She Quit Her Family and Found Herself novel Chapter 79

"When I published this paper, the foundational data wasn't fully complete. Many of the conclusions were purely theoretical. I included clear disclaimers stating as much in the footnotes, which the journal printed verbatim. It took me another three months of solid deduction to finalize the optimized data sets."

Hulda turned her gaze to her rival. "Ms. Delaney, you built an entire real-world report off theoretical concepts. That was your first fatal mistake. Without absolutely flawless data to back it up, theory remains exactly that—theory."

In that exact moment, the entire room's perception of her fundamentally shifted.

The truth was glaringly obvious: blinded by ambition and desperate for a breakthrough, Ursula had committed undeniable plagiarism.

Yet as the victim of that theft, Hulda hadn't spent a single second publicly humiliating her or throwing a tantrum. Instead, she had remained completely objective, systematically dismantling the fatal technical errors in the stolen work.

"She is truly something else."

"Her temperament is incredible. She never once lost her cool. I honestly don't think I could have handled it that well."

"And her intellect is off the charts. No wonder Dr. Lowe fought so hard to bring her back."

"We were completely out of line earlier. We let our own ignorance blind us."

Brandon remained comfortably in his seat, watching her masterfully command the room. A deep sense of pride swelled in his chest.

*Conrad, you really should have been here for this,* he thought. *Our girl is even sharper than she used to be.*

Thoroughly humiliated and exposed as a fraud, Ursula's rigid posture finally broke. She collapsed into her stolen chair, a lifeless husk.

Gone were the glares of contempt and resentment, replaced by absolute awe, respect, and deep admiration.

They had all received an email from Abby that morning, but because she hadn't attached any context, they had mostly ignored it in their rush to start work.

They had no idea they were sitting on a goldmine of their new director's genius.

Dr. Lynch, who had been openly hostile toward her just minutes prior, sat with his jaw slack, utterly speechless.

The junior assistant sitting next to Abby gave her a sharp nudge. "You really set us up! You sent out a holy grail of data and didn't even put a subject line on it! I thought it was spam and deleted it. You better re-send it the second we get back to our desks!"

"She is incredibly generous," an intern sitting behind them whispered. "Most senior researchers guard their data with their lives. But she just casually handed out years' worth of theoretical models and algorithm optimizations to everyone—even the interns."