1. When Lin Yan, a science and engineering student, opened his eyes, he found himself as Chamberlain at 10 Downing Street in 1939—a declaration of war against Germany lay on the table, and outside the window, the countdown to the collapse of British hegemony was underway. But clutching his Zippo (his only token of the future), he was determined to overturn the script and personally rebuild British glory at 10 Downing Street.

"Your Majesty, some people think you unified Europe simply by luck. What's your response?" The newly crowned European emperor said indignantly, "They don't understand Napoleon at all. If it weren't for me, who knows how many emperors and kings there would be in Europe. It was I who saved the people of Europe!"

As the Hun's horses' hooves shattered the ice of the Rhine, the 16-year-old Roman farmer Marcus knew only two things: run, and revenge.

On the day his village burned to the ground, his parents' blood soaked his sandals, his sister's cries were swallowed by the barbarians' wild laughter. From a slave in the army to a blood-soaked centurion, he grasped the old centurion's sword and tore his way through the corrupt legions: officers fed the barbarians with rations, the emperor watched the flames of Rome drunkenly, and even the swords of Gothic mercenaries were sharper than Roman standards.

When the Vandals sacked the Eternal City, he dragged his dying sister out of the pile of corpses, but his only response was "Don't let Rome rot completely."

In 476, the last Western Roman emperor stepped down from the throne. Marcus stood among the broken pillars, the rust on his sword redder than the setting sun. The empire was dead, but the smoke from cooking stoves crushed by iron hooves, the sighs of dying veterans, the faded word "Rome" on the pages of books—he wanted to let them breathe a little longer in the setting sun.

This is not an epic about saving the world, but a story about a small person who uses his life to protect a spark of light in an era of collapse.