Questions for the World

Gao Zhan, international debate champion and double doctorate in history and literature, was poisoned to death in Tokyo after exposing Sakura Country's cheating. When he opened his eyes again, he had become the useless heir of the Marquis of Jing'an in the Great Yong Dynasty: a stutterer, a coward, and a punching bag for everyone. In the ancestral hall, just before the family punishment fell, he spoke. From then on came confrontations in the ancestral hall, challenges at the academy, speeches in the imperial court, purges in Jiangnan, clashes between four kingdoms, and debates across the Eastern Sea... With razor-sharp eloquence and unassailable logic, he fought his way back to the capital, into the imperial court, and out into the wider world. When the noble family that had broken off his engagement came calling, he tore up the marriage contract. “It wasn't your Ye family that called off the engagement with me, Gao Zhan. I, Gao Zhan, am the one who rejects your Ye family.” When the eunuch faction launched a coup and surrounded the Eastern Palace, he walked alone toward thousands of rebels and turned their blades with a single speech. When Sakura Country's greatest debater challenged him in court, he debated for three days, exposed a lie with a single word, and berated his opponent until he vomited blood and died on the spot. From a stuttering heir to the greatest debater under heaven. With this tongue, he spoke for those who could not speak and pleaded for the people of the world. Until there was nothing left in this world that needed debating.