Three weeks after the Shadow Dialogues gained underground momentum, Lin Feng sat across from Wen Shixuan, a technologist and decentralized systems thinker who had kept her distance from all major factions—until now.
They were meeting in the back room of a seemingly ordinary coffee bar in Chengdu, one that had quietly become a neutral hub for unaffiliated civic designers and off-grid planners. The kind of place that didn't post on social media. No digital check-ins. No press. Only handshakes and verbal agreements.
Wen sipped her oolong and cut to the point.
"You want my team to help scale an invisible movement. One that doesn't want credit, doesn't want hierarchy, and actively resists narrative ownership. You realize how paradoxical that is?"
Lin nodded. "Yes. And it's precisely that paradox that makes it work."
Wen leaned back in her chair, tapping the rim of her mug. "I've seen your opponents' patterns. They centralize influence. You're doing something else. Diffusion."
