⟪The Great Heist of Jin City Premiere Day⟫
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June 19, 2021, Saturday.
As a southern coastal city with a tumultuous history, Jin City held a special place in China.
It was once “leased” by European colonizers for over a hundred years, existing as a concession, and finally returned to the embrace of the motherland in the 1990s.
Jin City was located south of the Tropic of Cancer, where summer arrived particularly early. By late June, it was already so hot that it felt impossible to live without air conditioning.
At 1:30 in the afternoon, Ye Huairui stepped out of the subway station and was immediately hit by a wave of scorching heat.
This time of day was the hottest, and walking under the blazing sun was nothing short of torture.
Forensic Pathologist Ye had considered driving himself, but recently the Shuizhen area was undergoing road resurfacing, making traffic quite unpredictable. He really didn’t want to gamble on the chance of getting stuck in traffic.
Yes, Ye Huairui was a forensic pathologist.
Ye Huairui’s father was a wealthy businessman in Jin City, and his mother was the eldest daughter of a scholarly family from Zhijiang.
However, his parents divorced when he was in elementary school. Since then, he had lived and studied with his mother in the mainland and only returned to Jin City after graduation due to work.
He originally studied clinical medicine, but during his postgraduate years, he chose the rather niche field of forensic science. Later, upon his mentor’s recommendation, he went to the University of Pennsylvania to pursue a Ph.D. After graduation, he returned to China and took a position at the Jin City Judicial Police Bureau’s Forensic Laboratory.
Today, Ye Huairui was going to watch a movie.
The Great Heist of Jin City had its midnight premiere today, and by midday, numerous reviews already surfaced online.
Earlier, Ye Huairui browsed through some of them on the subway, and the online buzz was rapidly escalating, which only heightened his anticipation.
However, being a mature and composed adult, he refrained from spoiling the movie by looking up any spoilers in advance.
But in fact, spoilers weren’t really necessary.
After all, when it came to The Great Heist of Jin City, not only was it well-known among the locals of Jin City, but it was also a highly renowned case in the history of crime across Asia and even the world.
The case gained such fame not only because of its complexity, the enormous amount of money involved, and the high number of casualties, but also because it remained an unsolved “cold case” to this day.
This time, a well-known local director, Zhao Cuihua, brought the case to the big screen.
According to Director Zhao, the film would interpret the case from a completely new perspective.
Ye Huairui had been interested in this old case for a long time. Due to his profession, he had accessed some internal documents and developed his own thoughts on the case.
Normally not very interested in movies, Forensic Pathologist Ye made it a point to watch this film on its premiere day because he was very curious about how Director Zhao would uniquely and freshly interpret this old case.
When Ye Huairui arrived at the cinema, there were still twenty-five minutes before the movie started.
He decided to buy a scoop of ice cream and sat in the lounge area, eating and waiting.
At the table next to Ye Huairui, two young women who looked like university students were also there to watch The Great Heist of Jin City and had already started chatting.
The two women’s voices weren’t particularly loud, but the lounge area’s booth design was so compact that their conversation was still clearly audible to Forensic Pathologist Ye.
“Oh, look, there’s a huge debate online.”
“Yeah, I heard Director Zhao exonerated Yin Jiaming, saying he was framed.”
“Well, no wonder there’s such a heated argument.”
“But Tang Tang is so handsome. He doesn’t look like a murderer at all! Hahaha!”
“Exactly, how could such a handsome guy be a murderer!”
In just a few sentences, the two young women had already given away the core spoilers of the movie.
Ye Huairui listened helplessly, silently facepalming. He scooped up a spoonful of ice cream, gave a wry smile, and put it in his mouth.
Meanwhile, the women’s conversation continued.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“Hehe. Why do I think he’s even more handsome than Tang Tang?”
“No way, you’re too much! You’re switching allegiances over a black-and-white photo?”
The two young women giggled and bantered for a bit more before their conversation shifted to discussing which current young male celebrity had the best looks.
Ye Huairui couldn’t help but curl his lips into a smile.
He had, of course, already seen the black-and-white photo of Yin Jiaming from the wanted poster circulating online.
Not just that one; while reviewing the case files from back then, he had seen other photos of Yin Jiaming as well.
Ye Huairui admitted that, even from the discerning perspective of a gay man with high aesthetic standards, Yin Jiaming was indeed an impeccably handsome man.
If one were to judge solely by his looks and physique, no one would believe that such a strikingly handsome young man, comparable to top celebrities, could be a ruthless robber and murderer responsible for at least nine deaths.
Thirty-nine years ago, in the early hours of July 21, 1982, a shocking case occurred in Jin City.
At that time, Jin City was about to host a jewelry exhibition, featuring an extremely rare teardrop-shaped blue diamond valued at approximately four million dollars, named Tear of the Arctic Ocean.
Before being transported to the exhibition hall, this batch of jewelry was secretly stored in the vault of the Fushou branch of Daxin Bank.
Unexpectedly, somehow the information was leaked, and three masked, armed robbers broke into the home of the branch manager. After killing his wife and two sons, they took the manager hostage and infiltrated the Fushou Bay branch of Daxin Bank through the sewer system.
The robbers forced the branch manager to open the vault door and then forcibly opened the safe containing a large amount of jewelry. They took jewelry and gold bars worth a total of approximately 4.5 million US dollars, including the famous Tear of the Arctic Ocean.
After the successful robbery, the robbers killed the branch manager, left the way they came, and were picked up by a black sedan, heading straight to a private dock.
Subsequent analysis by the Jin City police suggested that the robbers intended to smuggle themselves out of the country from the dock, aiming to escape to a Southeast Asian country.
Unfortunately, the robbers seemed to have run out of luck.
The driver who was supposed to take them to the dock was deeply addicted to gambling and owed a significant amount of money to a certain gang. Coincidentally, one of the ‘patrolmen’ at the dock was the driver’s creditor.
Seeing the debtor trying to flee, the creditor naturally refused to let him go, leading to a scuffle between the two parties.
In a moment of desperation, the driver revealed Yin Jiaming’s identity.
Whether to silence him or to escape quickly, the robbers opened fire.
The gunshots alerted two nearby patrol officers.
They arrived at the scene immediately but were unfortunately caught in the crossfire and both were killed.
By the time the main police force arrived, they found five bodies strewn about and one critically injured person with a gunshot wound to the shoulder. The four perpetrators had already fled and were nowhere to be found.
In total, nine people died in the robbery, including two police officers and two minors, and the stolen property amounted to a staggering 4.5 million US dollars.
Such a shocking case naturally prompted the Jin City authorities to launch an all-out manhunt.
The sole survivor of the dock shooting told the police everything he knew and identified the driver and Yin Jiaming.
The police issued a city-wide bounty and manhunt, setting up an inescapable net to prevent the robbers from leaving Jin City.
Unfortunately, both the driver and Yin Jiaming seemed to have vanished into thin air. Despite the police’s exhaustive efforts, they remained elusive.
Unable to capture the driver and Yin Jiaming, and failing to identify the other two perpetrators, the case hung over the heads of Jin City’s residents, causing widespread panic and rampant rumors.
It wasn’t until two months after the robbery that the police received a tip from an informant, locating Yin Jiaming in a seaside villa area.
Faced with the police’s encirclement, Yin Jiaming adamantly denied being the perpetrator and attempted to flee.
In a moment of urgency, the Jin City police opened fire.
Yin Jiaming was shot and, despite his injuries, escaped into a villa and then jumped into the sea from a window. He disappeared without a trace and was never seen again.
In the final case files that Ye Huairui reviewed, the Jin City police concluded that Yin Jiaming was indeed one of the four perpetrators and was likely the mastermind.
The police shot Yin Jiaming in the left abdomen—given the medical standards of the time, combined with the gunshot wound and falling into the sea, there was a 99% chance he wouldn’t have survived.
Since the mastermind was presumed dead, the case was considered closed.
Unfortunately, despite the police thoroughly searching all of Yin Jiaming’s properties afterward, they couldn’t find any of the stolen goods.
The millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry and gold bars, especially the world-renowned rare blue diamond Tear of the Arctic Ocean, vanished without a trace and never reappeared in the public eye.
Now, thirty-nine years later, Director Zhao Cuihua revisited the old case, making a movie to “exonerate” a criminal who had been dead for nearly forty years. This was indeed quite intriguing…
… …
Thinking of this, Ye Huairui smiled, scraped the last bit of ice cream from the bottom of the cup with his spoon, ate it in one bite, threw the cup into the nearby trash can, and then got up to head to the screening room.
He was curious to see how Director Zhao would tell the story of this well-known old case.
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The screening room darkened, and the movie officially began.
As a well-known local director in Jin City, Zhao Cuihua was renowned for her consistent quality. Her works were either critically acclaimed or box office hits, making her quite a draw for audiences.
The first-day attendance rate for The Great Heist of Jin City was impressive, with the large screening room almost completely filled.
Ye Huairui’s seat was a bit too close to the front, requiring him to slightly tilt his head to watch the screen.
The movie followed Director Zhao’s usual style: a tight plot, smooth visuals, thrilling scenes, and a strong sense of cinematography, capturing the essence of Jin City’s crime thrillers.
However, this time, the film, which appeared to be a very “traditional” crime thriller, was not just a simple story of good triumphing over evil.
The movie unfolded along two parallel lines.
The male lead, played by the popular young actor Tang Tang, was one of the robbers, while the second male lead was a police captain responsible for investigating the case back then.
The plot began with the robbers planning the heist, then finding accomplices, and finally selecting the right moment to commit the crime.
The robbers and their accomplices then failed to escape due to the unexpected incident at the dock. After killing nine people, they fled hastily and disappeared into the crowd.
From this point, the narrative focus shifted to the police captain.
The police meticulously investigated all the witnesses and evidence left behind by the robbers, not overlooking any clues. They delved deep into the robbers’ social circles and networks, trying to unearth these ruthless criminals.
After a difficult investigation, they finally located Yin Jiaming, played by Tang Tang, in the seaside villa area.
Then, just as it happened in real history, a thrilling chase ensued, culminating in the police opening fire, and the criminal being shot and falling into the sea.
At this point, Ye Huairui thought that if it were just this, The Great Heist of Jin City would merely be a well-balanced, competent crime thriller.
However, this was not the true ending.
On the screen, the police captain was overlooking the turbulent sea, his expression grave and contemplative.
A police officer ran up to him, informing him that they had not found Yin Jiaming, who had fallen into the sea.
Upon hearing this, the captain’s expression grew even darker, showing no signs of excitement or joy over the case being solved or the criminal being brought to justice.
The officer, observing the captain’s demeanor, cautiously asked if there was a problem.
The captain turned to his subordinate and said, word by word, “Do you think this Yin Jiaming is the real culprit?”
Amid the officer’s surprised expression, the camera quickly zoomed out, spanning across most of Jin City, and moved to hover over a chaotic and old residential area.
In the cramped tenement buildings, there was an inconspicuous window, with its curtains tightly drawn even in broad daylight.
A man stood in front of a black-and-white television, watching the news.
On the screen, a spokesperson for the Jin City police was surrounded by a dozen microphones.
He confidently assured that Yin Jiaming had been shot dead by the police, his body had fallen into the sea, the main perpetrator of the heist was dead, and the case was essentially solved, so the public could rest easy.
The camera then shifted, revealing the man’s face to the audience—it was Tang Tang, playing Yin Jiaming!
However, Ye Huairui quickly noticed that whether it was due to the makeup artist’s deliberate changes or subtle differences in hairstyle, the “Yin Jiaming” standing in front of the television and the “Yin Jiaming” who fell into the sea, although sharing the same face, had distinctly different auras.
Tang Tang was clearly portraying two different characters.
Sure enough, the man gazed at the screen and suddenly curled his lips into a smile, a smile as cold as ice, exuding a chilling cruelty and ferocity.
He then sat down at a table, rolled up his left sleeve, and began to wipe a tattoo on his left arm with a cloth.
Yin Jiaming had a tattoo of Guanyin holding a lotus on his left arm—this was one of the ‘evidences’ recorded in the files.
However, in this moment, the handsome yet sinister man in the close-up shot was slowly wiping away the Guanyin holding a lotus tattoo from his arm.
This scene, juxtaposed with the background audio of the police declaring Yin Jiaming dead and the case solved, was so ironic, as if mocking everyone both inside and outside the film.
The screen darkened.
As the end credits began to roll, a black-and-white ID photo appeared.
It was the real “Yin Jiaming,” identical to the headshot printed on the wanted poster from back then.
The young man in the photo had a handsome face and sharp eyes, appearing younger and more spirited than his portrayal in the film. He exuded a unique, carefree charm of that era, so free-spirited and dashing.
Even though the main film had ended, hardly any audience members in the screening room got up to leave.
Almost everyone continued to stare at the screen.
The photos began to change.
One after another, all of them were of the real Yin Jiaming from thirty-nine years ago.
Some were solo shots, while others were group photos. Most were in black and white, but there were even a couple in color.
Ye Huairui was quite surprised.
These photos were incredibly comprehensive, including many he hadn’t even seen in the police archives.
In an era when cameras were rare and valuable, it was already remarkable for someone to have so many photos taken.
Moreover, nearly forty years later, Director Zhao was still able to obtain these old photos—Ye Huairui believed the only possibility was that someone in the film crew had direct contact with Yin Jiaming’s relatives or acquaintances from back then.
By this time, the end credits song was nearing its conclusion.
The last photo faded away, and the screen went completely dark.
Just when the audience thought the movie had ended, a line of text appeared on the screen—
“The truth will not be altered, only buried.”
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The author has something to say:
Starting a new project! (^o^)/
The setting of Jin City is partially inspired by Macau, but for the sake of the plot, it is a fictional city.
This story is purely fictional and should not be associated with any real organizations or individuals. Love you all! =3=
Also, the new pre-release synopsis is out. It’s a very interesting serial murder mystery! Please visit my profile and give it a follow!
🏕️🍿👍🏻