When Alexander heard those words, he couldn’t help but let out a short, humorless laugh.

So that’s what this is all about.

Sylvie glanced at Alexander, her voice measured and professional. “Mr. Sterling, in our line of work-perhaps you, of all people, would understand-pulling endless all-nighters, pouring ourselves into data and technical solutions. That’s why we should all be committed to protecting intellectual property, don’t you agree?”

“You’ve already finished your investigation, is that it?” Alexander couldn’t be bothered to argue and cut straight to the point. “So far, all the accusations are coming from Neural Intelligence. We’re not about to accept any labels you want to stick on us. Have Ms. Fielding send over the detailed evidence, and we’ll conduct our own targeted investigation and respond accordingly.”

Terrence offered a polite smile. “My email records can serve as evidence. If Mr. Sterling or Ms. Thorne would like, I can send them to you both.”

“That’s fine,” Elodie replied, her expression unreadable. She stood up briskly. “In that case, I think we’re done here. If Neural Intelligence wants to pursue this through official channels, go right ahead.”

She had no intention of wasting more words on Sylvie or this so-called engineer. They had what they came for-confirmation and evidence of possible plagiarism. Without another word, she turned to leave.

If the engineer himself admitted that his inbox contained the original code, then it was clear: there was a copyright conflict between Neural Intelligence and VistaLink Technologies.

She needed to get back and make sense of the entire situation.

This time, Alexander didn’t bother to keep up the façade of politeness with Sylvie

or Terrence. His expression was icy as he got up and left with Elodie.

Not a single unnecessary word.

Sylvie didn’t appear bothered.

If she were in VistaLink Technologies’ shoes, she’d be panicking right about now.

This was no small matter.

A single misstep could drag the entire company into disaster.

As for Terrence-

She turned to him and spoke coolly. “Sort out your evidence. Plagiarism is serious business; you need to protect your own intellectual property. There can’t be any mistakes with this.”

Terrence took a sip of his coffee. “I understand.”

Sylvie nodded, then looked out the glass window at the retreating figures of Elodie and Alexander.

A flicker of sarcasm crossed her eyes. She was curious to see how VistaLink Technologies planned to clean up this mess.

Terrence was a star engineer they’d lured away-he’d only been at Neural Intelligence for two weeks. VistaLink Technologies had tried to block her on patent issues, so she’d hired Terrence and a few others to jumpstart independent development.

Now, things had taken a completely unexpected turn.

She let out a soft, mocking laugh.

Alexander was so distracted by a certain academic darling on his team that he’d failed to notice this brewing storm-and now the company was in deep trouble.

Back at the office, Elodie and Alexander called an emergency meeting.

They tried to piece together the entire incident from start to finish.

But they were still in the dark about where things had gone wrong.

Soon, Alexander received the evidence from Neural Intelligence-Terrence’s personal email, with detailed records dating back two years. Every date and timestamp was there, down to the minute.

Elodie reviewed the initial code provided by the other side. To her surprise, it did match a small portion of her own original code. In addition, Terrence’s inbox contained a rough technical proposal-parts of which overlapped with key points that VistaLink Technologies had made public. The overlap was serious enough to raise major red flags.

“Sure, email data and timestamps can be faked with the right software,” Alexander said, drumming his fingers on the table, deep in thought. “But the code itself, and those technical proposals-there’s no way they could have known about those unless…”