After returning from the resort vacation, Marcy, a mother and live streamer, experienced bizarre symptoms, and her accompanying staff member, Zhao, inexplicably passed away. A friend of Ah Xu, Tianren, uploaded the eerie footage captured by Zhao before his death, garnering significant online traffic. In a state of panic and rebellion, Ah Xu, either to uncover the truth or for the sake of false popularity, concealed this from her family and begged her sister to keep it a secret. She decided to join forces with Tianren to call upon internet friends to investigate the vacation resort.

Feng runs away from her rural home to pursue singing in Taipei but is trafficked to Japan as a prostitute. Years later, she returns to Taiwan, burdened by guilt and avoiding her family while secretly sending money home. Her brother Ming, now a police officer, searches for her, unaware of the life she now leads. Their paths cross under difficult circumstances, forcing both siblings to confront their past and present.

Set in early 2000s Taiwan, The Grandmaster's Gift explores political divisions through the unlikely friendship between a former Nationalist soldier who masters Chinese chess and a boy from a single-parent family whose taxi driver father supports Taiwanese independence.