On March 10, 2024, a case of intentional homicide involving three minors under the age of 14 occurred in Handan City, which sparked widespread public concern and strong reactions. The focus of public discontent shifted from "no penalty for minors" to "lenient penalty for minors" and "no death penalty for minors". Public opinion has revealed the value conflicts inherent in the minimum age of criminal responsibility when addressing youth delinquency, demanding profound scholarly examination and an account of China's distinctive historical and cultural heritage. Theoretically, the establishment of a criminal responsibility age is a legal fiction that necessarily results in the contradiction between identity and difference. Public dissatisfaction with "lenient penalty for minors" and "no death penalty for minors" largely stems from the yearning for retribution. However, retributive justice is fundamentally at odds with the principle of special protection for minors. Furthermore, the inclination of public sentiment towards amending the law may violate the modesty principle of criminal law. The system's challenge is to maintain a balanced allocation of punishment quantity to guarantee the modesty principle of criminal law. Throughout Chinese history, the ethos of "caring for the young" has deep historical roots and has influenced ancient Chinese legislation. In terms of institutional design, since the Han Dynasty, the Chinese legal tradition has displayed a relatively flexible approach to determining the criminal responsibility age, which, to some extent, mitigates the shortcomings of legal fiction. Moreover, since the Tang Dynasty, China has adopted the mode of "listing crimes + defining statutory penalties", which has the advantages of systematization and precision and can provide insights for future improvements to China's minimum criminal age system. In terms of practice, the construction of the minimum criminal age system can be advanced along the following pathways: First, it is imperative to shift from an overly rigid "age-only" criterion to a more flexible legislative model. Second, current legislation exhibits unequal punishment for similar cases, the punishment disparity due to age differences should be minimized as much as practicable to ensure proportionality. Simultaneously, it is vital to firmly establish the stance of special protection for minors, relax constraints on juvenile probation, and further refine the specialized correctional education system to align seamlessly with criminal law. Third, a systematic approach to crime classification should be embraced, using the maximum statutory sentence as a criterion for such classification. This would create a more robust legal framework and guard against an unwarranted broadening of the scope of punishment.