I'm not sure what exemplars you're looking at, but in the ones I see it definitely looks like 撇 (the down left stroke) crosses 横 (the horizontal one) to me.
ETA: It might have a separate stroke up top sometimes
No dictionary I've checked wants to go to bat for three strokes in the order implied by what's in the VMS, and I certainly don't recall seeing a character like that. Now, I'm at a disadvantage here because if he's botched the strokes or order I'm going to have trouble reading it because I've been trained out of the shape instincts he would have been working with, but its also simple enough I can scarcely imagine how else to render it
ETA: It might have a separate stroke up top sometimes
No dictionary I've checked wants to go to bat for three strokes in the order implied by what's in the VMS, and I certainly don't recall seeing a character like that. Now, I'm at a disadvantage here because if he's botched the strokes or order I'm going to have trouble reading it because I've been trained out of the shape instincts he would have been working with, but its also simple enough I can scarcely imagine how else to render it