Gao Zhendong and Jin Zhizhang were overjoyed. They hadn't expected it to be this easy.
They thought it would take a lot of effort to convince Zhao Min. But the moment they brought it up, she agreed without hesitation. Just like that.
Suddenly, the hour they'd spent waiting didn't seem so bad.
Gao Zhendong couldn't help but feel he might have misjudged her. At this moment, Zhao Min seemed a lot more… agreeable.
"President Zhao, you're truly straightforward," he said with a broad smile, the frustration from earlier now completely gone.
Zhao Min gave a small smile. "I'm a businesswoman. My primary goal is profit." Then she turned to Xiao Yu. "Go print the licensing agreement."
"Okay." Xiao Yu nodded and left the room. Not long after, she returned with a freshly printed agreement and handed it to Zhao Min.
"This is the smart assistant licensing agreement," Zhao Min said, handing it to Gao Zhendong. "You can take it back for review. If everything looks good, you're welcome to sign it anytime."
Gao Zhendong took the document, feeling that perhaps Marching Ant was even more eager than them to close this deal. That was a good sign—it might give them the upper hand in future negotiations.
The agreement was in English. His assistant took it and began reading through it carefully.
Before long, her expression shifted. She passed the document to Gao Zhendong and whispered a few words into his ear.
His smile instantly faded.
"Is something wrong?" Zhao Min asked, her tone calm and innocent.
Xiao Yu, standing nearby, couldn't help but smirk slightly. She was learning quickly—watching Zhao Min play this kind of game was practically a masterclass in negotiation.
"President Zhao, is there a mistake in this agreement?" Gao Zhendong asked, keeping his tone steady as he took a deep breath.
"What's the issue?" Jin Zhizhang asked, frowning.
The assistant laid the document in front of him and pointed to a specific clause. Jin Zhizhang's smug expression vanished. His face twitched, and his smile froze instantly.
Their earlier excitement turned into a gut-punch. They couldn't help but feel played.
"Did you print the wrong agreement?" Zhao Min asked Xiao Yu.
"No. That's the smart assistant authorization agreement you mentioned," Xiao Yu said quickly, her cheeks a little flushed. She didn't quite have Zhao Min's composure yet.
"Then there's no mistake," Zhao Min said, turning back to Gao Zhendong. "Is there a problem? Please feel free to bring it up."
"Does this clause really say the licensing fee is 21.4% of the total retail price?" Gao Zhendong asked through clenched teeth. "Isn't that a little too high?"
It wasn't just high—it was outrageous. It practically screamed we don't want to cooperate.
Zhao Min smiled faintly. "Too high? As far as I know, a $400 smartphone pays nearly $50 in WiFi patent fees. That's just WiFi. Our smart assistant adds full multilingual support, voice interaction, and deep AI integration—for just $85 per unit. That's not unreasonable, is it?"
"$85? That's over 500 yuan per phone," she continued. "That's like a two-year subscription to a cutting-edge smart assistant. For a device used daily, it's a bargain. Is it really too expensive?"
"President Zhao, don't you think you're oversimplifying this?" Gao Zhendong asked, holding back his frustration.
He had been thrilled just moments ago, thinking they were on the verge of a win. Now, it felt like he'd been thrown off a cliff.
"If not like this, then how should I calculate it?" Zhao Min asked, feigning curiosity.
"President Zhao, we're not buying a few individual units. We're talking bulk orders across all our smartphones. With such volume, shouldn't we get some sort of wholesale or factory-level pricing? Not retail rates?"
Gao Zhendong was nearly grinding his teeth. He didn't believe for a second that Zhao Min didn't understand how B2B licensing worked. She was clearly doing this on purpose.
"Oh, so you mean we should calculate a volume discount?" Zhao Min nodded thoughtfully. "Alright, then I'll give you a 10% discount. We'll drop it to 19.2% of the retail price."
"I…"
Gao Zhendong almost blurted something out but forced himself to hold back.
"This price is already very generous," Zhao Min added. "If you can't accept it, then we simply won't be able to move forward."
Generous? He wanted to laugh.
Even at 19.2%, a phone retailing at 3,500 yuan would owe over 670 yuan in licensing fees. That would eat up all of Samsung's profit margin. Even with a price hike, they'd be making money just to hand it to the Marching Ant Company.
"President Zhao, that's still far too high. We can only go up to 3%," Gao Zhendong said. "That alone would average over 100 yuan per phone. Given our annual shipments, you'd be bringing in over 23 billion yuan in licensing revenue each year."
"That does sound tempting," Zhao Min said with a faint smile.
"Last year, our phones had the highest global shipment volume," he added, trying to make his case.
"How many phones you ship is irrelevant to us," Zhao Min said coolly. "You've seen the agreement. 3% is not acceptable, and we're not going any lower."
"Is there no alternative?" Gao Zhendong asked. "How about this: You authorize us to use the assistant but let us integrate it with our own system. We could offer you 10% of the phone's price in return. Given our 200 million units shipped annually, we're talking about significant long-term income."
Zhao Min chuckled coldly. "You want access to our source code? For just 10%? Are you dreaming?"
Their smart assistant technology wasn't patented—it was confidential and proprietary. Revealing the code would be opening their vault to the world. Marching Ant had already experienced espionage attempts targeting their assistant's code, but none had succeeded.
Even the seismograph technology hadn't been patented on Chen Mo's instruction. While patents grant monopoly rights, they also expose core designs to the public. Marching Ant wasn't in the business of giving competitors a roadmap to catch up.
Within the company, only Chen Mo had access to the full codebase. Other developers could only access specific modules—never the core algorithms.
"President Zhao, I heard you offered lower rates to other companies," Jin Zhizhang suddenly interjected with a frown.
Zhao Min turned to him with a calm gaze. "And you are?"
"He's Jin Zhizhang, our Deputy Director of Marketing," Gao Zhendong quickly explained.
"Oh? And where did you hear we offered lower rates?" Zhao Min asked.
Their licensing agreements were strictly confidential. If any of their partners had leaked details, she wouldn't hesitate to terminate their authorization.
"We guessed," Jin Zhizhang replied. "No company could afford fees as high as these."
"And what's your point?" Zhao Min's tone cooled.
"I mean… isn't this kind of pricing an abuse of monopoly power? It feels like targeted suppression. Isn't that unfair?" he said, visibly annoyed.
Zhao Min gave a slow, deliberate smile and stared at him. "Monopoly? Suppression? Are you planning to sue us, Mr. Jin?"
"…"
"President Zhao," Gao Zhendong quickly cut in before things escalated further, "We'll take the agreement back and review it in detail. The licensing fee is still a bit high, but we'll reach out again soon. Hopefully, we can find some middle ground."
He was terrified that Jin Zhizhang would say something reckless. This was Marching Ant's headquarters. If they blew this meeting, Samsung's mobile division would suffer immensely.
"Little Demon, see our guests out," Zhao Min said to the robot beside her.
"Understood, President," the robot replied. It turned to the group and spoke in Korean. "Gentlemen, ladies, this way, please."