YuZhi sat behind his huge, real walnut wood desk, alone in his spacious, modern, top floor office, which overlooked the curve of the Huangpu River, and was a spectacular sight when the sun set every evening. The oriental Pearl tower in his line of vison and acted as a sundial for times of the day as shadows moved around it against the skyscrapers beside it. He chose this particular side of their foreboding spike tower in the sky to savor this every day and remind him of how small humans were in comparison to the city around him with its ever-changing energy.

He often worked late and felt it was...