It's good to show genuine scepticism to what you read, but I can't help but think yours is not particularly honest.
It is extremely clear via auditing the trail of this report that the 'crypto shill site' is negligible to the story. You would have had to go back one step in the chain, stick your fingers in your ears, then ignore everything else from that point onwards to think Coin Telegraph was actually relevant to the reporting of this story.
True or not, here you can find a clear summary, along with screenshots stamped with the seal of the Chengde PD. These screenshots, contrary to your claim, are not at all blurry, and have minimal redaction (to protect the person's privacy).
Given fairly credible and detailed screenshots of a police report, numerous reporting across a number of different websites in both Chinese and English, even a reported GitHub profile of the person in question, I think there's sufficient evidence to believe this is likely a true story.
But you do you.