The Retired CEO's Guide To Being Spoiled-Chapter 276: A Makeshift Solution

"Gemma, it is me." Thea Lockwood tried to force her voice to sound as normal as possible.

Thea Lockwood and Gemma Thornton conversed with each other for a moment over the phone.

Because there was not much time, and the physical endurance of her body was nearing its absolute limit, Thea Lockwood did not speak at length but carefully selected her words, trying to summarize everything that had happened as quickly and accurately as possible. It seemed that the person on the other end of the line was urgently asking for the current address to come to the rescue, so Thea Lockwood paused at this moment, slowly raising her flushed, sweat-drenched face to look directly into Helen Lloyd’s eyes, and asked: "Where is this place?"

"The area near side gate number five in the basement of this hotel. Miss Thornton might not be familiar with the way down here. You can tell her to find her father, he will certainly know."

Hearing this, Thea Lockwood nodded in agreement with great difficulty. She pressed the phone close to her ear and distinctly repeated Helen Lloyd’s instructions word for word to the woman on the other end of the line. After that, she added two or three brief sentences to reassure the other party before decisively pressing the button to hang up. Her small, trembling hand returned the mobile phone to Helen Lloyd.

"Gemma said... she will bring people here right away." Thea Lockwood’s voice became increasingly fragmented, her chest heaving violently with each breath.

Helen Lloyd took the phone back and gave a slight nod.

Her gaze fell to assess the current condition of the person in front of her. Looking at the beautiful face that was being tormented by the drug’s effects to the point of turning increasingly and unnaturally flushed, Helen Lloyd could not help but frown: "The onset of the drug seems to be getting worse. Can you still manage to hold on until your family arrives?"

"What else can I possibly do right now besides trying to endure it?"

Helen Lloyd remained silent. It was true that there was no other way. Eventually, Helen grabbed a bag of items from the back of her car and brought it over to Thea Lockwood. Inside, there was fresh milk, lemonade, fresh lemons, plain water... all sorts of miscellaneous things. When Thea Lockwood received it, she was still somewhat doubtful.

"An aphrodisiac, at the end of the day, is merely a type of chemical. Theoretically, the sourness of the lemon can help neutralize and slightly reduce the medicinal properties, or it might have no effect at all. This completely depends on the composition of the drug you were just forced to consume. Drinking a lot of plain water continuously can help the body excrete faster, thereby diluting the amount of the drug seeping into the bloodstream. As for the fresh milk, it has the function of creating a protective membrane on the stomach lining, preventing the absorption of toxins..." Helen Lloyd calmly and meticulously explained the use of each miscellaneous item in the plastic bag. Then, Helen suddenly paused for a moment, a trace of helplessness flashing in her eyes before she cleared her throat and continued: "...if you drink all of these mixed up at the same time, the stomach will react strongly. That process can stimulate the stomach walls to contract continuously, creating a feeling of discomfort and nausea, making it very easy for you to vomit everything out."

Naturally, continuous vomiting at this time is also an effective physical measure that can reduce a large portion of the drug that has not yet had the chance to seep deeply into the body.

Helen Lloyd did not explicitly state this, but Thea Lockwood understood. She lowered her eyes to look at the messy pile of mixed drinks tightly held in her arms, and then slowly looked up, staring straight into Helen Lloyd’s face. Finally, seemingly unable to bear the absurdity of this detoxification method, Thea Lockwood could not hold back from slightly curling her lips to offer a mocking remark: "Do not tell me... that when your boss was drugged, he also had to use this crude, manual method?"

Helen Lloyd pursed her lips and did not voice an answer, but her awkward silence and the way she slightly turned her face away to avoid the other woman’s gaze directly gave Thea Lockwood the exact answer.

Thea Lockwood let out a scorching hot breath, her tone carrying unconcealed sarcasm: "I thought that your team, once having grasped the dangerous information beforehand, would at least have prepared some kind of countermeasures that were smarter, more systematic, and more professional. Who would have expected you to resort to these hodgepodge items."

"..." Facing that scathing remark, for some unknown reason, a feeling of extreme stifling rose within Helen Lloyd’s heart at this moment. She clearly felt that she had just been insulted right to her face as a brainless idiot, even though from the beginning to the end, the other person had not uttered half a swear word.

Helen Lloyd had to clear her throat to explain in an attempt to salvage a little dignity: "By the time we received the intelligence about this trap, everything was already in motion. It was completely impossible to contact the boss to warn him in advance anymore. Everything was too rushed, so we could only improvise according to the situation."

Hearing that feeble justification, Thea Lockwood immediately withdrew her gaze, not bothering to add any further comments. However, the final glance she swept over to look at Helen Lloyd contained an incredibly difficult-to-describe implication, carrying both speechlessness and a hint of mild helplessness.

Looking at the vivid expression on the other woman’s flushed face, Helen Lloyd felt that she herself could completely and automatically translate the hidden message within that gaze.

It was an eight or nine out of ten certainty that the woman was silently cursing in her stomach that they were a bunch of useless, incompetent fools.

Fine, reflecting upon herself, having worked in this profession for so many years only to suddenly fall into this situation, Helen also truly felt that she was useless.