pjbooks Chapter 82 Using Another's Strength to Fight Back
Chapter 82 Using Another's Strength to Fight Back
Su Chen boiled another pot of tea that had gone cold.
Xu Lang didn't refuse the tea. He held the cup in his hand, not drinking immediately, but waiting for it to cool down a bit before offering a sip. This detail slightly surprised Su Chen—people in the capital industry rarely wait for tea to cool down. This wasn't about etiquette. It was about patience.
"Mr. Xu, let's start with the conclusion. What position do you hope to obtain at Hongyuan today? What conditions do you require?"
Xu Lang put down the teacup.
"Position, compensation, stock options—as per company standards. I won't make any special requests. But there's one thing I need to make clear upfront—I cannot sue."
"What do you mean?"
"I have a non-compete agreement with Haotai Hong Kong, with a one-year cooling-off period. If I join Hongyuan directly, Haotai will definitely file another non-compete lawsuit. I'm not afraid of the lawsuit itself. What I'm afraid of is—Hongyuan having to fight two personnel lawsuits simultaneously within a year. That will consume too much of your energy."
Su Chen nodded. This person had thought one step further than he had expected.
"Your suggestion?"
"We'll take an unusual approach. I'll provide consulting services to Hongyuan as an independent advisor. I won't sign an employment contract, I won't receive a salary, only a consulting fee. This way, Haotai can't legally accuse me of violating the non-compete agreement. After the cooling-off period, we'll discuss formal onboarding."
"What can you do for Hongyuan?"
Xu Lang pulled a folded A4 sheet of paper from the pocket of his sleeve. This paper wasn't printed; it was handwritten.
"This is a diagram I drew in my hotel room this morning. The problem Hongyuan is currently facing isn't just Wu Zheng's non-compete case, nor is it just the SDK licensing case. The real core problem is the wall. The sensor wall. Haotai knows this wall exists. That's why he dared to slam the lawsuit directly onto the table."
He unfolded the paper and placed it in front of Su Chen.
The image shows the name "Hongyuan" in the center. To the left are "Haotai + Tianying". To the right are "Bosch + TDK + Sony". The arrow points from left to right – Haotai's combined purchasing volume with Tianying became leverage to persuade the three upstream suppliers to price Hongyuan differently.
In the lower half, Xu Lang drew another arrow—pointing from above Hongyuan to a square circled in red. Inside the square were two words—"Joint Creation."
"Lianchuang Group?" Su Chen looked up.
"Yes," Xu Lang nodded. "Lianchuang Group established a dedicated drone business unit in the first half of this year. They want to enter the drone market, mainly targeting industrial inspection, emergency response, and military/police applications. Last month, they internally studied four drone companies as potential partners. The conclusion was—self-developed flight control is the true core of the platform. They don't want to become an OEM manufacturer."
How did you know?
"The strategy director of Lianchuang Group is my classmate. He invited me to dinner in Hong Kong in May and asked for my opinion on the drone industry. At that time, I was still at Haotai, so I didn't say much. But I kept the PPT he sent me."
Su Chen picked up the paper and looked at it.
"Your suggestion is—we should form a strategic partnership with Lianchuang."
"It's not just a strategic partnership; it's a full-stack collaboration. First, for the next three years, Lianchuang will source all its industrial-grade flight control modules—not complete drones—from Hongyuan. Second, Lianchuang will be granted early commercialization rights for Hongyuan's agricultural-grade SDK, allowing them to help Hongyuan penetrate the lower-tier agricultural-grade market. Third, the two parties will jointly procure sensors."
Su Chen looked at him.
Of these three points—the third one is the most crucial.
"Yes." Xu Lang lowered his voice slightly. "Lianchuang Group's annual electronic component procurement amount is seven billion US dollars. Among them, the total procurement amount for IMU, CMOS, barometer, and magnetometer devices is around fifty million US dollars. Hongyuan's annual procurement amount is about eight million US dollars. The joint procurement by the two parties—even considering only IMU and related sensors—is seven to eight times the total amount of Hongyuan's individual procurement. This scale is enough to make Bosch and TDK reconsider the risks of differential pricing."
Su Chen looked at the diagram on the paper. He didn't speak immediately.
Xu Lang's plan is commercially viable. However, it carries two potential risks.
First, the early commercialization rights for the plant protection SDK were licensed to Lianchuang—a request very similar to the one Xia Kanghao made this afternoon. Will this impact Hongyuan's SDK Open Alliance?
Second, deeply binding itself to a giant enterprise comes at the cost of weakening Hongyuan's direct operating rights in the plant protection market.
Su Chen raised these two questions.
Xu Lang nodded.
"The first issue hinges on the licensing level. I suggest licensing only the early SDK's commercial promotion layer to co-founders, not the underlying protocol. The difference is significant. By licensing only the commercial promotion layer, co-founders can only focus on downstream customer expansion and service implementation, not act as alliance managers. This preserves the alliance's neutrality."
Su Chen nodded slowly. That answer was satisfactory.
"The second question," Xu Lang continued, "is that the agricultural protection market in lower-tier cities is a market that Hongyuan sees as a must-win, but in reality, the entry costs are very high. Every county-level agricultural protection customer requires a ground team for contact, training, and after-sales service. Hongyuan's current business model isn't suitable for directly taking over this market. Outsourcing it to Lianchuang—Hongyuan gets the SDK licensing fee and the gross profit from flight control module sales. Let's do the math: it's more profitable than doing it ourselves."
Su Chen smiled this time.
"Mr. Xu, how long did you spend drawing this plan in the hotel?"
Five hours.
Su Chen looked at him. He quickly made a decision in his mind.
"Mr. Xu, starting tomorrow, you will be Hongyuan's Chief Strategic Advisor. I'll have Mr. Zhou discuss the consulting fee with you. After the non-compete cooling-off period, if you're willing, we can discuss a formal COO or Senior Vice President position. I'll leave a replacement strategic map for you."
He stretched out his hand.
Xu Lang shook hands. His expression remained unchanged. As he rose to leave, he uttered a final sentence.
"President Su, I've worked with Xia Kanghao for eight years. I know his interest in the drone industry didn't just start now; it started three years ago. Hongyuan might be his biggest partner—and maybe his last."
He closed the door and went out.
Only Su Chen, Zhou Ming, Fang Xu, and Wu Zheng remained in the office.
Zhou Ming was the first to speak.
"Once the Lianchuang connection is established, all three of our current problems will be solved: Wu Zheng's non-compete agreement, Haotai's SDK issues, and the sensor hurdle. Lianchuang's procurement volume will redefine the entire strategy in front of Bosch."
"The question is—is this person trustworthy?" Wu Zheng asked more directly. He had just experienced Haotai's behind-the-scenes manipulation and didn't have a high level of trust in investors.
"We don't need to trust his character," Su Chen said. "What we need is his solution. A rational judgment. Lianchuang is indeed looking for a strategic partner for flight control—he doesn't need to lie to us about that. I can call Lianchuang's purchasing department myself tomorrow to verify. If it's true, then we'll see it through to the end."
He got up and walked to the window.
"Fang Xu, draft the preliminary contract framework tomorrow morning. Zhou Ming, contact Lianchuang's procurement department tomorrow morning. Wu Zheng, assess the flight control module production capacity based on an annual target of 300,000 units before commencing construction. I will personally handle strategic communication with Lianchuang."
He turned back.
"The pre-trial presentation for the prospective bride on October 18th. The entire system is complete."
For the next seven days, Hongyuan entered a small-scale "wartime state".
Zhou Ming personally flew to Beijing to meet with the purchasing vice president of Lianchuang Group. The first ten minutes were straight to the point—Wu Zheng showed them Xu Lang's hand-drawn sketch of the main structure and directly asked if Lianchuang had any interest in the project. The other party was silent for two seconds, then admitted they did. That afternoon, they discussed Qingtai Lighting.
Fang Xu's contract framework was first drafted on the 6th. The next day, Wu Zheng, along with a deputy chief engineer from Lianchuang's Beijing R&D center whom he had known since the Tianying era, made five adjustments to the details.
By the evening of October 16th, the first draft of the MOU was finalized. The Lianchuang Group authorized its Vice President of Purchasing to sign it.
Su Chen signed the papers in Shenzhen at midnight on October 16th, two days before the court hearing.