In an old room.
An old-fashioned ceiling fan squeaked as it spun wildly overhead.
The fan blades were thick with the dust of years. Every turn stirred up fine particles that drifted slowly through the dim light, casting a hazy, nostalgic filter over the entire room.
"I remember it being here."
Ian bustled through every corner of the room, rummaging through the clutter on the table, bending down to check beneath it, then standing on tiptoe to reach for old boxes up high.
Watching the Young Wizard dart all over the room without knowing what he was busy with, Lupin gradually snapped out of his utter disbelief and asked Ian in confusion.
"What are you looking for?" Lupin still hadn't fully recovered from the surreal feeling of what Ian had done to acquire so many shop deeds.
Those letters had come from the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Though he did not know which family had sent them, he still could not imagine how Ian had obtained such jaw-dropping wealth from the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
Lupin believed he had conducted an extremely thorough background investigation on Ian. This was merely an orphaned descendant of the Prince Family, whose family had fallen into ruin and who had ended up in an orphanage!
To the Sacred Twenty-Eight, Ian should have had, at most, some value as someone worth recruiting. Pureblood families might have deep reserves, but using Diagon Alley shops—literal Money Printers—to win someone over was simply unbelievable. And they had given him far more than one or two shops. The thick stack of deeds made Lupin's vision blur.
He had nearly burst into tears.
A poor man like him probably could not even afford to rent a toilet in Diagon Alley. The only reasonable explanation Lupin could think of was that the Prince Family had