Ou Jinzhong was born on December 5, 1966, in Shanglin Village, Pinghai Town, Xiuyu District, Putian, Fujian. He made a living catching and selling fish. In his earlier years, he jumped into deep sea waters to rescue a drowning child, falling ill and bedridden for a month while declining any reward, and was once featured in local newspapers for saving stranded dolphins. In 2017, he received official approval to rebuild his dilapidated home on a 150-square-metre plot. After tearing down his old 400-square-metre house, his neighbours repeatedly obstructed and vandalised the construction, leaving him unable to build for five years. Village and township cadres shirked responsibility and tolerated the bullies. His appeals to local authorities, the mayor's hotline, media outlets, and on Weibo all went unanswered, forcing him and his 89-year-old mother to live in a makeshift tin shack for five years. On October 10, 2021, strong winds blew a sheet of tin roofing into his neighbour's yard; when he went to retrieve it, his neighbours hurled abuse at him. His pent-up despair and outrage erupted: he took up a knife and killed neighbours Ou Moujiu and Ou Mouying, and wounded three others, including a nine-year-old child. Following the incident, authorities deployed armed police and helicopters to search the hills. The Pinghai town government issued a controversial bounty offering 20,000 yuan for leads but 50,000 yuan for his corpse, sparking widespread suspicion of an attempt to eliminate a witness, while his Weibo account was wiped. On October 18, cornered in a cave near Shanglin Village, he died under official claims that he committed suicide while resisting arrest, aged 54. The truth of his death remains unexplained.
On October 10, 2021, Ou Jinzhong, a villager of Shanglin Village in Putian, clashed with his neighbors over a years-long housing dispute, leaving two dead and three injured, and fled into the mountains; on October 18, police said he died by suicide when he was cornered, and the cause of his death drew skepticism.