The End Is yet to Come

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea. Nine-year-old Li Chengxun hid behind the window and watched his father being hacked to death under a persimmon tree for refusing to sign the "Pledge of Surrender". He fled to Shanghai with a copper ring engraved with "Li", planting a seed of revenge in his heart. In the same year, 12-year-old Shen Huaiyuan secretly read banned books in a private school in Beijing, and his eyes were reddened by the words "A strong young man will make a strong country". He didn't know that from the gunshots of the Wuchang Uprising to the shouts of the May Fourth Movement, it would take him a full ten years to understand his father's words, "It takes patience to change a country." In Tokyo, the Sato brother and sister are being pushed in completely opposite directions by the torrent of the times - the elder brother becomes the bayonet of the Kwantung Army, and the younger sister discovers another power that changes the world in the library of San Francisco. From the persimmon trees in Seoul to the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, from the explosions in Huanggutun to the clarion calls of war, the fates of the four families are intertwined, torn, and reborn in the cracks of history. The old empire has collapsed, the new world has not yet been established, and no one knows what kind of flag will be raised tomorrow. All they know is that they have chosen their own path, and they have to walk it even if they kneel down - or they must die standing up.