Chapter 80: The Second Rejection

The news was spreading, but there was no sign of Cook. The reporters waiting outside the Legion Ant Company found it strange. Cook had not visited the Legion Ant Company, nor had he appeared anywhere else in Binhai City.

Inside the Legion Ant Company, everything was calm and peaceful.

It seemed the news was not what they had expected.

Reporters were not allowed to enter the Legion Ant Company freely for interviews. Cook had not shown up since he was spotted at Binhai City Airport last night. They did not even know which hotel he was staying in.

For a while, the reporters waiting outside the Legion Ant Company grew anxious.

Cook sat on the sofa in his hotel room with his eyes closed, trying to rest. He looked tired.

He had just arrived last night and was still suffering from jet lag. He was not feeling well, both physically and mentally.

When the U.S. stock market closed, Apple’s stock price had dropped another 1%. Now, the Legion Ant Company had also rejected their invitation. Being rejected never felt good.

He was now in a difficult position. The Legion Ant Company had clearly responded that if they wanted to discuss business, they would have to go to the Legion Ant Company. They would not come to him. It was impossible for him to take the initiative.

However, leaving without discussing anything would mean that all his plans for coming to Binhai City would be wasted. Figuring out how to solve this problem was what he needed to do next.

The launch event for the new Apple S2 was coming soon. Its performance was similar to that of the Legion Ant devices, but it lacked a Smart Assistant. The functions of Siri could not compare to Xiao Die at all.

Battery life was also Apple’s weakness. Apart from the advantage of having a bionic chip, he could not think of any other strengths their phone had.

If they held the launch event under these circumstances, the sales would likely suffer a major defeat.

Last time, they had asked Black Hat to steal the Source Code of the Smart Assistant from the Legion Ant Company, but the attempt failed. Their company’s computers were affected, and they had never publicly disclosed it.

They were investing a lot of resources into expanding Siri’s functions and Artificial Intelligence research.

However, it was almost impossible to make a breakthrough in a short time. The most important thing now was to get the Smart Assistant to turn the situation around. Otherwise, they would lose a large part of the market in the Greater China Region. If the Legion Ant Company went global in the future, they would face even bigger troubles.

Not long after, Cook opened his eyes and took out his phone to contact his secretary. “Contact the people from the Legion Ant Company and arrange a meeting outside to talk.”

At that moment, in the Legion Ant Company, Chen Mo was sitting in his Office having lunch with Xiaoyu.

Most of the time, Xiaoyu had lunch with Chen Mo. Sometimes, they would go out to eat. Occasionally, she would cook and bring the food in a lunchbox to the company in the morning.

“I’ve noticed that the food my Xiaoyu makes is much tastier than the food outside,” Chen Mo said with a smile.

As soon as he finished speaking, a hint of joy appeared on Xiaoyu’s face. She just pretended to roll her eyes at him. When the two of them were alone, Chen Mo would sometimes say cheesy romantic things.

Being praised by the person she liked naturally made Xiaoyu happy. Their love might not be passionate, but at least it was simple and good.

“If it’s tasty, then eat more. With so much food, it still can’t shut you up.” Xiaoyu kept putting more food into Chen Mo’s bowl.

“You’re giving me so much. Are you feeding a pig?”

“I’m feeding you,” Xiaoyu said with a laugh.

“Zhao Min is calling.”

While they were eating, the phone on the table announced the call with the voice of the Smart Assistant Xiao Die, followed by the ringing tone.

“Answer, speakerphone,” Chen Mo said without putting down his chopsticks, swallowing the food in his mouth.

“Chairman, am I disturbing you?” Zhao Min’s voice came through the phone as soon as the call connected.

“What’s the matter?” Chen Mo asked.

“Cook wants to meet with us tonight to talk,” Zhao Min said.

“Tonight? Has he adjusted to the time difference? Tell them if they want to cooperate, they should come to our company. If it’s so hard for them to come to our company, then there’s no need to discuss cooperation. It’s not like our company is the eighteenth layer of hell.”

They had never officially met, and suddenly he wanted to talk outside. Chen Mo could not agree. If they wanted to cooperate but were not even willing to come to their company, what did that mean?

Besides, he did not have a very good impression of Apple. When the Smart Assistant first came out, among those who hacked into the company’s servers was an employee from Apple Inc..

“You’re rejecting them so directly? Okay, I’ll have someone reply to them,” Zhao Min said.

After hanging up, Chen Mo continued to eat with Xiaoyu. After finishing the meal, Chen Mo sat in front of the computer and continued working on the Robot design.

He had already compiled a list of materials, components, and parts needed for the Robot and asked Zhao Min to arrange for their purchase.

Before that, he needed to design the Robot. Then, when the materials arrived, they could directly move into the manufacturing phase.

“Aren’t you going to rest for a while?” After cleaning up the lunch boxes, Xiaoyu walked over to stand behind Chen Mo.

“You go lie down for a bit. You have to work this afternoon. I’m not tired for now, and if I get tired, I can rest anytime. But you can’t sleep during work in the afternoon,” Chen Mo said.

“What are you drawing?” Xiaoyu looked curiously at the design on Chen Mo’s computer.

“It’s a design for a Robot.”

“You want to research Robots?”

Xiaoyu’s tone was full of surprise. In her impression, Robots were advanced things that only existed in movies. Hearing Chen Mo say he wanted to research Robots, she could not help but be amazed.

“I’m just making a little toy to play with. I don’t have much to do these days anyway. If you like it, I’ll give you one after it’s successfully developed.”

“No need. What would I do with a Robot? I’m going to rest for a while. Don’t overwork yourself.” After saying that, she walked over to the sofa in Chen Mo’s Office and lay down.

Chen Mo turned his attention back to the computer and began designing the Robot.

The Robot consisted of four main parts: the execution mechanism, the drive device, the control system, and the detection device.

Chen Mo was currently working on the basic design. The technology he obtained from the Science and Technology Library was just a design blueprint, with no other technical details.

He planned to use a Carbon Crystal Battery for the drive device, equipped with an electric drive system. At this stage, he had never thought about installing something like the Arc Reactor from Iron Man’s chest. He was not making a War Robot either. The Carbon Crystal Battery had enough capacity to power the Robot in the Laboratory.

At the very least, it would give Ink Girl a physical form to help him with experiments. Currently, in the Laboratory, without an assistant, he had to do everything himself and was overwhelmed with work.

The control system was Ink Girl. She would handle the control, but a lot of data still needed to be tested and entered. There also needed to be CPUs at each joint for interpolation calculations and control processing.

Right now, he was designing the layout of the Robot.

The detection device was very important. It included the placement of various sensors: Laser Sensors, photosensitive sensors, sound-sensitive sensors, thermal sensors, etc. These sensors were the Robot’s eyes, nose, and ears, sending feedback to the control system.

Robot design could not do without sensors. Designing a Robot while ignoring sensors was nonsense.

This was why he had worked on the Laser Sensor first. With the Laser Sensor, the Robot would have more precise eyes.

While Chen Mo was designing the Robot, not everyone in Binhai City was in as good a mood as he was.

In the Binhai Hotel, Cook was frowning deeply.

Trouble. This was a big trouble. The Legion Ant Company was determined not to come out and insisted that he go to them. He was feeling a bit flustered. He had never experienced being rejected twice when trying to arrange a meeting.

After thinking for a long time, Cook finally stood up from the sofa and left the room.