Killer of '3 Body Problem' founder sentenced to death by Chinese court

A Chinese court has sentenced Xu Yao, a former lawyer at Yoozoo Games, to death for the murder of the company's billionaire founder, Lin Qi. The fatal poisoning occurred following a disagreement over business operations, according to a report from Deadline. 

Lin fell ill between September and December 2020 and succumbed to complications on Christmas Day of the same year. Chinese police apprehended Xu, whom the New York Times described as "disgruntled," several days after Lin's death. 

Yoozoo Games, which owns the rights to the highly popular Netflix series "3 Body Problem," had granted the streaming giant permission to produce an adaptation of the sci-fi trilogy in 2020. The series, produced by "Game of Thrones" creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, named Lin as an executive producer.

Xu, hired as Yoozoo Games' chief risk officer in 2017, initially maintained a good relationship with Lin and his colleagues. A year after his hiring, Lin appointed Xu to lead a subsidiary called The Three Body Universe, and the two worked closely on securing the Netflix deal.

However, authorities allege that Xu plotted to poison his enemies when relationships deteriorated after Lin assigned other executives to manage business operations. Xu reportedly tested the poison on animals before targeting people. Local media, as cited by the New York Times, claimed that Lin served poisoned tea to Xu and others, while Variety reported that the poison was administered via counterfeit probiotic pills.

Following Lin's passing, the company issued a statement on its official Weibo microblog, saying, "Goodbye youth. We will be together, continue to be kind, continue to believe in goodness, and continue the fight against all that is bad."

"3 Body Problem" has become a massive hit for Netflix, garnering 11 million views in its first four days on the platform. The series follows an astrophysicist who witnesses her father's fatal beating during a struggle session in the Chinese Cultural Revolution and is later conscripted by the military to help prevent an alien invasion threatening Earth.