a magic wand?" Fang Rui said.
"He probably would! But how can you be sure that what Yuanyuan says under hypnosis is the truth? Children love to lie, you know."
"Miss Li, it was you who told Yuanyuan and Yanyan that the fruit knife was a magic wand, and that stabbing it into a person's body could bring the dead back to life, right?"
Li Min displayed an expression caught between laughter and tears, "Officer, your imagination is too rich. Those two children are autistic, but they're not stupid. How could they believe such nonsense?"
"What if someone made them see it with their own eyes?" Fang Rui placed a drawing in front of Li Min. "You personally demonstrated it for them, didn't you?"
The content of the drawing was Li Min lying on the ground, with a boy stabbing a knife into her chest, but there was no blood from the wound. This knife was probably a retractable one.
"This is a child's drawing. What can it prove?" Li Min glanced at the drawing and quickly looked away, defending herself.
"How do you know this is a child's drawing?" Fang Rui asked.
"I've studied art therapy, so I'm familiar with these things. Analyzing the lines, composition, and technique, this should be drawn by a child."
"If that's the case, why didn't you recognize this as Yuanyuan's drawing? You spend a lot of time with Yuanyuan, couldn't you tell this was his work?" Fang Rui continued to question.
"Of course I can tell this is Yuanyuan's drawing. Officer, there's no need to dwell on these issues. Children's drawings often mix reality with imagination, they can't be used as evidence to deduce the truth of a case."
Li Min's tone was calm, as if she was certain Fang Rui and his team couldn't find any evidence.
"If children's drawings don't count, what about an adult's?"
Fang Rui took out the other four drawings and laid them in front of Li Min.
Li Min's pupils dilated instantly, looking at those drawings in disbelief. She had torn these drawings up and thrown them away, how could they appear here again? The garbage should have been disposed of long ago. Did the police dig these things out from the waste treatment plant?
"The Technical Department has already compared them. The technique and the way the lines are drawn in these four drawings match your painting style. These four drawings were done by you."
Li Min leaned back slightly, saying calmly, "Why couldn't it be someone else imitating my painting style? Technique is easy to imitate. Even works by famous artists can be imitated so well it's hard to distinguish the real from the fake. My drawings would be even easier to imitate. What can this prove?"
"But your fingerprints are also on these drawings," Fang Rui said.
