Chapter 96: The Original Plot

Louis returned that evening with a notebook.

Freya eyed it suspiciously. "What is that?"

"Your original plot."

"You made notes?"

"You told me I was defeated because Serena helped Ethan predict my moves. I want every event you remember."

Freya stared at him. "Only you could turn transmigration into business intelligence."

They spent nearly two hours reconstructing the original novel.

Freya remembered several major events. Ethan acquired a logistics company after Louis suddenly withdrew. Serena exposed accounting problems in one of Stone Holdings' subsidiaries. A supplier unexpectedly broke an exclusivity agreement. Later, a board dispute weakened Louis before a final financing deal collapsed.

Louis compared each event with what had actually happened.

The differences were revealing.

In reality, the subsidiary's accounting problems had originated from contracts connected to Greyline. The supplier had received pressure through an investment fund. The board dispute had been encouraged by information later traced to Victor's compromised access routes.

"The novel made Serena look like she discovered everything," Freya said slowly. "But maybe she was only finding problems someone else had planted."

Louis nodded. "And Ethan believed he was beating me because the weaknesses were real."

That explained why the original story had felt coherent while hiding the deeper conspiracy.

Freya remembered another scene. Near the end, Victor had disappeared from the narrative without explanation.

"That's it," she said suddenly.

"What?"

"Victor barely appeared after your collapse. I thought the author forgot him."

Louis wrote it down.

Freya groaned. "Please stop treating bad writing like classified evidence."

"Bad writing may be the only record we have of the timeline before you changed it."

She couldn't argue with that.

They also discussed the original Freya. In the novel, she left Louis shortly after the epilogue and was never mentioned again.

Freya's voice became quieter. "She was basically a prop used to show you had lost everything."

Louis looked at her. "She was still a person."

The answer surprised her.

He didn't romanticize the woman he had married. Their relationship had been distant and transactional. But he refused to reduce her existence to a plot function simply because a novel had done so.

Freya appreciated that more than she could explain.

By midnight, the notebook contained two timelines: ORIGINAL and CURRENT.

They diverged almost immediately after Freya's awakening.

Northstar had not existed in the book. Louis had rebuilt differently because Freya stayed. Ethan had begun questioning his own information because Louis's responses changed. Victor had been forced out of hiding.

Freya tapped the current timeline. "So we broke the plot."

Louis corrected her. "You broke the plot."

"You're welcome."

He smiled.

For the first time, the novel was no longer a secret Freya carried alone. It had become another piece of evidence they could examine together.

Louis also asked whether Freya remembered anything about Adrian from the book. She didn't. That absence bothered him more than a villainous appearance would have. If Adrian had truly shaped events while never appearing on the page, then the novel had recorded outcomes rather than causes. From now on, Louis treated Freya's memories as clues, never prophecy.