Hong Kong —
A Chinese lawyer who poisoned a billionaire gaming mogul who helped create Netflix’s hit sci-fi movie “The Three-Body Problem” has been executed, according to Chinese state media.
Xu Yao murdered his boss Lin Qi in 2020 by gifting him what he claimed were probiotic pills, but which actually contained a deadly toxin that he bought from the dark web and mixed in his own lab.
Earlier that year, the high-handed lawyer had helped Lin secure the film rights to Liu Cixin’s famous trilogy of science fiction novels, starting with “The Three-Body Problem.”
He was executed last Thursday, two years after being sentenced to death for murder by a Shanghai court.
News of the execution was first reported on Tuesday by Chinese state media Economic Observatory, citing people familiar with the matter.
Three Body Universe, the company Lin once owned to develop the intellectual property for the trilogy, issued a statement on Tuesday confirming the report: “All of our employees are grateful for the justice that the judicial system has delivered.”
The statement paid tribute to Lin, who was listed as an executive producer in the opening credits of Netflix’s “3 Body Problem” when it was released in 2024. Lin is a big fan of Liu’s trilogy and had long dreamed of developing the series.
Just months after Netflix announced plans to produce the series, Lin was poisoned and died at the age of 39.
On a winter night in 2020, while driving home from Yoozoo Games’ headquarters in Shanghai, he suddenly felt unwell and was admitted to the hospital.
He died ten days later, on Christmas Day. According to Chinese media reports, at least five types of toxins were detected in his body, including deadly toxins such as mercury and tetrodotoxin.
Xu was quickly identified as a suspect.
According to the court’s ruling, Mr. Xu got into an argument with Mr. Lin over “company management issues” and planned to poison him.
The incident has been widely reported by Chinese media, which are heavily censored by the state, with the gory details of how Mr. Xu planned the murder.
Mr. Hsu drew inspiration from the American series “Breaking Bad,” about a chemistry teacher involved in the meth manufacturing business. He set up a lab on the outskirts of Shanghai and purchased more than 100 toxins on the dark web for his experiments, often testing mixed toxins on cats, dogs and other animals.
He also mixed poisonous substances into drinks in the offices of two executives with whom he was in conflict, causing four colleagues to become ill. Those four survived.
He set up a trading company in Japan to obtain hazardous chemicals and at one point had 160 mobile phone numbers.
From September to December 2020, Xu replaced the contents of coffee capsules, whiskey bottles and water bottles in his co-workers’ offices with methylmercury chloride, an acute toxin that can be fatal if swallowed, inhaled or touched.
He then gave the deadly substance in pill form to Lin.
