China Executes Man Who Poisoned 3 Body Problem Billionaire Lin Qi

A real murder, behind a show about a fictional apocalypse. China has executed Xu Yao, the former gaming executive who poisoned his billionaire boss after being shoved aside in a corporate squabble. The boss in question? Lin Qi, the man who helped drag one of China's most beloved sci-fi novels onto Netflix.

The story reads like something the writers' room would have rejected for being too far-fetched.

Lin Qi founded Yoozoo Games, also known as Youzu Interactive, the Shanghai studio behind the licensed strategy title Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming. Yoozoo also held the screen rights to Remembrance of Earth's Past, Liu Cixin's award winning trilogy. Western audiences know the first book, and the Netflix adaptation, as The Three-Body Problem.

In September 2020, Yoozoo handed Netflix the rights to adapt the trilogy. Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss took the reins alongside Alexander Woo. Lin landed an executive producer credit. He should have been celebrating a career high.

The poisoning

Months after the deal closed, Lin fell ill while driving home from the Yoozoo headquarters. He checked himself into a Shanghai hospital. Ten days later, on Christmas Day 2020, he was dead. He was 39.

Doctors found a horror show inside him. At least five separate toxins, according to Chinese media reports, including mercury and tetrodotoxin, the same poison found in pufferfish. Xu reportedly refused to confess or reveal what he had used, which left medics scrambling in the dark while Lin slipped away.

Here's the grim part. Xu was no random colleague. Lin had personally put him in charge of the subsidiary handling the Three-Body franchise, the unit later known as The Three-Body Universe. Then came a dispute over how the business was run, and Xu was pushed out of the role. Court documents described a falling out over "company management matters".

His response was to play poisoner.

Between September and December 2020, Xu laced shared office supplies with the toxins he had bought online and mixed in a makeshift lab. Probiotic capsules. Coffee pods. Whisky bottles. Water containers. Four other people fell sick from the spiked drinks, including, by some accounts, the very person brought in to replace him. They survived. Lin did not.

Chinese reporting flagged a detail you would expect from a streaming pitch deck, not a court file. Xu drew inspiration from Breaking Bad, the American drama about a chemistry teacher turned drug cook. He even tested his poisons on small animals first.

Sentencing and execution

The Shanghai First Intermediate People's Court sentenced Xu to death in 2024, calling his actions "extremely despicable". More than 50 people attended, among them relatives of both Xu and Lin.

State outlet the Economic Observer first reported the execution, citing people familiar with the case, with Yicai Global and others confirming the date as 21 May 2026. Two years on from sentencing, the punishment was carried out.

The Three-Body Universe, the company Lin once owned, issued a short statement after confirmation. Staff said they were grateful for the justice delivered by the legal system. CEO Zhao Jilong reportedly posted a blunt three words on WeChat. Justice has been served.

You have to wonder how the show's creators processed all this. Benioff put a darkly understated spin on the saga back in 2024. He said something to the effect that you expect plenty of problems in this business, but somebody poisoning the boss is not usually one of them.

What happens to the show now

Lin's death hangs over a series he never saw finished. 3 Body Problem premiered in March 2024, climbed Netflix charts worldwide, and pulled in six Primetime Emmy nominations including Outstanding Drama Series.

Season 2 is coming. Netflix has listed the sophomore run on its 2026 slate, with filming wrapped in Budapest, Hungary earlier this year. No firm date yet, though the heavy visual effects work points to a late-2026 arrival. Seasons 2 and 3 were shot largely back-to-back, and the third run will close out the story.

For Lin's family, no greenlit season changes the obvious. A man built something rare, sold a Chinese sci-fi epic to the biggest streamer on the planet, and was killed by a colleague over a job title. The show goes on. He doesn't get to see how the alien invasion ends.