On July 1, 2008, a serious attack against the police occurred in the Zhabei Police Station, Shanghai, by Beijing resident Yang Jia, who was eventually charged with murder and executed for killing six policemen that day. The police report stated that Yang committed the crime from the first to the twenty-first floor, on the staircase of the fire exit of the office building, and that he was eventually arrested on the twenty-first floor. “The killing took only seven seconds,” was used in the comments of an extract from an alleged monitor recording at the crime scene, which was provided by the public prosecutor (this was narrated in a blog entry by Beijing lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan on October 24, who sat in the hearing of the appeal, and which was also reported by the Oriental Morning Post and People’s Daily).

In his two works, Li Juchuan refers to the prominent criminal case that dominated both national and international media at the time. In How High is the 21st Floor the artist took a MiniDV on December 3, 2008,and filmed his way running up a building’s fire exit staircase from the first to the twenty-first floor, reenacting Yang Jia’s movement in July earlier that year. Similarly, the video The Killing Took Only Seven Seconds is a reimagined film of the video monitor recording of the incident.