Matter of Fact: A play on "matter" (physics) and "facts" (news).

Fan Zeng is one of China's most commercially successful contemporary painters, yet his career is shadowed by a "black history" of betraying mentors such as Shen Congwen and Li Kuchan, as well as a scandalous personal life involving multiple marriages and infidelity. In 2024, his marriage to Xu Meng, a woman fifty years his junior, ignited further public outcry, which escalated in 2025 when his biological daughter reported him missing and claimed his 2-billion-yuan art collection had been cleared out. This "disappearance" has exposed a vicious family power struggle over his massive fortune, pitting his young fourth wife and adopted stepchildren against his biological daughter amidst conflicting reports of his whereabouts.

Su Hong, a woman from Heilongjiang, murdered four people between 2003 and 2010, targeting her brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and two local brothers whom she viewed as "unfaithful" or predatory. She concealed the victims' remains in her family's vegetable cellar and used their mobile phones to send deceptive text messages to their relatives, successfully hiding her crimes for seven years while raising four children alone. Following her arrest in 2010, Su Hong expressed a sense of relief and was ultimately executed in 2012, leaving behind a tragic legacy that highlights the intersection of social isolation, domestic trauma, and the lack of legal recourse in rural China.

The Chinese reality show Only You became a national phenomenon by using a confrontational format where "Boss" judges often humiliated job seekers to generate viral ratings. A decade later, many of those once-arrogant corporate elites have faced a "boomerang" of reality, with their companies failing and their personal reputations tarnished by bankruptcy or debt restrictions. Today, as record numbers of graduates enter a sluggish economy, Gen Z workers are increasingly rejecting these toxic "wolf culture" philosophies in favor of "slacking off" and demanding basic workplace rights.

On July 1, 2008, Yang Jia launched a violent attack on the Zhabei Public Security Bureau in Shanghai, killing six police officers and injuring others using a knife after infiltrating the building with firebombs and tear gas,. This retaliatory act was motivated by a 2007 incident where Yang was detained and allegedly beaten by police during an investigation into a bicycle he had rented, leading him to eventually declare that if the authorities would not give him an explanation, he would provide his own. Although Yang Jia was executed in November 2008, he became a controversial symbol of resistance against perceived systemic injustice, reflecting deep-seated public resentment toward police brutality and the lack of official accountability at the time.

Jiang Yingku was a local official in the Heilongjiang procuratorate system who led a ruthless criminal gang responsible for the murders of 21 people between 1993 and 2000. To eliminate debts and seize assets, the gang targeted creditors, business rivals, and even colleagues, dismembering their bodies and incinerating them in a commercial boiler to ensure no physical evidence remained. Despite the scale of his crimes, Jiang successfully evaded justice for nearly a decade by leveraging his official status and corrupt police connections until a former associate finally confessed and exposed the gang's activities.

Lu Enguang was a self-made billionaire who, driven by an extreme obsession with the prestige of official status, spent millions in bribes to climb the Chinese political hierarchy. To facilitate his rapid ascent, he became a "five-fake official" by systematically fabricating his age, education, and career history while using his personal wealth to fund "donations" that created a false record of political achievement. He eventually reached the position of Vice-Minister of Justice by meticulously serving his superiors' personal needs, but his elaborate deceptions were ultimately uncovered by central inspectors, leading to his 12-year prison sentence in 2018.

Nina Wang rose to become Asia's richest woman after her husband, Teddy Wang, disappeared in a 1990 kidnapping and was later legally declared dead. She maintained control of the Chinachem Group by winning an eight-year legal battle against her father-in-law over her husband's multi-billion dollar estate. Following her death in 2007, a second high-profile dispute occurred when her feng shui master, Tony Chan, attempted to claim the inheritance with a forged will, ultimately leading to his imprisonment and the estate's transition into a charitable trust.

In November 2025, a coordinated jailbreak occurred in Cambodia when a woman handed a gun to a prisoner outside a court, enabling six inmates to escape briefly before they were all recaptured following a car crash. While social media transformed the incident into a viral myth about a "pure love" warrior named Feng Jing, the real perpetrator was Nguyen Thi Hai Van, a Vietnamese national acting as an accomplice for an organized criminal group. The event exposed critical lapses in judicial security and illustrated how extreme online romanticization can obscure the reality of serious crimes like kidnapping, fraud, and human trafficking.

In 2025, self-taught computer genius Alex Barret claimed to have solved the Black Dahlia and Zodiac Killer mysteries by using AI and a new decryption method to identify a single suspect named Marvin Marrow (Mr. 2M). Barret points to Marrow’s medical background, historical proximity to the victims, and a disturbing personal sketch titled "Elizabeth" that mirrors the Black Dahlia’s unpublished autopsy details as primary evidence. However, many experts and family members remain highly skeptical of these findings, citing chronological inconsistencies and noting that the investigation is being promoted alongside a new documentary series.

Li Zhen, known as the notoriously arrogant "Number One Secretary of Hebei," leveraged his position under provincial leader Cheng Weigao to manipulate political appointments and amass wealth through corruption and faked credentials. Following a major investigation into his "shadow power" and the embezzlement of state assets, Li was betrayed by his mistress and ultimately executed by lethal injection in 2003 at the age of 34. The scandal led to the political downfall of Cheng Weigao and the flight of his son, Chen Muyang, to Canada, where the latter successfully fought extradition despite being listed on an international Red Notice.