I might be wrong, but I felt that Netflix’s The Victims’ Game season 2 is much better than its predecessor. It is not just about crimes and murders; but also explores each character’s journey, how they’ve evolved since the first season. Season 2 is definitely darker, more sinister, and deeply emotional. It makes you wonder how far parents would go to protect their children—whether to save them or seek revenge. It follows a reopened old case that involved two high school students whose dead bodies were found in the mountains. For years, everyone believed it to be a crime of passion where the girlfriend killed the boyfriend before commiting suicide herself. But now, there are doubts. New evidence suggests that the police might have tampered with evidence to hide the truth. Our very own forensic specialist, Fang Yi-Jen, and his old mentor, Lin Ching-Jui, are connected to this case. So, the question here is: did Lin Ching-Jui really tamper with the evidence, or is someone trying to frame him? And then, on top of that, we see that as the case is reopened, deaths start occurring one after another, involving people connected to those two students during their childhood. Who is behind these killings? What’s the motive? So, without wasting any time, let’s follow Fang Yi-Jen’s investigation as he uncovers the truth in The Victims’ Game Season 2.
Spoilers Ahead
What happened to Hsiao Min-Chun?
As you all remember, in the last season, Fang Yi-Jen left the police force and started teaching at the university. But he got called back to the police precinct by Mr. Chang and Captain Chao Cheng-Kuan. Why? Because the authorities had discovered that a case from 15 years ago, solved by Fang Yi-Jen and his old mentor Lin Ching-Jui, had some loopholes. Back then, on a remote mountain, the bodies of seventeen-year-old Hsiao Chia-Ying and her boyfriend Chen Yang-Yu were found. The police had concluded that Hsiao Chia-Ying killed her boyfriend and then herself. When they found the bodies, the constant rain had rotted their flesh, and animal dung covered the remains, which made it difficult for them to determine what had happened. But after Lin Ching-Jui’s death, they decided to reopen the case because there was no solid evidence that Hsiao Chia-Ying had killed her boyfriend. What if both of them were murdered? When all were skeptical, Fang was not. How could he not trust Lin Ching-Jui? He was like a father to him. When everyone called Fang a freak because of his Asperger’s, it was Lin who believed in him and encouraged him to join the police force. Fang trusted him completely.
Meanwhile, Hsiao Chia-Ying’s mother, Hsiao Min-Chun, had been messaging Fang for the last fifteen years and pleading for help to solve the mystery behind her daughter’s death. She insisted her daughter wasn’t a murderer. Fang had ignored her messages and the evidence she sent, but now that the case has been reopened, he decided to meet her for questioning. When he arrived at the parking lot, he heard people screaming. Someone had jumped from the upper floor. And you know who it was? Hsiao Min-Chun. Fang was shocked. How could this happen? The autopsy report by Doctor Hsueh Hsin-Ning helped them find out that it wasn’t suicide but murder—someone had pushed her from the top floor, and she might have been dead before she fell. To make things worse, Fang’s DNA was found at the crime scene, which makes it look like he had pushed Hsiao Min-Chun. Fang realized someone was planting evidence to frame him. The case was much more serious than he had thought, and now he had to find the truth.
What happened to Yuan Chi-ling?
After Hsiao Min-Chun’s death, the police discovered that a singer named Yuan Chi-Ling might have had something to do with it. Why? Because her call log showed multiple calls to Min-Chun, and Yuan Chi-Ling was one of Hsiao Chia-Ying’s closest friends. They wondered if maybe she killed Min-Chun to hide something. So, they called her in for questioning. Yuan Chi-Ling told them she had nothing to do with it. She said that on the day Hsiao Chia-Ying and her boyfriend died, she was doing a live-stream piano session on YouTube. As for Min-Chun’s death day, she claimed she was at the hospital and knew nothing about it. However, the police suspected that her livestream was actually pre-recorded. She had lied to them, which made her a suspect. On the day of Yuan Chi-Ling’s concert, everyone from the police department went to attend, in the hope of finding more clues. Fang arrived early to catch her personally. But something terrible happened. Just before the show, they found Yuan Chi-Ling’s cold body on the chair, her throat slit with a knife still in place. It was clearly a hate crime, and the killer seemed to have expertise in anatomy. At the crime scene, they found a special-looking badge logo, a photo of Yuan Chi-Ling with another girl, and a recorder. Fang remembered seeing this badge and photo before—Min-Chun had sent them to him as evidence. There was a chance that the girl in the picture with Yuan Chi-Ling might be the next target.
What happened to Liu Shu-Yen?
The girl in the picture was Liu Shu-Yen, who also designed the badge logo found at the crime scene. The police went to find her, and of course, she said she knew nothing about the murder. But from her father, they learned that after high school, she’d left the country. Before that, she was close friends with Yuan Chi-Ling, Hsiao Chia-Ying, and Chen Yang-Yu. Fang, with the help of Hsueh Hsin-Ning, who had been helping him throughout the investigation, secretly searched Liu Shu-Yen’s room. They found a diary, and from there they deciphered an IP address and a password, “Rebirth,” from her logo design. This led them to a new piece of the story—a picture of their group of friends together. It was shocking because they had all claimed not to know each other, yet the photo showed they were close friends. What were they hiding? Before they could get answers, they found Liu Shu-Yen’s lifeless body. It was a horrifying sight—her eyes had been carved out, and in the place of her eyeballs, the murderer had lodged her badges. It was clear that whoever else was in that picture was the next target.
What happened to Wu Chun-Lu and Kuo Hsin-Pai?
Apart from those who had already been killed—Yuan Chi-Ling, Hsiao Chia-Ying, Chen Yang-Yu, and Liu Shu-Yen—there were three more people in that photograph: Wu Chun-Lu, Kuo Hsin-Pai, and Lin Ming-Cheng. Kuo Hsin-Pai had already died five years ago, and guess who closed the investigation? The very Lin Ching-Jui. And this Kuo Hsin-Pai was the girlfriend of Wu Chun-Lu. At Liu Shu-Yen’s funeral, when we met Wu Chun-Lu, he left a note claiming that Lin Ming-Cheng was the killer. At first, nobody believed him. Why would they? Wu Chun-Lu was a drug addict and might have been lying to hide his guilt. On the other hand, Lin Ming-Cheng was the CEO of the Sevenleaves Foundation, which helped drug addicts and the underprivileged. Also, Lin Ming-Cheng was connected in many ways. Remember the crime-investigating reporter, Hsu Hai-Yin? She now works at his institution as a public relations officer. Fang’s daughter, Chiang Hsiao-Meng, who was trying to become independent and escape her controlling father, was also living at Lin Ming-Cheng’s shelter. And guess who Lin Ming-Cheng’s father was? None other than Lin Ching-Jui. Lin Ching-Jui denied any involvement in the case, just like the others. Meanwhile, another murder took place—Wu Chun-Lu. His tongue had been cut out, and his lips were stitched shut. Now, with everyone in the photo dead, only one person is left: Lin Ming-Cheng.
What happened to Lin Ming-Cheng?
At the beginning of the article, I mentioned how a parent’s love can drive them to do anything for their children. Remember the case reopened after 15 years? The one involving Hsiao Chia-Ying and Chen Yang-Yu’s deaths, where Chia-Ying was portrayed as the murderer? Well, it turns out they were both murdered. And who knew about this but tried to tamper with the evidence to hide the truth? You guessed it—Lin Ching-Jui, all to protect his son, Lin Ming-Cheng. Let me paint a picture of what really happened fifteen years ago. These children were troubled by their home lives. Some of these children had absent parents, some had abusive ones. But they found solace in each other’s company. During one of their escapes, they managed to steal a van and go camping at a beach. It was one of the best days of their lives, but it was also the day that changed everything. That picture they had was taken on that very day. Both Lin Ming-Cheng and Hsiao Chia-Ying had a crush on each other. They promised to always be there for each other. After spending the entire day together, some kids wanted to go back home, except Chia-Ying and Ming-Cheng. Then they got scared because Ming-Cheng had brought a gun with him. He had it to protect Chia-Ying if any trouble arose, and since his father was a cop, he had easy access to it.
When the other kids tried to confront Ming-Cheng and get the gun away, it accidentally went off and shot Chen Yang-Yu, killing him instantly. Everyone panicked and tried to run away. But Chia-Ying tried to calm them down by saying the gun was for protection and no one could blame Ming-Cheng. In the chaos, everyone accidentally stampeded her and shot Chia-Ying in the process. They didn’t know what to do, so Ming-Cheng called his father, Lin Ching-Jui. As their only option, Lin Ching-Jui told them to cover up the crime rather than turn themselves in. He helped them clean the van, dragged the bodies to the mountain where it was raining, and shot the bodies to make it look like they were killed there. He even went as far as putting animal dung on their bodies so pests would eat away the evidence. He did all this for his son, knowing it was wrong but feeling he had no other choice. You might wonder why Fang didn’t know about this. Fifteen years ago, Fang was preoccupied with his daughter, Chiang Hsiao-Meng, who had been burned by a chemical solution. Lin Ching-Jui manipulated Fang by telling him to focus on being a responsible father rather than wasting time on the investigation. But did Lin Ming-Cheng really get away with the crime? Clearly not. Fifteen years later, it still haunted him. He’d tried to hide it for so long, but nothing worked. In the end, he was tortured, and before his death, he confessed his crime to the murderer. Finally, he too met his end.
Who was the murderer?
Now, let’s reveal the burning question: the murderer’s identity. And you won’t believe who it is. Remember Dr. Hsueh Hsin-Ning? She was behind all these murders. But what connection did she have? What was her motive? Let me tell you—you’re not ready for this. Remember at the beginning of the series when Hsiao Min-Chun, Chia-Ying’s mother, was murdered? What if I told you it wasn’t Min-Chun after all? Hsueh Hsin-Ning was actually Hsiao Min-Chun, Chia-Ying’s mother. Hsueh Hsin-Ning was a doctor, and before her death from cancer, she let Min-Chun take her identity. Min-Chun underwent plastic surgery and transformed into Hsueh Hsin-Ning so she could participate in the investigation closely with Fang Yi-Jen to find out the truth behind her daughter’s death. Min-Chun couldn’t accept how her daughter was labeled a murderer. The police didn’t help, nor did her friends, which drove her to this extreme: she went through painful surgery, faked her own death, and became this homicidal monster because she had no other option. The only person left for her to kill was Fang Yi-Jen because she felt betrayed by him. He hadn’t helped her, and he was so blinded by his respect for Lin Ching-Jui that he ignored her pleas for truth. She did it all for the sake of her daughter. But her killing spree didn’t start there. She had killed her own husband many years ago when Hsiao Chia-Ying was a little girl. Her husband used to beat her and wanted to take her daughter away. She couldn’t let him have her, so she killed him and buried his body in their backyard. The saddest part? Hsiao Chia-Ying knew her mother killed her father. She loved her mother so much that she kept quiet about it. She wrote in her diary about wanting a “rebirth” of her family, imagining them happy together again. When Min-Chun went to that place of “rebirth”—a tunnel beside a garden of flowers—she wanted to end her suffering. But Fang got the gun away from her. The police arrived and finally arrested her.
And you know who actually helped talk Min-Chun out of killing herself and told her about the place of rebirth? It was none other than Chiang Hsiao-Meng, Fang’s daughter. Her transformation from the first season to this one was really significant. She understood people’s pain and suffering but now believed that committing suicide was never the answer to ending suffering. After Min-Chun was arrested, some time passed.
In The Victims’ Game‘s ending, we see Chiang Hsiao-Meng getting a place of her own to try to be independent and seeking a proper job. On the other hand, Hsu Hai-Yin became the CEO of the Sevenleaves Foundation and was in a relationship with Fang Yi-Jen. Yes, you heard that right! The man who was afraid of commitment and being in a stable relationship, was trying hard to be a better version of himself. We see him offering to teach his daughter how to drive, stocking his fridge with food so she wouldn’t go hungry, and even spending time with her at the beach, where Meng’s mother, his wife, used to love going as a family. They have all grown so much. But even though Mr. Chang was able to solve the case with Fang’s help, it made him wonder how many more cases might not have been solved properly. Lin Ching-Jui couldn’t have done it all alone; maybe he got help from the chief prosecutors and higher police officials. Fang is determined to find the truth about all the investigations Lin Ching-Jui has done so far. There is also another case from 30 years ago where Mr. Chang was the prime witness. What is this case? Will he dig up the truth? We don’t know, but he is determined to uncover the shady work of misleading unfaithful police officials, that’s for sure.
