Aahana Swrup
The Mandarin crime thriller series ‘Million-Follower Detective,’ originally titled ‘Bai wàn rén tuili,’ presents an intriguing mystery involving a seemingly clairvoyant tarot card reader. As a series of social media influencers begin to drop dead like victims of a killing spree, one content creator, Baba Witch, rises to fame. In her videos, the masked influencer accurately predicts the tragedies that will unravel the next day, establishing a sort of connection between herself and the murders. As a result, local seasoned detective Chen Chia-jen is assigned to the case of solving the murders with Li Hsin-ping from the High Technology Crime Unit as his partner. Together, the duo unravels the mysterious threads connecting the murders of Lin Ting-yu’s friend group of online creators. However, the closer they get to blowing open the case, the more Chia-jen begins to notice the dangerous similarities between the killer and someone important from his own personal life. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Million-Follower Detective Recap
The unusual incidents begin when a famed influencer, Wei-ten, shows up outside the police station, brandishing a gun at officers. As the encounter escalates and it begins to look like the civilian might shoot, one of the veteran detectives, Chia-jen, ends up firing at the threatening individual. The discovery that Wei-ten’s gun was actually a BB gun makes matters worse in the aftermath. As the influencer undergoes medical treatment for the near-lethal injury, the cop ends up attracting awful press. As such, his superior informs him that he must investigate Wei-ten’s intentions behind the dangerous stunt if he hopes to save his reputation and possibly even his career. Given the online nature of the case, he’s also partnered up with Hsin-ping. Off-the-bat, the latter remains interested in Baba Witch, an online video creator who has been doing psychic predictions for days.
On the day of the shootout, Baba Witch had made a prediction that someone would die via shooting and even used Wei-ten’s incident to prove her clairvoyance to her audience before delivering another reading. Initially, Chia-jen doesn’t pay much attention to his partner’s theories, instead preferring to tackle the investigation the old-fashioned way. Nonetheless, the evidence becomes impossible to ignore once the psychic’s next prediction also comes true as the authorities find an influencer, Wa-zai, drowned in the river the next day. Meanwhile, Ting-yu, a mutual friend of both the victims, finds himself trying to cover up his friend group’s criminal involvement in a car accident from a year ago. Inevitably, the influencer becomes a victim on his own, but is fortunately saved from a damning demise by Chia-jen.
However, Hsin’s methods, which breach protocol, end up landing him in significant trouble. Even so, after she and Chia-jen get booted off the case, both continue their own personal investigation. The latter tries to find Baba Witch by tracking down her mask and tarot cards purchases. However, this ends up pointing him toward his own daughter, You-jie. His kid had walked out of his life after he had gravely mishandled the aftermath of her mother’s death. Therefore, these days, he only gets to talk to her through short and curt text messages. Even so, he’s startled to discover Baba Witch’s filming room in his daughter’s apartment. Nonetheless, as it turns out, You-jie isn’t Baba Witch. Instead, it’s her roommate, Li Ting-en, an aspiring actress. Apparently, the real mastermind behind the entire thing has kidnapped the detective’s daughter and is holding her hostage to blackmail Ting-en into creating the prediction videos on the internet. After each prediction is posted, the killer presumably goes out and finishes the job themselves.
Fortunately, with the blackmail video sent to Ting-en by the kidnapper, Chia-jen is able to form a theory about the real identity of the killer. Nonetheless, their attempts at catching him end up failing. By now, the news has spread that the reason the killer is targeting Ting-yu’s friends is because of their involvement in the previous car accident. Therefore, the latter decides to use himself as bait to help the authorities catch the killer at an influencer event. This leads to a tense altercation, wherein Chia-jen chases after the killer and tries to rescue his daughter from his clutches. Surprisingly enough, even after the killer has been apprehended, the case isn’t entirely solved. In a twist that none of the cops or influencers expected, there turns out to be another layer to this case. On the night of the accident, another crime had taken place that made Ting-yu and his friends a target, birthing yet another killer.
Million-Follower Detective: Who is the Second Killer?
Shortly after the killer who orchestrated the Baba Witch charade is caught, he decides to commit suicide. Under police custody and bound to a hospital bed, he realizes that his goals of exacting revenge on Ting-yu and his friends will remain unfulfilled forever. Therefore, he decides to end his life, unwilling to continue living without his assumed purpose. Even so, in his absence, another killer rises. Hsin-Ping already has her suspicions about the involvement of a different second party. This is because the footage of the car accident revealing the Baba Witch killer’s motive exists from two angles. One, showcasing the perspective of the influencers, which was posted on the internet by an anonymous source, and one of the killer’s dashcam videos.
Therefore, it becomes clear that the latter isn’t the only one who wants the influencer group dead. The answer arrives at Chia-jen through some old-fashioned police work, in which he examines the department’s physical archives and learns of another death with possible connections to the case. On the night of the car accident, a man named Chao Kuo-an died of an overdose, not far away from the scene of the crash. The most intriguing part of the new information is that Kuo-an was an informant for Chen-wei, the head of the High Technology Crime Unit. As it turns out, the officer of the law is actually harboring a big secret.
Chen-wei is actually addicted to cocaine and has been using the substance to improve his performance in the field to gather rapid promotions. Along with being his informant, Kuo-an was also his dealer. On the night that the car accident took place, it was also coincidentally the night that the two met up for a drop. However, in an effort to court trouble, Kuo-an ended up trying to run away with the police officer’s phone. This resulted in an altercation in which Chen-wei ended up shooting at the other man. In fact, it was his own bullet that ultimately contributed to the fatality of the car crash. Nevertheless, the cop remained hidden in the shadows, unwilling to risk his career even to save the lives of civilians.
In the end, Chen-wei used his power and influence as a high-ranking police officer to ensure the suspected bullet firing wasn’t mentioned in the case report for the car accident. Likewise, he made sure that Kuo-an’s death was written off as an overdose. For the same reason, ever since the killings of the influencers started, and Chen-wei realizes there exists footage of his involvement in the accident, he begins moving the pieces around, attempting to sabotage Chia-jen’s investigation. Thus, in the aftermath of the Baba Witch killer’s death, he decides to finish the job himself and kill off the influencers whose footage threatens his own interests.
Who is Behind the Baba Witch Predictions? What Happens to Them?
While the revelation of the second killer comes as an unexpected plot twist, the original killer, who operates from the shadows of Baba Witch, remains a foundational mystery in the show. Initially, the police department is unwilling to entertain the idea that a psychic influencer on the internet is related to real-life homicidal crimes. Nonetheless, the evidence eventually speaks for itself. It becomes obvious that Baba Witch is somehow connected ot the murders as her predictions continue to come true. However, the truth turns out to be much more convoluted than expected. As it turns out, the influencer is actually just a mask for the real killer: Dr. Ki Ta-fu. The doctor has kidnapped You-jei and has been blackmailing her roommate, Ting-en, to create the videos for him all this time.
It all started a while back when Ta-fu lost his family in one brutal car accident. His wife, ily, was pregnant with a baby girl when Ting-yu and his friends’ reckless behavior on the road, in pursuit of likes and views, led the doctor to drive into a dire hydrant. The traumatic impact of the accident triggered his wife’s labor in dangerous ways. When he tried to drive away from the scene and head toward the hospital, the car ended up flipping over. Unbeknownst to him, this accident is a result of Chen-wei’s bullet. In the end, while Ta-fu survives, his wife and unborn child both die. In the aftermath, when he tries to pursue a legal case against the influencers, having caught the entire incident on his dashcam video, he’s only told that the perpetrators can be at best convicted on the basis of a threat against public safety.
As a result, Ta-fu’s grief ends up driving him insane. By a twist of fate, the prior day, Baba Witch, a silly channel operated by two girls, had predicted that a car accident would unravel in the city. Consequently, the doctor grew even more tormented and came up with a game plan. He decides to use this psychic content creator to orchestrate an elaborate plan of exacting revenge on the reckless influencers who caused the death of his family and walked away from the accident without any consequences. Nevertheless, in the end, he only successfully kills two out of the four people involved in the incident. Once foiled, he decides to take his own life by swallowing a cyanide pill.
Is Wei-ten Dead? Does Ting-yu Survive?
In the end, Wei-ten, the first victim, and Ting-yu remain the only survivors from their friend group who manage to escape from Ta-fu’s killer clutches. Nonetheless, danger isn’t entirely off their shores yet. In the aftermath of the doctor’s death, they realize that there’s still someone on the loose who wants them dead and has been subliminally contributing to the circumstances that allowed the Baba Witch killer to execute his master plan. Therefore, they decide to lure the mystery killer out themselves. Sine Chia-jen manages to figure out Chen-wei’s identity as the killer; all that’s left to do is collect undeniable evidence to take down the corrupt police officer.
In order ot do this, they decide to use Wei-ten, who has recently woken from his medical coma, as the bait. The influencers use their and their friends’ platforms to spread the word about the second killer, making it seem like they have the ability to reveal his identity. AS a result, Chen-wei is coaxed out of the shadows and decides to finish the job Ta-fu started by killing Wei-ten in his sleep. Nonetheless, once the patient flatlines, the officer realizes the whole thing had been a setup. In reality, the influencer’s heart monitor was tinkered with to provide a false flatline to prove Chen-wei’s murderous attempts. Yet, even as the cops surround him, he tries to make his escape by holding Ting-yu hostage. However, in the end, Ting-yu and Chai-jen use their special code, formed through their recent camaraderie, to find a safe way to execute the killer officer without harming the younger man. Ultimately, the influencers survive and go on to repent for their actions.
Why Did Ta-fu Kidnap You-jie? Does She Survive?
You-jie’s kidnapping becomes a plot point that is crucial to both the overall narrative and the protagonist’s personal storyline. Chia-jen has a complicated relationship with his daughter, who has started to hate him ever since the death of her mother. She blames her father for allowing his wife’s health to deteriorate to the point of ruin without doing anything. Furthermore, she blames him for his deadbeat and controlling ways in the aftermath of the tragedy. Instead of empathizing with his daughter and grieving the loss with her as a family, Chia-jen had grown miserable, bitter, and toxic as a father. In one instance, he even breaks his daughter’s guitar during an argument.
As such, You-jie decides to move out of the house and get an apartment for herself. Shortly afterward, her paths cross with Ting-en, who becomes her best friend and her eventual roommate. The latter has aspirations of becoming an actress, but has a great stage fright to go along with it. Consequently, the musician advises her to wear a mask and take on a new identity as Baba Witch to make videos as practice. Unfortunately, after predicting disasters and other news at random, one of their predictions coincidentally lines up with a real car accident that takes place in the city. This puts them on Ta-fu’s radar, who decides to use their Baba Witch persona to push forward his own agenda. For the same reason, he kidnaps You-jie as security collateral to control her friend. Nonetheless, in the end, Chia-jen is able to save his daughter’s life, rescuing him from Ta-fu’s hold.
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