Fly from HK-Shanghai-USA and then back

We are British citizens living in HK (with HK ID card). If we want to go to USA via Shanghai, can we just book our flight tickets, say for examples HK to Shanghai (stay 5 days ) then to usa. And on the way back just USA to Shanghai to HK without stopping? In this case do we need to act differently since one way is for 144 hours free visa and the other is 24 hours ? Thanks