The weak princess is super fierce

Chapter 1009 Wooden Ladder

He turned his head to look at the street outside the window through the fluttering curtains.

His eyebrows slowly lowered, and his gaze gradually sharpened.

The shop owner's forehead gradually beaded with sweat as he flipped through the books, showing how much effort and strain he was putting into it.

Baozhu asked, "Do you need to rest?"

Upon hearing this, Meng Shisan looked up at the shop owner who was climbing the middle of the wooden ladder.

The shop owner felt a bit pressured by the attention of both master and servant: "No need, no need. It's just that I have a bad memory, so I have to look at it several times."

There are just too many books. At this rate, he might not be able to find the book this lady wants even by nightfall.

Meng Shisan decided to look for them as well, so she stood up and asked, "Does the shopkeeper remember the books I wanted, and roughly where they are in the shop?"

"It's in this bookshelf I'm looking at," the shop owner answered quickly. However, because this wall was the front wall facing the shop entrance, the bookshelf against the wall was the largest in the shop, and it also had the most and most miscellaneous books. He hadn't usually categorized them, so they were now completely disorganized.

Meng Shisan walked closer to the largest bookshelf and looked at it.

The shop owner started looking from the left side of the bookstore, flipping through each shelf one by one from bottom to top. She looked at the right side of the bookshelf and decided to start from there.

Since there was only one wooden ladder and the shop owner was using it, she couldn't climb up to find it. So she only looked for the lower and middle sections of the bookshelf on the right. As for the highest section, which she couldn't reach, she left it there and waited for the shop owner to come from the left.

After she expressed her idea, the shopkeeper said, "In that case, shall I climb all the way up this wooden ladder?"

Meng Shisan nodded: "Okay."

The shop owner didn't need to flip through the books on the lower shelves, so he never went down the wooden ladder again.

Baozhu was afraid of losing her balance, so she held on to the ladder the whole time. She could no longer take advantage of the shopkeeper coming down to look through books without needing the ladder, so she let go and followed him to look through the books at a lower level. She could only hold onto the wooden ladder with both hands the whole time.

Seeing this, the shopkeeper said, "Miss Baozhu, you don't actually need to hold on. I'm used to climbing up and down this wooden ladder. It's very stable, so you won't be hurt."

“It looks a bit wobbly to me.” Baozhu didn’t hold it at first either, but after seeing that the wooden ladder was wobbly, she reached out to help hold it. “Besides, this ladder looks a bit old.”

The shop owner chuckled twice: "Yes, it's a bit worn out, but it's still very sturdy, don't worry."

"Alright then." Seeing that the shopkeeper insisted, Baozhu stopped insisting and followed Meng Shisan to search for history books from the First Emperor's era on the bottom bookshelf.

Meng Shisan listened intently to the entire presentation, her gaze fixed on the shelves filled with books.

The shop owner had already gone through all the books on the bottom left side of the bookshelf. Now the shop owner is in charge of the books on the upper shelves, but the books on the middle section and the right side of the lower shelves have not yet been looked through.

So she and Baozhu divided the work: she was in charge of the right side, and Baozhu was in charge of the middle section.

About 15 minutes later, Meng Shisan felt thirsty. The shop owner wanted to come down and pour her some water, but she declined and asked Baozhu to go to a fruit drink shop on the same street to buy three bowls of fruit drinks.

The shop owner, upon hearing this, said, "Miss, you don't need to count me in..."

Meng Shisan interrupted, "It's just a bowl of fruit drink."

"Thank you very much," the shopkeeper said sincerely from the wooden ladder.

Baozhu went to buy fruit drinks, while Meng Shisan and the shop owner continued searching.

Moments later, the accident happened.

The shop owner leaned to the right, reaching for a thick book that his fingertips could barely touch. However, he leaned too far, and before he could react, the wooden ladder creaked and he and the ladder fell to the right.

"Miss, be careful!" He only managed to shout that one sentence. He wanted to warn Meng Shisan to get out of the way, but Meng Shisan was unaware of the commotion beforehand. When she heard the noise and looked up, it was too late to get out of the way.

The shopkeeper stared in horror. Meng Shisan instantly gathered demonic energy in his right arm, intending to use it to block the attack. However, neither of them expected that someone would suddenly cut in between them.

Li Shou used his back to block the falling wooden ladder, so quickly that even Chang Qing couldn't stop him.

The wooden ladder was not light, especially with a person on it. Although the shopkeeper was much lighter after falling, Li Shou was still hit hard on the back when he tried to block it, causing him to let out a low groan of pain.

After realizing what was happening, Chang Qing couldn't help but scream, "Young Master!"

When Changqing left the palace incognito, in order to avoid revealing his identity as the Crown Prince, Li Shou ordered him not to address him as "Your Highness" but instead as "Young Master" in the presence of commoners.

Even in this critical moment, Chang Qing did not disobey Li Shou's orders.

Meng Shisan was also taken aback by Li Shou's sudden appearance and how he promptly blocked the wooden ladder for her.

For a moment, she was filled with astonishment, her mouth slightly agape, and she even forgot to speak.

After falling down the wooden ladder and landing on the ground, the shop owner grimaced in pain as he got up, rubbing the spot where he had fallen. "Are you alright, Miss?"

He then looked at Li Shou and asked, "Is the young master alright?"

Two questions in a row finally brought Meng Shisan back to his senses.

Changqing and the shop owner worked together to lift the wooden ladder. She supported Li Shou, her eyes full of worry, but she still couldn't say a word.

"What's wrong?" Li Shou was being supported, so close to Meng Shisan that he could sense the difference in Meng Shisan compared to other times. "Were you frightened?"

“…No.” Meng Shisan helped Li Shou to sit down on the stool she had been sitting on before, and then she went around behind Li Shou and stared at his back.

Li Shou didn't move, letting her stare at him.

Just by looking at him, she couldn't tell if his back was injured: "Does it hurt?"

"It's alright." Li Shou wasn't lying. It hurt a bit when the wooden ladder hit him, but now that the pain had subsided, it didn't hurt as much.

“Young Master shouldn’t have been so reckless,” Meng Shisan said in a low voice.

Chang Qing, who was standing next to the bookshelf with the shop owner, nodded vigorously: Miss Meng is right!

However, he dared not actually say these words.

To be honest, His Highness wouldn't say a word to Miss Meng, but he could glare at her so hard she'd leave a hole in his heart.

The shop owner looked at Chang Qing, who was only nodding and not saying anything, with a strange expression.

Chang Qing turned his head and smiled gently, but then he remembered that the shopkeeper's wooden ladder had hit his prince. If anything happened to the prince, the shopkeeper would surely be punished. His smile disappeared.

Such a change in expression, between smiling and not smiling, only made Changqing seem even stranger to the shop owner.

"Do you want me to just watch you get hurt, like last time when you shielded me from an arrow?" Li Shou didn't want the same scenario to repeat itself.

“If you hadn’t blocked it, I wouldn’t have been hurt,” Meng Shisan said rationally. “Last time I took an arrow for you, for the sake of the Meng family, and for my own sake.”

"You mean, you can protect me from danger, but I can't?" Li Shou still wanted to ask her true feelings.

She spoke softly and gently: "If the young master is well, he can protect the Meng family and me from the wind and rain."