On a sunny weekday noon, two men dressed in black squatted by the massive concrete bridge at Shanghai’s Huangpu River Wharf, chain-smoking as if burdened by unspeakable sorrows in life. They stared in opposite directions, sharing not a word between them. In the distance, rows of tall buildings rose, seemingly prosperous yet hollow to the core. Just then, a giant red cargo ship glided through the bridge’s archway, with the steel pillars looming directly above them—like an ominous warning of impending danger.