Chapter 191 Split-Brain Case: Dead Child

The mice that Mu Mian raised not only did not suffer from the murder, but under the careful care of everyone, especially Xiao Zhang, they became a group of fat mice.

Rainbow Seven, the smartest one, is now unwilling to walk through the maze for food.

Mu Mian poked Rainbow Seven's head and sighed: "A comfortable environment will make the IQ of mice degenerate!"

"Is it possible that it was good at walking through the maze before, not because it was smart, but because it had a keen sense of smell." Fang Rui said.

"Of course not, the food I put at the exit of the maze has no smell." Mu Mian thought for a moment and said, "Should I install an electric shock device inside to give them a dangerous stimulation from time to time to increase their enthusiasm for walking through the maze?"

Mu Mian felt someone staring at her with resentful eyes.

She turned around and found that it was Xiao Zhang.

"Mu Mian, how can you be so cruel to them? You actually want to shock them?" Xiao Zhang scolded.

Mu Mian explained, "Psychologists all do this. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning was summarized when he was 'torturing' mice. Electric shock is a common way to apply stimulation."

Xiao Zhang stood in front of the glass box and corrected Mu Mian, "They have names. Please call them by their names, Little Red, Little Orange... Little Purple. Come, uncle will play music for you to comfort your frightened hearts."

In these days of getting along, Xiao Zhang has already regarded these mice as pets.

Mu Mian whispered to Fang Rui, "I have said before that we cannot give mice names that are too anthropomorphic, otherwise it is easy for people to transfer empathy. Look, this is an example."

Fang Rui smiled helplessly.

Mu Mian's undercover capture plan failed after half a month.

On Monday morning, Fang Rui and Mu Mian were on their way to work when they received a notice that a child's body was found in a green belt beside a suburban highway.

The crime scene was a small flowerbed beside the highway. When the sanitation worker was sweeping the road in the morning, he found a baby lying in the flowerbed. He thought someone had abandoned the child, so he picked the child up and found that the child's eyes were closed, without any response, and the body smelled slightly.

He touched the child's heart and found that he had no heartbeat and no breath. He realized that someone might have died, so he immediately called the police.

After arriving at the crime scene, Mu Mian saw the body of the deceased lying on the side of the road.

The deceased was a very small boy, and judging from his height, he was no more than two years old. He was wearing light blue cotton pajamas and a black woolen hat with cartoon characters printed on it.

His abdomen was slightly bulging and there were green spots of decay on his back. Mu Mian lifted the dead man's eyelids and found that his cornea was highly cloudy and black spots appeared on his sclera. There was a slight stench of corpse.

"The current ambient temperature is 27℃ and the body temperature is 30.5℃. Combined with other body characteristics, the time of death of the deceased has exceeded 24 hours."

The dead man looked very strange, with wide eyes, small palpebral fissures, upward slanting eyes, a flat nose, and short and thick fingers. Mu Mian found that his hand bones were slightly deformed.

Chen Xue said: "This child's appearance is very strange, not like a normal child, he could be suffering from Down syndrome?"

Down syndrome is also called 21-trisomy syndrome, which is a disease caused by an extra chromosome 21 in the body. Children with this disease have special faces, slow growth and development, physical deformities, congenital diseases such as heart disease, and low intelligence.

Mu Mian agreed: "Yes, this is very likely a Down syndrome baby. He is 61.5cm tall. Children with Down syndrome are generally shorter than normal children. Judging from his height, he should be 1 and a half to 2 years old."

"Could it be that his parents didn't want to raise him and threw him in the flower bed?" Xiao Zhang guessed.

Mu Mian asked in confusion: "Can't Down syndrome be detected through prenatal examination? Down syndrome screening is a must-do item in prenatal examination. Why did his mother give birth to him? Moreover, there is a 60% chance of miscarriage for fetuses with Down syndrome in the early stages. Without the help of a doctor, he is unlikely to survive."

Chen Xue said: "Generally speaking, doctors will definitely suggest that the child's mother abort the child. However, I have heard of extreme cases. Some mothers love their children very much, so even if they find that the child has genetic problems, they will still choose to give birth to them."

Xiao Zhang said: "But such a mentally retarded child will not be happy if he is born. Alas, this kind of maternal love is too blind."

Mu Mian smelled blood on the child, but she checked the child's body and found no external injuries. At this time, Mu Mian took off the small hat on the head of the deceased, revealing the child's bald head.

"His skull was cut open." Mu Mian said.

Everyone looked over and saw that the child's hair had been shaved, and there was a circle of black seams on the scalp, twisted and tangled around the child's head like a centipede.

At this time, everyone suddenly realized that this might not be an ordinary case of child abandonment.

"Did this child have a craniotomy?" Xiao Zhang was surprised.

"The craniotomy technique was quite professional, but it was not an operation. The wound showed no signs of life, which proves that the scalp of the deceased was cut open after his death." Mu Mian said, "No doctor would perform surgery on a patient after his death."

Fang Rui guessed, "Could it be that the doctor performed an autopsy on the deceased's body to find out the cause of death?"

"It's possible."

Mu Mian checked the deceased's eyelids and mouth. There was no foreign matter in the deceased's mouth, and there were no pressure marks on the mouth and neck. "The cause of death can be ruled out as mechanical asphyxiation. Judging from the characteristics of the body, it doesn't seem to be poisoning."

Mu Mian put the child's body into a body bag. Then he and Chen Xue lifted the body into the car, and they drove back first. Mu Mian couldn't wait to know what happened to the body.

Her first instinct told her that the murderer might have stolen something from the deceased.

Fang Rui carefully observed the environment here. The flowerbed is next to a secondary road. There is a large wasteland nearby and few people live there. However, this is the intersection of many provincial roads. There is a gas station and a water station nearby. At night, many trucks will park nearby.

This is not an ideal place to dump corpses.

There is no surveillance near this flowerbed, but there are many speed cameras on this road.

This road has a lot of traffic. It is also close to the highway entrance. There are many large trucks passing by, and it is difficult to check these vehicles.

Xiao Zhang guessed: "Could it be that the child's mother went crazy because the child died, and walked around with the child in her arms. When she came here, she just left the child here?"

Xiao Wang felt that Xiao Zhang's guess was somewhat reasonable, but also a little absurd. He couldn't help but said, "You haven't watched too many TV dramas, have you?"

"Think about it carefully. The body of a child is so small. It would be so easy to dispose of the body without anyone noticing! Put it in a suitcase and throw it into a ditch or into the sea, and the body will be destroyed. If it really doesn't work, burying it in the ground is better than throwing it into the flowerbed. If the murderer had a little more normal brain, he would not have thrown the body here."

Xiao Wang was convinced by Xiao Zhang, "That makes some sense!"

Fang Rui said, "What if the person who killed the child and abandoned the child's body is not the same person?"

"So what did the person who dumped the body want to do? Did he want to cause our investigation? Then why didn't he dump the body in the city center and cause a public outcry?"

Fang Rui said, "Let's investigate the child's identity first. This child has a very special appearance and has Down syndrome. There are very few children like him, so it should be easy to find out his identity."

At this time, Xiao Wang said, "Come and see, what is this?"

Everyone gathered around and saw that there was a "Ψ" in the soil inside the flowerbed. The word was black and red, and it seemed to be written in blood.

After Xiao Wang took a photo of the symbol, he sprayed luminol on it, and there was a fluorescent reaction.

"This symbol was written in blood."