How Lin Qi’s poisoning death shocked China

Chinese media, including state media, have widely identified the suspect as Xu Yao, an executive at Mr. Lin’s game company Youzu Interactive, which is called Yoozoo in English. These reports could not be independently confirmed and the company did not respond to a request for comment.

It was not clear how or if Mr. Lin’s death would affect Netflix’s plans for “The Three Bodies Problem.” Netflix did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

In September, the US streaming service announced that it would turn the trilogy into an original series developed by David Benioff and DB Weiss, executive producers of “Game of Thrones,” with a creative team including Liu Cixin, author of The Game of Thrones. books. Mr. Lin was on the list of executive producers.

“The Three Body Problem” is the first book in what Mr. Liu called the “Remembering Earth’s Past” trilogy. The book, set in present-day China, tells the story of an engineer called in by authorities in Beijing to investigate a wave of scientist suicides. He uncovers an alien plot rooted in the Cultural Revolution, the decade of paranoia that led to the persecution and torture of suspected enemies of the Communist Party, which lasted until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976.

The English version of “The Three-Body Problem”, translated by Ken Liu, caused a sensation when it was released in 2014. It won the Hugo Prize, a major science fiction honor, for best novel. Mark Zuckerberg added it to his reading list. Mr. Obama, in an interview with the New York Times, called it “fun to read, in part because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem pretty trivial – nothing to worry about.” The aliens are about to invade. “

Mr. Lin made it his mission to bring the novel to an even wider audience, according to an online memorial written by Chen Long, a professor who taught Mr. Lin at Hupan University, a business school. . Starting in 2014, Professor Chen said, Mr. Lin started buying copyright and licenses related to books.

As of 2019, according to Professor Chen, Mr. Lin spent $ 150 million. Its mission was to make the world of the trilogy into an internationally renowned franchise, featuring movies, TV shows, video games, cartoons and more, Mr. Chen wrote.