Xu Yao: The Bizarre Poisoning Case Behind Netflix’s ‘The Three-Body Problem’
Beijing — The Netflix adaptation of “The Three-Body Problem” premiered last month, attracting millions of Chinese viewers, but Lin Qi didn’t live to see the day.
Lin Qi was poisoned to death in Shanghai in 2020, at the age of 39. The poisoner was a disgruntled colleague. This murder shocked China’s technology and gaming industry; Lin Qi was a rising star in the field. The colleague, now 43, was Xu Yao, who had been a senior executive at Lin Qi’s company.
On the morning of March 22, the Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court publicly sentenced Xu Yao for intentional homicide and the distribution of hazardous substances. Xu Yao was sentenced to death for intentional homicide and deprived of political rights for life. He was also sentenced to six years in prison for the distribution of hazardous substances, but the death penalty was executed, and his political rights were deprived for life.
Though the court did not disclose many specific details, the case of Lin Qi’s murder was described as “a plot worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster.”
After being marginalized in the company, Xu Yao meticulously planned his revenge, including testing poison on small animals in a makeshift laboratory. (Not only did he kill Lin Qi, but he also poisoned his successor.)
In 2014, Lin Qi spent 120 million yuan to purchase the rights and film adaptation permissions for the Chinese sci-fi novel “The Three-Body Problem” and the other two parts of Liu Cixin’s trilogy.
Lin Qi eventually collaborated with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators of the TV series “Game of Thrones,” to work on the adaptation for Netflix. His gaming company, Yoozoo (Yoozoo Networks in English), was no stranger to HBO’s popular show.
That year, he hired lawyer Xu Yao to head a subsidiary of Yoozoo Networks called “Three-Body Universe,” which held the rights to Liu Cixin’s novels. However, shortly thereafter, apparently due to poor performance, Xu Yao was demoted and had his salary cut. According to the Chinese financial magazine Caixin, Xu Yao was extremely angry about this.
In order to plot his revenge, Xu Yao built a laboratory in the outskirts of Shanghai and experimented on dogs, cats, and other pets with hundreds of poisons he bought from the dark web.
He was enamored with the popular American TV series “Breaking Bad” and drew inspiration from it.
According to the court verdict, during September to December 2020, Xu Yao began adding methylmercury chloride to beverages such as coffee, whiskey, and water, which he brought to the office. However, Xu Yao refused to admit to the crime or reveal what poison he used, making it more difficult for doctors to save Lin Qi’s life.
On the day of the trial, over 50 people attended the sentencing, including Xu Yao and Lin Qi’s family.
Before his sudden death, Lin Qi was already a celebrity among young entrepreneurs in China. In the early 2010s, he amassed wealth riding the wave of mobile gaming popularity. “The Three-Body Problem” was first published in China in 2008, and six years later, the English translation by Ken Liu received critical acclaim. The English version of “The Three-Body Problem” won the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Novel. Former U.S. President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg were among its fans.
Despite being unable to access Netflix content in China, “The Three-Body Problem” still found its way to mainland China through other means. Users on Chinese social media criticized the Netflix adaptation for its Westernization of the story, claiming that the adapted TV series attempted to demonize some of the Chinese characters.
Even the People’s Liberation Army’s News and Media Production Center expressed “displeasure and protest.” Last Saturday, the Chinese military’s website published a commentary criticizing the Netflix adaptation of “The Three-Body Problem” as an example of American “cultural hegemony.” They also produced related videos on their Douyin and Kuaishou platforms to illustrate this as a major “feature” of “cultural aggression” against China.
“It is evident that the United States, with its superpower status, intends to transform and remake this popular IP, aiming to eliminate the reputation that the novel ‘The Three-Body Problem’ has won for modern China worldwide,” the article stated.
