The Bizarre Chinese Murder Plot Behind Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’
Lin Qi, a billionaire who helped produce the science-fiction hit, was poisoned to death by a disgruntled executive. His attacker now faces the death penalty.
Lin Qi was a billionaire with a dream. The video game tycoon had wanted to turn one of China’s most famous science-fiction novels, “The Three-Body Problem,” into a global hit. He had started working with Netflix and the creators of the HBO series “Game of Thrones” to bring the alien invasion saga to international audiences.
But Mr. Lin did not live to see “3 Body Problem” premiere on Netflix last month, drawing millions of viewers.
He was poisoned to death in Shanghai in 2020, at age 39, by a disgruntled colleague, in a killing that riveted the country’s tech and video-gaming circles where he had been a prominent rising star. That colleague, Xu Yao, a 43-year-old former executive in Mr. Lin’s company, was last month sentenced to death for murder by a court in Shanghai, which called his actions “extremely despicable.”
The court has made few specific details public, but Mr. Lin’s killing was, as a Chinese news outlet put it, “as bizarre as a Hollywood blockbuster.” Chinese media reports, citing sources in his company and court documents, have described a tale of deadly corporate ambition and rivalry with a macabre edge. Sidelined at work, Mr. Xu reportedly exacted vengeance with meticulous planning, including by testing poisons on small animals in a makeshift lab. (He not only killed Mr. Lin, but also poisoned his own replacement.)
Mr. Lin had spent millions of dollars in 2014 buying up copyrights and licenses connected to the original Chinese science-fiction book, “The Three-Body Problem,” and two others in a trilogy written by the Chinese author Liu Cixin. “The Three-Body Problem” tells the story of an engineer, called upon by the Chinese authorities to look into a spate of suicides by scientists, who discovers an extraterrestrial plot. Mr. Lin had wanted to build a franchise of global television shows and films akin to “Star Wars” and centered on the novels.
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Mr. Lin would eventually link up with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators of the television series “Game of Thrones,” to work on the Netflix project. Mr. Lin’s gaming company, Youzu Interactive, which goes by Yoozoo in English, is no stranger to the HBO hit; its best-known release is an online strategy game based on the show called “Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming.”
Mr. Lin’s fate would change when he hired Mr. Xu, a lawyer, in 2017 to head a subsidiary of Yoozoo called The Three-Body Universe that held the rights to Mr. Liu’s novels. But not long afterward, Mr. Xu was demoted and his pay was cut, apparently because of poor performance. He became furious, according to the Chinese business magazine Caixin.
As Mr. Xu plotted his revenge, Caixin reported, he built a lab in an outlying district of Shanghai where he experimented with hundreds of poisons he bought off the dark web by testing them on dogs and cats and other pets. Caixin said Mr. Xu was both fascinated and inspired by the American hit TV series “Breaking Bad,” about a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher who teaches himself to make and sell methamphetamine, eventually becoming a drug lord.
Between September and December 2020, Mr. Xu began spiking beverages such as coffee, whiskey and drinking water with methylmercury chloride and bringing them into the office, Caixin reported, citing court documents. The report’s details could not be independently confirmed.
Calls to Yoozoo and the Shanghai court went unanswered. Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The plot is as bizarre as a Hollywood blockbuster, and the technique is professional enough to be called the Chinese version of ‘Breaking Bad,’” Phoenix News, a Chinese news outlet, said last month.
According to a story by The Hollywood Reporter in January, Mr. Benioff said the killing was “certainly disconcerting.” “When you work in this business, you’re expecting all sorts of issues to arise. Somebody poisoning the boss is not generally one of them,” he was quoted as saying.
Police arrested Mr. Xu on Dec. 18, 2020, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court said on its official WeChat account as it announced the verdict and sentencing. Mr. Xu reportedly declined to confess to the crime and did not disclose what poison he had used, complicating doctors’ efforts to save Mr. Lin’s life.
The court said that Mr. Xu had plotted to poison Mr. Lin and four other people over an office dispute. Its post included a picture of a bespectacled Mr. Xu in the courtroom wearing an oversized beige cardigan surrounded by three police officers. The statement said more than 50 people, including members of Mr. Xu’s and Mr. Lin’s family, attended the sentencing.
The Three-Body Universe, the Yoozoo subsidiary, did not respond to a request for comment, but its chief executive, Zhao Jilong, posted on his WeChat account, “Justice has been served,” according to Chinese state media.
Before his untimely death, Mr. Lin was something of a celebrity in the world of young Chinese entrepreneurs. He had built his fortune in the early 2010s, riding a wave of popularity for mobile games. His bid to popularize Mr. Liu’s novels was a rare attempt to export Chinese popular culture — something that has eluded China as its government yearns to wield the same soft power the United States commands with its movies, music and sports stars.
Six years after “The Three-Body Problem” was first published in 2008, an English version translated by Ken Liu was released to widespread acclaim. The book won the Hugo Award, a major science-fiction prize, for best novel. It counted Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg among its fans.
While Netflix is not available in China, “3 Body Problem” has still set off a backlash among Chinese viewers who have been able to access the platform by using virtual private networks, or who have seen pirated versions of the show. Users on Chinese social media expressed anger that the Netflix adaptation Westernized aspects of the story, and said the show sought to demonize some of the Chinese characters.
Even the People’s Liberation Army’s propaganda wing has weighed in on the series. In an editorial published on Saturday on its website, China Military Online, it called the Netflix series an example of American “cultural hegemony.”
“It can be clearly seen that after the United States seized this popular intellectual property with its superpower strength, it wanted to transform and remake it,” the editorial said. “The purpose was to eliminate as much as possible the reputation of modern China.”
Li You contributed research.
David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about David Pierson
The Bizarre Chinese Murder Plot Behind Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’
Lin Qi, a billionaire who helped produce the science-fiction hit, was poisoned to death by a disgruntled executive. His attacker now faces the death penalty.
Lin Qi was a billionaire with a dream. The video game tycoon had wanted to turn one of China’s most famous science-fiction novels, “The Three-Body Problem,” into a global hit. He had started working with Netflix and the creators of the HBO series “Game of Thrones” to bring the alien invasion saga to international audiences.
But Mr. Lin did not live to see “3 Body Problem” premiere on Netflix last month, drawing millions of viewers.
He was poisoned to death in Shanghai in 2020, at age 39, by a disgruntled colleague, in a killing that riveted the country’s tech and video-gaming circles where he had been a prominent rising star. That colleague, Xu Yao, a 43-year-old former executive in Mr. Lin’s company, was last month sentenced to death for murder by a court in Shanghai, which called his actions “extremely despicable.”
The court has made few specific details public, but Mr. Lin’s killing was, as a Chinese news outlet put it, “as bizarre as a Hollywood blockbuster.” Chinese media reports, citing sources in his company and court documents, have described a tale of deadly corporate ambition and rivalry with a macabre edge. Sidelined at work, Mr. Xu reportedly exacted vengeance with meticulous planning, including by testing poisons on small animals in a makeshift lab. (He not only killed Mr. Lin, but also poisoned his own replacement.)
Mr. Lin had spent millions of dollars in 2014 buying up copyrights and licenses connected to the original Chinese science-fiction book, “The Three-Body Problem,” and two others in a trilogy written by the Chinese author Liu Cixin. “The Three-Body Problem” tells the story of an engineer, called upon by the Chinese authorities to look into a spate of suicides by scientists, who discovers an extraterrestrial plot. Mr. Lin had wanted to build a franchise of global television shows and films akin to “Star Wars” and centered on the novels.
More on China
on the novels.
More on China
- An Effusive Welcome: As tensions fester between China and Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou, a former president of the island democracy, is receiving warm treatment from Beijing during a rare trip to the mainland.
- Business with Elon Musk: Tesla and China built a symbiotic relationship that made Musk ultrarich. Now, his reliance on the country may give Beijing leverage.
- ‘A Price I Have to Accept’: The filmmaker Wang Xiaoshuai is among the few Chinese artists who refuse to bend to state limitations on the subjects they explore, despite the wrath of censors.
- No Country for iPhones: China is Apple’s second-largest market. But there are signs that its products no longer appeal to Chinese consumers as they did in the past.
Mr. Lin would eventually link up with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators of the television series “Game of Thrones,” to work on the Netflix project. Mr. Lin’s gaming company, Youzu Interactive, which goes by Yoozoo in English, is no stranger to the HBO hit; its best-known release is an online strategy game based on the show called “Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming.”
Mr. Lin’s fate would change when he hired Mr. Xu, a lawyer, in 2017 to head a subsidiary of Yoozoo called The Three-Body Universe that held the rights to Mr. Liu’s novels. But not long afterward, Mr. Xu was demoted and his pay was cut, apparently because of poor performance. He became furious, according to the Chinese business magazine Caixin.
As Mr. Xu plotted his revenge, Caixin reported, he built a lab in an outlying district of Shanghai where he experimented with hundreds of poisons he bought off the dark web by testing them on dogs and cats and other pets. Caixin said Mr. Xu was both fascinated and inspired by the American hit TV series “Breaking Bad,” about a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher who teaches himself to make and sell methamphetamine, eventually becoming a drug lord.
Between September and December 2020, Mr. Xu began spiking beverages such as coffee, whiskey and drinking water with methylmercury chloride and bringing them into the office, Caixin reported, citing court documents. The report’s details could not be independently confirmed.
Calls to Yoozoo and the Shanghai court went unanswered. Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The plot is as bizarre as a Hollywood blockbuster, and the technique is professional enough to be called the Chinese version of ‘Breaking Bad,’” Phoenix News, a Chinese news outlet, said last month.
According to a story by The Hollywood Reporter in January, Mr. Benioff said the killing was “certainly disconcerting.” “When you work in this business, you’re expecting all sorts of issues to arise. Somebody poisoning the boss is not generally one of them,” he was quoted as saying.
Police arrested Mr. Xu on Dec. 18, 2020, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court said on its official WeChat account as it announced the verdict and sentencing. Mr. Xu reportedly declined to confess to the crime and did not disclose what poison he had used, complicating doctors’ efforts to save Mr. Lin’s life.
The court said that Mr. Xu had plotted to poison Mr. Lin and four other people over an office dispute. Its post included a picture of a bespectacled Mr. Xu in the courtroom wearing an oversized beige cardigan surrounded by three police officers. The statement said more than 50 people, including members of Mr. Xu’s and Mr. Lin’s family, attended the sentencing.
The Three-Body Universe, the Yoozoo subsidiary, did not respond to a request for comment, but its chief executive, Zhao Jilong, posted on his WeChat account, “Justice has been served,” according to Chinese state media.
Before his untimely death, Mr. Lin was something of a celebrity in the world of young Chinese entrepreneurs. He had built his fortune in the early 2010s, riding a wave of popularity for mobile games. His bid to popularize Mr. Liu’s novels was a rare attempt to export Chinese popular culture — something that has eluded China as its government yearns to wield the same soft power the United States commands with its movies, music and sports stars.
Six years after “The Three-Body Problem” was first published in 2008, an English version translated by Ken Liu was released to widespread acclaim. The book won the Hugo Award, a major science-fiction prize, for best novel. It counted Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg among its fans.
While Netflix is not available in China, “3 Body Problem” has still set off a backlash among Chinese viewers who have been able to access the platform by using virtual private networks, or who have seen pirated versions of the show. Users on Chinese social media expressed anger that the Netflix adaptation Westernized aspects of the story, and said the show sought to demonize some of the Chinese characters.
Even the People’s Liberation Army’s propaganda wing has weighed in on the series. In an editorial published on Saturday on its website, China Military Online, it called the Netflix series an example of American “cultural hegemony.”
“It can be clearly seen that after the United States seized this popular intellectual property with its superpower strength, it wanted to transform and remake it,” the editorial said. “The purpose was to eliminate as much as possible the reputation of modern China.”
Li You contributed research.
David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about David Pierson
Comments 149
Not important as measured against a murder, but I want to note how much I liked the Netflix version. Yes, the original was set in China and there's a Chinese version. I'm sure the two versions are very different. But that's what artists do: they make creative pieces viewed through their own personal and cultural lens. Setting the story in the UK did not diminish its power; it just changed how this compelling, thought provoking tale was told.
I only read the first book - and couldn’t put it down. It was brilliant! Sadly, after watching three episodes of the show on Netflix, I’m not impressed. Many book adaptions are great (Harry Potter, GOT, Watership Down, etc.) but I can’t get past the casting choices and script in this series. That said, it is tragic that Lin Qi was murdered before seeing his work come to life. He probably had so many other ideas and projects ahead of him.
Have the Chinese authorities watched the series? It's strange they think the US is trying to expropriate the story given the series is centered around characters in the UK and mostly takes place in the UK. In fact, whilst the series is really good, one of the most dubious plot lines is that it is the UN that takes the lead on responding to the alien threat and that the US cedes all types of sovereign authority to them (highly improbable).
As others have mentioned (and the NYT has completely ignored in its reviews and this article), there is a Chinese 30-episode version of the show (available on Prime). Is it a little long and tedious? Yes. It would be better if it was edited down to 12-15 episodes. But it also has a fantastic cast and it's true to the book. I highly recommend watching both versions of the show with an open mind. I loved the Chinese version, but I'm sure I'll be highly entertained by the Netflix version as well.
1 REPLY
@RM Interesting, I did watch a few episodes of that. Will definitely go back to it now hearing what the Chinese are saying about this Netflix version. The book would be the best though. It is to me a very hard read-quite scientific and mathematical and historical at the same time. Important for sure! I am not sure that we have the heart of this particular story with the murder though-it does not seem like we have the real reason for it. Was he perhaps instead an assassin?
No need to worry for so many great stories have been trashed like this in the past. This is great publicity for the story and one day a serious version will come out for us to grasp why it is so cherished.
"...a killing that riveted the country’s tech and video-gaming circles where he had been a prominent rising star..." How could you be billionaire and a 'rising star'--when you get to that point hasn't your star risen? Or do we now have farm team billionaires still looking to make it into the majors?
1 REPLY
@John He was young yet, and near the beginning of his career as a producer, so, yeah, he still had room to rise further in that regard. Money alone is not a proxy for success, especially if one has the desire, capacity, and aptitude to excel in new directions.
Why is Netflix given all the credit when the show has been airing on WNET and possibly other PBS stations? Cable is not the be-all and end-all for all TV watchers.
PRC citizens watched ET, Star Wars, Avatar, Dune with subtitles and learned about Western culture and the English language. 3 Body Problem is a dumbed-down cultural appropriation of a classic Chinese science fiction novel. Who loses in this process?
Netflix version was cool but kind of cringe. The original chinese version held my attention for a bit but I lost interest and took a break with the intention of giving it a go again. I made the mistake of reading up on the actual math problem and it seems to have very little to do with what I have seen. Reading the comments I now want to read the book but....
2 REPLIES
@wllfrancis2000 yes you SHOULD Read the whole trilogy . The Book is always going to be able to go into more detail of a concept , while visually you are stuck with simplifying narrative parts and yes the actual chinese version is very good , but If I had had to wait a week for every episode it would have been irritating . 30 episodes aren't enough to finish the first book ... The "math " problem is that the alien's Planet is ALWAYS going to come too close to one of the suns ..its inevitable , thus the only answer is to get OFF the planet
@wllfrancis2000 The books are pretty amazing. It’s not generally my genre and I’m quite conservative/western orientated in my reading. But this story blew me away, a really really interesting read, one that completely immersed me.
“The purpose was to eliminate as much as possible the reputation of modern China.” The West hasn't had to do a thing; Mr. Xu has done all that is needed to eliminate the reputation of modern China -- unless you think a reputation just as bad as the unprincipled West is what you wanted to achieve.
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