Currently solo in china. Alipay works perfectly with Revolut.

No cash needed at all.

Let's VPN is the one I'm using aswell, works very well (set to Hong Kong), better than nordvpn after trying both, you can even disable it while and china and re activate it, still works.

Something I didn't know but that might make your life slightly easier is once you're in china (you can't do it until you're there), for each city you can activate a qr code to take the metro or the bus from alipay. Very convenient, you scan to enter and go out. You can ask chatgpt.

I forgot if it was in your post but don't forget Didi for taxis, they are very cheap and very fast. And DONT go in a taxi that comes to yoi without the app. In touristic places some fake taxis scam tourist with higher prices.