The mystery thriller “3 Body Problem” is about humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial life forms. However, behind the scenes of the Netflix series there was a real crime story going on.
Note: The cover image comes from the series 3 Body Problem (via Moviepilot) and does not depict the victim or the perpetrator.
Lin Qi was a rising star in China’s Internet industry. With his company Yoozoo Games, he developed and published, among other things, the auto-battler MMORPG League of Angels. However, Lin Qi was also a big fan of Liu Cixin’s Trisolaris trilogy.
The billionaire wanted to turn the Chinese sci-fi series into an international pop culture phenomenon comparable to “Star Wars”. For years he tried to secure the rights to a film adaptation. When Netflix announced the adaptation of The Three-Body Problem in 2020, Lin Qi was listed as an executive producer.
However, just a few months later, in December 2020, Lin Qi died at the age of 39. According to the Chinese authorities, he is said to have been murdered by the lawyer Xu Yao, who had previously secured him the rights to the film adaptation.
In an interview shortly before his death, Lin Qi spoke about the project: The Three Body Problem had the potential to become his life’s work, according to the billionaire. He will probably still think about it when he “says goodbye to the world at the age of 90.”
You can find out more about the series itself from our colleagues at Moviepilot.
Final trailer for the Netflix series 3 Body Problem
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Planned long in advance
How did the murder happen? According to Chinese media reports, Xu Yao was brought to Yoozoo Games in 2017 to secure the rights to a film adaptation of The Three-Body Problem. He was then appointed head of a subsidiary to develop the three-body IP.
However, in his new role, Xu Yao was apparently no longer able to impress: his salary was cut and major projects went to others. After all, he is said to have had little involvement in the deal with Netflix.
Xu Yao apparently planned the murder of his boss long in advance and went about it extremely elaborately. He himself is said to be a fan of the cult series Breaking Bad and apparently drew inspiration from it. He is said to have set up a laboratory in a suburb of Shanghai in which he experimented with various poisons.
According to the Chinese news channel Phoenix News, he set up 160 cell phone numbers and set up a trading company in Japan to obtain dangerous chemicals. He is said to have purchased more than 100 toxic substances on the Dark Web.
He gave the resulting poison cocktail to Lin Qi under the guise of “probiotic pills”. On December 17, 2020, Lin Qi was admitted to the hospital with symptoms, where he died on December 25.
Xu Yao is also said to have poisoned the drinks of two other managers, which caused health problems in a total of four employees. Fortunately, all four survived.
What happens to the perpetrator? Xu Yao was sentenced to death by a Shanghai court on March 22, 2022, one day after the Netflix premiere of 3 Body Problem.