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 was reinforced. Even if he wanted to squeeze out through a window, it was impossible.

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

It was as if not saving her would make him an utterly vile bastard.

"Why is it thirty thousand Beli? I only had one drink. Isn't this place way too much of a rip-off?" No one knew why, but even though the sign outside clearly said 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 bill for her.

"Thirty thousand Beli. What, you think that's too expensive?"

Ye Chen rolled up his sleeves and strode over. Just as the pirate was about to complain, Ye Chen grabbed a wooden bench and smashed it down on his head. Crack... The bench snapped in half, and blood poured over the pirate's face as if a watermelon had been split open.

Ye Chen clapped his hands, folded his arms over his chest, and grinned at the pirate. "Do you still think it's expensive now?"

After being beaten out of nowhere by a brat whose hair had barely grown in, the pirate naturally refused to accept it. He scrambled up and roared, swinging 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 raked his right hand across the pirate's arm. Rip... Not only was the pirate's sleeve torn open, but five bloody finger marks appeared on his arm as well.

Blood splattered, flesh rolled open, and even the bones in his hand were exposed. The pirate howled in agony. Looking at Ye Chen's fingers again, they were like iron hooks, with blood still dripping from between them.

Ye Chen bent low and curled his body, then drove a vicious elbow into the pirate's chest. As the man staggered backward, Ye Chen's hands flashed repeatedly. Rip, rip... The pirate's clothes were shredded into pieces like falling snow, and strips of flesh were torn from his chest as well. Before long, his whole body was drenched in blood from Ye Chen's claws. He screamed like a Ghost and hurriedly begged for mercy. "I'll pay! I'll pay!"

"What a fucking masochist. 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 a money pouch and tossed it to him.

Ye Chen threw the money 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 over like a gust of wind and smacked him on the head. Even though Ye Chen tried to dodge, he still could not avoid her sharp slap. "You've got some nerve talking about me. Aren't you the little troublemaker who causes problems everywhere? You even dared provoke the Dragon People, and now you're lecturing Auntie Shakky?"

"Forget it. I'm going to train." Ye Chen had made a fool of himself, so he could only return to his room and continue practicing. However, when Olvia entered the room, she found Ye Chen curled up like a limp puddle of mud, his body soft and slack, even trying to hide inside a box. Olvia was so startled she was about to cry out, but Ye Chen quickly shook his head at her. "I'm fine. I'm training."

"What kind of martial art 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 tightly together.

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 skill from our Huaxia Kingdom. It'll definitely come in handy once I master it." Ye Chen smiled proudly, though the smile was clearly bitter.

As a beginner, even though his body had been modified, the pain still made cold sweat pour down his face. The first step in practicing the Shrinking Bone Technique was dislocating every bone in the body, then setting them back into place yourself. Repeating that over and over would eventually allow one to control it freely. The Shrinking Bone Technique did not literally shrink the bones. It used internal energy and internal martial arts to reduce the gaps between bones, rearranging and stacking all the bones in the body in order. Once those gaps became smaller, the body itself could be made smaller.

This technique was extremely difficult to master. However, after Ye Chen saw that Shakky had nailed the doors and windows shut again, leaving only tiny gaps, inspiration suddenly struck him and he thought of this secret skill. With the Martial Arts Codex on his person and 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 be useful. For example, the bars of prison cells were usually very close together. If he mastered the Shrinking Bone Technique, that problem would naturally be solved.

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

When Rayleigh returned, he was dead drunk. Shakky neither scolded him nor snapped at him. Instead, she thoughtfully cooked him a bowl of soup. Ye Chen keenly caught the scent of another woman on Rayleigh. There was no need to guess—Rayleigh must have gone out to Ghost around. Maybe he had even taken Ye Chen's copy of The Plum in the Golden Vase to exchange pointers with someone else. Yet Shakky remained calm, not the least bit angry.

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

"Get lost!" Shakky kicked at Ye Chen without the slightest courtesy. With a whoosh, Ye Chen flew out like a kite with its string cut and slammed into the wall.

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

Ye Chen chuckled and glanced at the slightly blushing Olvia beside him. "Of course I know. Uncle Rayleigh might not even understand one-tenth as much as I do. Besides, I already have wives—two of them. Maybe there'll soon be three."

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

As for Olvia, although she was more difficult, the two of them had gone through so much together in Freezing Hell, and he had even given her artificial respiration. Ye Chen naturally and domineeringly counted Olvia among his women as well.

As for that girl, although nothing had been settled 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?"