The thread was three pages deep. The first page was grateful emojis and “thank you, king!” The second page was “key revoked, anyone got a new one?” The third page was a graveyard of broken links and a single, desperate DM from a user named “DataHoarder99” who’d written: “If anyone has a real key, I will PayPal you $20.”

The world tilted.

He’d done the research. A clean Windows install meant eight hours of reinstalling software, re-entering license keys, re-tweaking his PowerShell profile. The thought alone made his temples throb.

He copied it. Pasted it into the EaseUS activation window. His cursor hovered over the “Activate” button.