Shrinking Bone Technique

For the next while, Ye Chen was confined to the bar and forbidden from going anywhere. He was watched closely, and every door and window had been reinforced. Even if he wanted to squeeze out through a window, it was impossible.

Ye Chen knew Shakky meant well. Though he stayed behind to work at the bar, he still felt uneasy. The image of that girl kept flashing through his mind, especially those helpless eyes.

It was as if, if he did not save her, he would be an utterly unforgivable villain.

"Why is it thirty thousand Beli? I only had one drink. Isn't your place way too much of a rip-off?" No one knew why, even though the sign outside clearly read Spoon Aunt's Rip-Off Bar, customers still came in an endless stream. Shakky gave Ye Chen a look, and he knew she wanted him to collect the money for her.

"Thirty thousand Beli. What, too expensive?"

Ye Chen rolled up his sleeves and strode over. Just as the Pirate was about to complain, Ye Chen grabbed a bench and smashed it down on his head. Crack... The bench split in two, and blood spilled across the Pirate's face as if his head had been split open like a watermelon.

Ye Chen clapped his hands, folded his arms, and smiled at the Pirate. "Do you still think it's expensive now?"

After being beaten out of nowhere by a brat whose hair had not even grown in, the Pirate naturally refused to accept it. He climbed to his feet with an angry roar and swung a fist at Ye Chen. Unable to save that girl, Ye Chen was already in a foul mood and had been looking for someone to vent on. He sidestepped and slashed across the Pirate's outstretched arm with his right hand. Riiip... Not only was the Pirate's sleeve torn open, but five bloody finger marks appeared on his arm as well.

Blood sprayed and flesh curled back, even exposing the bones in his hand. The Pirate howled in agony. Ye Chen's fingers, meanwhile, looked like iron hooks, with blood still dripping from the gaps between them.

Ye Chen bent low, curled his body, and drove an elbow into the Pirate's chest. As the man staggered backward, Ye Chen swung both hands in rapid succession. Riiip, riiip... The Pirate's clothes were shredded like drifting snow, and strips of flesh were torn from his chest as well. Before long, he was covered in blood from head to toe, shrieking like a Ghost as he hurriedly begged for mercy. "I'll pay! I'll pay!"

"Damn idiot. The price has gone up. One hundred thousand Beli." Ye Chen cursed disdainfully and held out his hand. Resigned to his bad luck, the Pirate hurriedly pulled out his money pouch and tossed it to him.

Ye Chen threw the pouch to Shakky. "Spoon Aunt, aren't you afraid something will happen if you run your bar like this?"

The moment Ye Chen finished speaking, Shakky rushed before him like a gust of wind and smacked him on the head. Even though Ye Chen tried to dodge, he still could not evade her sharp slap. "You have the nerve to talk? Aren't you just a little brat who causes trouble everywhere? You even dared to provoke the Dragon People, yet you still dare lecture Spoon Aunt?"

"Forget it. I'm going to train." Finding no fun in it, Ye Chen returned to his room to continue training. But when Olvia entered, she found him curled up limply like a puddle of mud. He was even trying to hide inside a chest. Startled, Olvia was about to cry out when Ye Chen hurriedly shook his head at her. "I'm fine. I'm training."

"What kind of technique is this?" He could actually curl his body into a ball. Ye Chen had already been small, but now he looked even smaller.

It was as if he had no bones at all. Even his hands and feet were folded over one another. From a distance, he looked like a ball of flesh curled up tight.

Crack, crack... Amid a series of crisp bone pops, Ye Chen's body miraculously returned to normal before Olvia's astonished eyes.

"This is the Shrinking Bone Technique, a secret art from our Huaxia Kingdom. Once I master it, it'll definitely be useful." Ye Chen smiled proudly, though his smile was clearly somewhat bitter.

As a beginner, even with his altered body, the pain still made cold sweat pour down Ye Chen's face. The first step in practicing the Shrinking Bone Technique was to dislocate every bone in the body, then set them back into place yourself. Repeating this over and over would eventually let one do it freely. The Shrinking Bone Technique did not actually shrink the bones. Instead, it used internal energy and inner strength to reduce the gaps between them, rearranging and stacking all the bones in the body in an orderly fashion. Once the gaps between the bones shrank, the body itself could be made smaller.

This technique was extremely difficult to master, but after Ye Chen saw Shakky nail the doors and windows shut, leaving only tiny gaps, he suddenly thought of this secret art. With the Martial Arts Codex in his possession, coupled with his already altered physique, his progress in training was not slow at all. Ye Chen vaguely felt that if he wanted to save that girl, this technique would definitely come in handy. For example, the gaps in cages used to hold prisoners were generally very narrow. If he learned the Shrinking Bone Technique, the problem would naturally be solved.

Besides, the younger one was, the easier this technique was to practice. Once the bones had fully grown and hardened into shape, it became difficult to learn and could easily damage the bones.

Later, Rayleigh returned dead drunk. Shakky neither scolded nor reprimanded him, instead carefully cooking him a bowl of soup. Ye Chen keenly caught the scent of women on Rayleigh. There was no need to guess; Rayleigh had definitely gone out fooling around. Maybe he had even taken his copy of The Plum in the Golden Vase to spar with someone else. Yet Shakky remained calm and did not get angry in the slightest.

"Spoon Aunt, Uncle Rayleigh is really lucky. When I find a wife in the future, I'll definitely find someone like you."

"Get lost!" Shakky leaped up and kicked Ye Chen without the slightest restraint. With a whoosh, Ye Chen flew away like a kite with a snapped string and slammed into the wall.

"You're still so young. What do you know?" Shakky seemed to have been holding back a bellyful of anger. She just did not vent it on Rayleigh, and instead used Ye Chen as a punching bag.

Ye Chen chuckled and glanced at the slightly flushed Olvia beside him. "Of course I know. I probably know at least ten times more than Uncle Rayleigh does. Besides, I already have wives—two of them. Maybe I'll have a third soon."

Ye Chen was not lying. Robin naturally counted as one, after all, the two of them had once slept naked under the same blanket.

As for Olvia, though that would be difficult, the two had gone through so much together in Freezing Hell, and he had even given her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Ye Chen naturally and domineeringly considered Olvia one of his women as well.

As for that girl, though nothing had come of it yet, Ye Chen vaguely felt that their paths would cross.

"What? You have three wives?"

Shakky burst out laughing. She stepped forward, grabbed Ye Chen, and pointed below his waist. "You? Three wives? You can't even brag properly. Your hair hasn't even grown in yet. What do you know?"