At 6:58 AM, with the sunrise painting his window a pale orange, Leo attached the finished MP4 to an email. He typed: "Revisions complete. Invoice attached." and hit send.
Twenty minutes later, PowerDirector 16 was reinstalled. He entered his license key. The software chimed—a sound more satisfying than any notification he’d ever heard. He opened the project file. It loaded to 87%, hesitated for a second, then jumped to 100%.
The timeline appeared. His cuts, his keyframes, his audio levels—all intact.