Chapter 79 Great Cunning
Early the next morning, in Chen Jing's office on the ninth floor of Yuanchip.
Just as Ken Kutaragi had predicted, there were four people from Yuanchip besides the translator. Today, Chen Jing and Yu Yurou had taken special care with their appearances — their hair was neatly tied back, their black-and-white suits tailored perfectly, and they wore just a touch of light makeup.
"Can we skip the necktie?"
Su Yuanshan glanced at the time on his watch and gave Chen Jing a bitter smile: "It feels like it's strangling me."
"No way. Look at your Senior Brother," Chen Jing snapped her makeup case shut with a snap, puffed up her chest, and radiated the aura of a powerful businesswoman.
Over to the side, Qin Weimin, with Yu Yurou's help, had just finished adjusting his tie. His suit had been bought a while ago but today was the first time he was actually wearing it.
"Come here," Chen Jing said, curling a finger at Su Yuanshan while grabbing a tie.
Su Yuanshan glanced at his dashing Senior Brother, sighed, and walked over to stand in front of Chen Jing. They were still a good two feet apart when she grabbed the tie, hooked it around his neck, and pulled him close.
With her high heels today, Chen Jing was nearly eye level with Su Yuanshan's forehead. As she efficiently tied his tie, she scolded him: "You're already young-looking enough, and you act all casual and lazy. If you show up in a suit without a tie, you'll look like some punk kid from the streets."
Su Yuanshan clamped his mouth shut tightly, not daring to even breathe heavily — they were so close he could smell her breath. And he was pretty sure he still had traces of fried dough stick breath from breakfast.
"Done."
Chen Jing straightened Su Yuanshan's jacket, took a few steps back, and examined him critically.
"Walk a few steps."
Su Yuanshan shrugged and took a couple of casual steps.
"More poised! We're going into battle here!"
"..."
Su Yuanshan didn't mind her words, but the first-timers Qin Weimin and Yu Yurou grew visibly more nervous. Qin Weimin smiled wryly: "President Chen, is it really that serious? You're making me want to desert."
"Hehe, it's not about being serious. It's about projecting the right aura. We have to show them that we're not just a bunch of garage-dwelling IT nerds. We're a professional, visionary, tech-driven enterprise," Chen Jing said, rotating her neck with a series of crisp cracking sounds. "Sony may be a giant multinational, but they're old and rigid."
"I agree," Su Yuanshan said, adjusting his cuffs. "Sister Jing, let's go!"
"Let's go!"
At 9:50 AM, under Chen Jing's lead, the group entered the business conference room on the twenty-sixth floor.
Five minutes later, the Japanese delegation led by Ichiro Tsubaki arrived right on time.
After everyone was seated, Chen Jing clasped her fingers together, smiling politely but gracefully as she welcomed them in Mandarin. Then, she calmly laid out Yuanchip's stance:
"We believe that since our cooperation spans two domains, it would be prudent to first reach an agreement on one aspect. Given our respective situations, we believe that cooperation on the VCD project is the immediate priority."
After the translator finished relaying the message, Ken Kutaragi smiled slightly: "Miss Chen's suggestion is excellent. We were thinking the same, as it aligns with our mutual interests."
Even before he finished speaking, a flicker of suspicion flashed across Chen Jing's smiling eyes — so quick that it was imperceptible. She tilted her head slightly toward the translator with a polite smile, and at the same time, exchanged a meaningful glance with Su Yuanshan.
Without question, Sony throwing out their strongest card first was something neither Chen Jing nor Su Yuanshan had anticipated — they had assumed Sony would keep VCD negotiations as a backup, leveraging it to gain an advantage in console negotiations later.
Especially Su Yuanshan — he knew Kutaragi was a firm "avenger" and that even without Yuanchip, Sony would still form Sony Computer Entertainment next year to develop the PlayStation.
In high-level negotiations, the general principle is to reveal your weaker hands first and save your strongest cards for later bargaining leverage. Sony, being a seasoned multinational, obviously knew this rule.
"This is a proposal regarding our vision for VCD cooperation. We hope it meets your approval," Ken Kutaragi said, immediately sliding a file across the table before Yuanchip could respond.
From Takeda Naoto's prior feedback, Kutaragi knew that Su Yuanshan understood Japanese. Judging from her behavior so far, the young female negotiator likely did too. Therefore, Kutaragi didn't wait for translation — he directly handed the document to Chen Jing.
Chen Jing smiled as she accepted it and slowly opened the folder.
Sony's demands were straightforward. They wanted an ordinary VCD manufacturing license for East Asia and exclusive rights for the Western markets. They also requested rights to manufacture and sell the decoding chips.
Of course, they agreed to Su Yuanshan's earlier condition of a jointly established optical drive factory, located in China. But to ensure quality and supply chain integrity, Sony demanded majority control of the venture.
Chen Jing's expression didn't change as she quickly translated the key points into Chinese for her colleagues.
"Mr. Kutaragi, it seems there's quite a gap between your proposal and our expectations. Coincidentally, we have prepared our own draft," Chen Jing said, opening another folder and sliding Yuanchip's counterproposal across the table.
Yuanchip's terms closely followed the blueprint Su Yuanshan had previously outlined with Takeda — with additional restrictions on component markets and distribution channels.
In short, the two sides' demands were almost irreconcilable.
Kutaragi took one glance at Yuanchip's proposal and immediately laughed: "Oh! Are you treating Sony like a mere contract worker?"
"In comparison, your proposal treats us like slaves with no rights at all," Chen Jing responded sweetly, not giving an inch. "Mr. Kutaragi, based on your conditions, I have an even better suggestion."
"Please," he said.
"Why don't you just buy us out?"
"Hahahaha!"
After a morning of verbal sparring, both sides shook hands and agreed to continue negotiations the next morning.
During lunch, Chen Jing gathered everyone into her office.
"You all saw it — the enemy is extremely cunning."
Although she had called Qin Weimin and Yu Yurou into the meeting, Chen Jing knew full well that the real strategic counterweight was sitting calmly on the sofa eating lunch — Su Yuanshan.
After a pause, she said: "If I wasn't absolutely sure they genuinely intend to cooperate, I would have thought they were here to sabotage the talks."
Qin Weimin chuckled: "Agreed. It feels like a dragon crossing the river, here to crush us local snakes."
"Su Yuanshan," Chen Jing called his name, "what do you think?"
Su Yuanshan popped a quail egg into his mouth, looked up, and chuckled:
"I suspect they're using a bait-and-switch strategy. First, they'll tie us up with messy VCD negotiations. Once we're deadlocked, they'll suddenly propose switching to game console talks."
"If at that point we lose our cool and rush to break the impasse, we might end up making concessions that favor them heavily."
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