The Three-Body Problem producer Lin Qi's poisoning death rattles China's technology and gaming world

The New York Times

Lin, the chairman of Yoozoo Group, died on Christmas Day at age 39 as police investigate whether one of his employees poisoned him. Lin was sometimes called the “billionaire millennial" as head of the Yoozoo Group. As The New York Times reports, Lin "had spent a small fortune buying up the rights to a Chinese science fiction novel called The Three-Body Problem. A tale of alien invasion that intertwined cosmic machinations with the horrors of China’s Cultural Revolution, the book had become an unlikely international best seller that counted Barack Obama among its admirers. Mr. Lin saw even bigger possibilities. He envisioned a global film and television franchise based on the book and its two sequels that would approach Star Wars levels of cultural recognition. He was working with Netflix and the creators of the “Game of Thrones” television series to make it come to pass. He would never see it happen. Mr. Lin was poisoned in December, according to the police in Shanghai and accounts from state-run media, and he died on Christmas Day. His death has rattled China’s technology and gaming worlds and set off furious speculation about who killed him and why."