Chapter 320

Chapter 320

"Bruce, thank you."

"Don't be so formal with me." Bruce chuckled. "You're the one I'm worried about—all alone in Stockholm. Take care of yourself."

Calista hung up and looked up to find Gary watching her.

He said nothing, just stared with an unfathomable depth in his eyes.

The firelight from the hearth danced across his face, shadows shifting.

"I'll handle it." After a long silence, he finally spoke, his voice rough.

"Bruce's solution is faster and more appropriate," Calista explained. "It's project-level lending. It won't drag you or the Frost Group deeper into this capital war."

It was the most rational choice.

Gary understood that, of course.

But understanding was one thing. How he felt about it was another.

The air around Gary grew heavy with a silent fury—the kind that comes from having one's territory invaded.

Calista didn't try to console him.

She knew Bruce's appearance was like a thorn lodged precisely between gears—not too big, not too small, just enough to jam everything.

Gary's displeasure had nothing to do with the money itself. It was about the act of "providing"—something that should have been his to do.

This was his particular brand of possessive control.

"It's the best option we have right now." Calista finally broke the silence, her voice soft, as if afraid to disturb the frozen atmosphere.

Gary moved at last. He tilted his head back and drained his glass in one gulp, ice clinking against his teeth with a dull sound.

"Best?" He repeated the word, a trace of self-mockery in his tone, impossible to read.

Without looking at her again, he headed straight upstairs to his study. The door closed gently behind him, shutting out everything.

Calista stood downstairs for a long time before finally turning to pour herself a glass of warm water.

Some knots couldn't be untangled with a word or two.

The next day, before Bruce's funds even arrived, Harrison's second wave of attacks had already begun.

This time, they didn't target the supply chain. They chose public opinion instead.

Several influential European financial media outlets published harshly worded commentary pieces almost simultaneously.

The headlines were sensational: [Science Built on Gold: The Frost Group's European Gamble May End in Total Loss].

The articles cited anonymous "insiders" claiming that the "Next Generation Life Sciences Initiative" was nothing but a money-burning black hole. The initial billion-dollar investment had been depleted with no substantial progress to show for it.

They insinuated that Calista's "proactive warning system" and "independent R&D production" plans were merely attempts to consume future resources and cover up the project's impending bankruptcy.

The rumors spread like a virus through investment circles and academia.

The phones at the Project Spark Foundation office hadn't stopped ringing since morning.

Institutions and individuals who had reached preliminary donation agreements called one after another, diplomatically expressing the need to "reassess."

Even within the research institute, people grew uneasy.

After all, no one wanted to work on a sinking ship.

Leo walked into the temporary conference room with a tablet, his expression grim.

"Mr. Frost, Dr. Softhart, they've hired professional trolls and PR firms. Social media is flooded with negative coverage. Our PR team is responding, but it's not working."

Gary flipped through the reports, his expression growing colder.

He'd seen this kind of media warfare before.

"Calista." He looked up at the woman who'd been silent the entire time.

"Yes?"

"How long?"

"For what?"

"How long until you can give them something that'll shut them up?" he asked.

Calista raised her head, her eyes calm as still water. "Now."

She walked to the smart screen in the conference room and connected with the Project Spark Foundation's financial director.

"Send out what I asked you to prepare."

"Now, Dr. Softhart?" The voice on the other end hesitated. "This will expose everything we have."

"Send it," Calista replied.

Three minutes later.

The Project Spark Foundation's official website and the Next Generation Life Sciences Initiative's social media accounts simultaneously uploaded a document.

A complete, unedited financial statement for both the project and the foundation, current as of yesterday.

Income, expenses, assets, liabilities—every single item laid out clearly.

More importantly, in the income column, several active patent licensing agreements were prominently listed.

The largest one came from a biotech company that had purchased exclusive European production rights for a novel early-stage neurological disease screening kit developed by Calista's team.

The advance payment: fifty million dollars.

The money had arrived just two days ago.

At the bottom of the statement was a summary:

[The 'Next Generation Life Sciences Initiative' currently holds total assets of 180 million euros with stable profitability. We will not only survive this winter but provide all our partners with a warm spring. Audits welcome at any time.]

No angry rebuttals. No emotional defenses.

Just cold, indisputable numbers.

The media that had been frantically sharing negative coverage went silent instantly.

Those so-called "insiders" became a joke. Partners and donors who'd wavered called back, their tones even more eager than before.

In the conference room, the institute's core members erupted in barely suppressed cheers as they watched the data on screen.

Calista turned off the display. The office fell quiet again.

She'd handled it all as if merely solving a math problem, without a trace of triumph on her face.

Gary watched her for a long time without speaking.

He'd assumed she would need his help, that she'd need the Frost Group's powerful PR machine to smooth things over.

Instead, she herself had become the sharpest weapon.

The frustration he'd felt over Bruce suddenly dissipated.

In its place came something more complex.

Admiration, yes. But also the thrill of finding a worthy opponent.

He picked up his phone, walked to the window, and dialed a number.

When the call connected, a respectful male voice answered.

"Boss."

"Launch Project Neptune." Gary's tone was casual but carried an undeniable authority. "Target: Apollo Global Capital. Before their next board meeting, I want at least five percent of their outstanding shares and an observer seat."

The person on the other end seemed to pause briefly, then immediately responded, "Yes, sir."

Apollo Global Capital was the top-tier venture capital firm where Harrison worked.

Calista's approach was defensive counterattack—letting facts speak, elegant and lethal.

Gary's approach had always been singular.

You throw one punch at me, I tear down your house.

He hung up and turned to find Calista watching him.

She'd clearly caught those key words.

"This is war, not a debate," Gary said, walking toward her with calm certainty. "You've proven you're right. Now it's my turn to make them understand they were wrong."

His hand gently touched her cheek, his fingertips warm.

"Calista, remember this. I protect your purity. Anyone who tries to taint it will pay the price."

This time, Calista didn't pull away.

She looked into his fathomless eyes and suddenly understood.

He and she were like sword and shield.

She held the line. He razed every enemy that dared approach.

They were meant to stand together.

...

Project Neptune silently closed around Apollo Global Capital's throat.

While business elites mocked the Frost Group's "irrational" research investments, their stock was being quietly accumulated on secondary markets, nibbled away bit by bit.

While Harrison waited for Calista's "castle" to collapse from lack of funding, he received an urgent summons back to his board of directors first.

Meanwhile, the Stockholm research institute remained oblivious.

Calista's declaration about "building our own airport" hadn't been mere rhetoric.

Over the next six months, the entire institute entered a near-frenzied "wartime state."

The precision manufacturing workshop ran twenty-four hours straight. Engineers pored over blueprints and managed to replicate the centrifuge component Sylvanor had withheld—with even higher precision.

The biosynthesis department burned the midnight oil. After hundreds of failed attempts, they successfully produced several critical enzymes using a novel yeast expression system at seventy percent of the original cost.

The pressure didn't break them. It became their most powerful catalyst.

While developing all core materials independently, Calista's team accidentally constructed an entirely new algorithmic model while solving a specific protein-folding problem.

The model had initially been designed to circumvent a patent barrier, but unexpectedly opened a door no one had anticipated.

That day, Calista was reviewing the latest test data for T7 culture medium.

A core researcher—one of her graduate students—hurried over, his face flushed with a mix of excitement and disbelief.

"Dr. Softhart, you need to see this."

He pointed to a string of simulation data on the screen.

It showed a dynamic simulation of a targeted drug binding with specific cancer cells under the new algorithmic model.

On screen, previously menacing cell structures began to have their misfolded protein chains precisely cut and corrected with unprecedented efficiency under the drug molecules' influence. Finally, the entire cell initiated programmed apoptosis.

Clean. Efficient. Without any collateral damage to surrounding healthy cells.

"We ran the model against six types of glioblastoma cell lines that resist current mainstream therapies, plus two rare pancreatic cancer cell lines..." The researcher's voice trembled. "The results... were all the same."

Calista's gaze fixed on the screen.

She understood better than anyone what this meant.

This wasn't a new drug.

This was a platform—one that could rapidly generate highly effective, low-toxicity targeted therapies for different intractable diseases.

What they'd accidentally forged wasn't a single key.

It was the master key that could create all keys.