Chapter60 Suppressed Mania

Chapter60 Suppressed Mania
Suffocation and weakness rapidly swept through her entire body.
Linnea was completely unprepared. Instinctive helplessness and fear were eroding her brain inch by inch.
Caius... Right! Call Caius. He was the only one who could save her now!
With trembling hands, she picked up her phone and pressed Caius's name.
"Ring... ring..."
After two busy signals, the call was mercilessly hung up.
The phone fell from her hand. Linnea rolled off the bed in agony and collapsed on the floor.
What was Caius doing? Did he still think his little cat was playing hard to get?
But if he didn't come soon, she was going to die! He wouldn't have such an interesting toy anymore...
And Caius, whom she resented, was standing quietly outside the door.
He was also thinking about Linnea, but in a completely different state of mind:
When he'd left the banquet earlier, those noisy people kept begging him to stay, but he never agreed.
It wasn't that he couldn't go. The Knight family had made a big deal of his attendance, inviting families capable of cooperating with Thorne Group.
But Linnea, this little cat, would occasionally scratch at his heart.
During these few hours apart from Linnea, Caius had recalled that moment more than once. At noon today, when Linnea solved the crisis on her own without his help, the grateful look she gave Soren, and the defiant glance she shot him.
She really wasn't afraid of death.
He calculated that if Linnea provoked him again because of Soren, he should take her phone and delete all the photos with Soren, chat records, and friend connections. Linnea belonged to him.
How could she be so close to a schoolmate she hadn't seen in years?
For some reason, that pathological manic feeling surged up in his chest. Together with exposed lust, it clamored in his brain to punish his little cat thoroughly tonight.
So he loosely pulled off his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and slowly left the banquet hall.
No one dared stop him. His expression was terrifyingly gloomy right now, making him look like a dangerously explosive wolf.
And now, Caius stood outside the door, hearing faint panting from inside.
Was Linnea unable to suppress her wave of lust? She was really slutty... But something was wrong.
He heard Linnea's weak wail. That was definitely not the tone of climbing toward pleasure. This made Caius briefly forget all his previous emotions. He kicked open the flimsy bedroom door.
Light from the hallway spilled into the dark room. Linnea was curled up miserably on the floor. Her face and neck had turned a frighteningly pale white.
"Linnea?"
Caius froze for a moment.
Over all these years, he'd seen countless people die in front of him. Deaths by gunshot, falls, crashes, poison, suffocation. But he'd never been moved. He only found these people’s deaths disgusting.
But only in this moment did he hear a tremor from the depths of his soul.
"Where's the emergency doctor! Quick, call an ambulance!"
He roared toward the door like a madman.
All his subordinates saw him in such a panic for the first time. The man who was usually as mysterious and dangerous as a deep pool briefly disappeared. Linnea's sudden condition caused enormous chaos. Everyone who got the news rushed over, apologizing and begging for mercy.
But Caius ignored everyone.
Especially Soren. He was a doctor, but Caius had already called in a well-trained emergency team, so Soren became useless too. When he tried to rush onto the ambulance with Caius, bodyguards automatically stepped out to hold him back.
Caius just kept gripping Linnea's fingers tightly, suppressing his violently convulsing stomach, calling to her in a low voice: "Linnea, just hold on a little longer, okay? Don't fall asleep."
"Easy for you to say. I'm dying here..." Linnea murmured weakly.
When the ambulance rushed onto the road, she lifted her eyelids. Her look at Caius was full of reproach: "If I die, I'll become a vengeful ghost and haunt you, give you bad luck, make you go bankrupt..."
Before she could finish, emergency personnel stuffed a respirator into her mouth.
Linnea thought Caius would still mock her.
But Caius just pressed his body lightly against hers, gripping her fingertips again. His other hand gently brushed away the hair stuck to her cheeks and forehead, finally covering the top of her head, stroking it soothingly:
"It's okay. Relax. Linnea, I have the most skilled medical team. Of course you'll live. I'm willing to let you spend all my money and give me bad luck."
Linnea was speechless. Her strength rapidly depleted. She finally passed out.
Until Linnea was pushed into the ICU, Caius sat on the bench outside the ward.
His subordinates reported to him that they hadn't found the source of the poison in the room where Linnea had been. It was very suspicious, but Caius didn't rage. He just pinched the bridge of his nose and told them to keep searching.
The hallway was briefly quiet, so quiet that Caius could clearly hear his own heartbeat.
He didn't know what this feeling was. All the blood in his body was restlessly boiling. These were clearly symptoms of mania, yet they were forcibly suppressed by a greater worry deep in his heart.
In the past, when he was manic, he'd fall into frenzy because fundamentally he had nothing he needed to care about. He didn't need to consider anything, so he completely followed his own heart.
But now, someone was forcing him to stay calm. It was Linnea. She was being resuscitated. She needed his protection.
A doctor rushed out of the operating room: "Mr. Caius, the patient's condition is extremely critical. With just our hospital's traditional medicine, we can't quickly pull her back from near death. Even if she survives, she'll be left with many aftereffects..."
"Tell me the solution."
"Only Mr. Jam's private hospital has the newest specialized medicine to treat Miss Linnea's condition."
Jam was a very close business partner of his. Because they both had the extreme refined egoism of businessmen, their values barely aligned. Through several profitable collaborations, they'd become casual friends.
Actively seeking Jam's help would of course require giving him satisfyingly beneficial terms.
But Caius didn't hesitate. He dialed Jam's number.
"Hey, is that Mr. Caius? Let me be clear, I'm not giving up that piece of land..."
"I'm willing to give it up voluntarily."
"Huh?" The other end went silent for a few seconds, then came the sound of breaking glass. "Oh, sorry about that. I just squeezed my hairless cat out of surprise, and the little guy knocked over my dishes. You'd actually give up profits voluntarily? I really suspect you've already planned to destroy my company..."
"I need to borrow your medical team."
"What? Are you seriously ill?"
"It's my assistant. I need you to save her."
"This is hard to believe. You'd actually sacrifice such big interests for someone else." Jam still spoke in a teasing tone. "But I'm not that easily satisfied. I also want hosting rights for that new business forum."
Caius: "Fine."
Jam suddenly had nothing to say. He'd never seen Caius act so strangely.
After a brief silence, Caius said softly:
"However, if you can't save her, you won't be far from death either."