Leo moved the mouse.
At 9:00 AM, he delivered the presentation. No one noticed the smooth cursor. No one saw the beautiful matte-gray mouse. But Leo knew. He had traveled to the edge of the internet, fought the ghosts of driver-update scams, and returned with a Python script.
He tried the Reddit fix: plug the USB-C hub into the other side of the laptop. No change. He tried moving the Bluetooth dongle for his headphones farther away. No change. He tried pairing the Xiaomi mouse to his Windows laptop instead of his Mac. On Windows, it worked perfectly. Smooth. Responsive. Which meant the mouse hardware was fine.
Finally, at 3:15 AM, the script ran.