Go back in time.
When the transport ship of Balem was hijacked, Mr. Rong was taking the cubs on a mission, and brought back a weapons production line in a workshop, as well as several expensive high-tech experimental equipment. When B3024 was threatened by Sjaran, Mr. Rong went to Balem to "borrow" high-level weapons, and the cubs followed him.
The time and place match.
In addition to age, the characteristics of the three wanted criminals, "Sea Monster", "Fire Fox" and "Evil Dragon", can be respectively matched with the little mermaid, the little fox and the little dragon cub.
As expected, the three wanted criminals are the grown-up cubs.
Although Ruan Shiqing didn't know how the cubs grew up suddenly, he knew that Mr. Rong could transform into a cub of Snowball...so it was not impossible for the cubs to grow up suddenly.
In fact, if you think about it carefully, the kids had already undergone significant changes a long time ago.
For example, the little dragon grew into dragon horns and wings, the little fox's eyes became long and narrow, and... the little mermaid gradually had the outline of a boy.
The cubs are starting to grow up, little by little.
But he never thought about it in other ways, nor did he doubt the kids, and he never took any abnormalities to heart. Now that he thinks back, he realizes that there are flaws everywhere.
Staring at the clueless kids outside the crowd, Ruan Shiqing gritted his teeth slightly.
There were so many accounts to be settled that he didn't know where to start.
The gathered crowd was still quietly denouncing the "Black God" wearing a pure white black mask. Previously, when the "Black God" exposed the invasion conspiracy of the Blue Planet Sgar and the Zerg, he had caused a sensation. Now that he was on the wanted list along with other members of the "Eastern Alliance", they naturally condemned him enthusiastically.
Ruan Shiqing pushed through the crowd and prepared to go out. When he turned around, he saw that the interface of the electronic bulletin board had changed again. What was displayed on the screen was no longer a wanted criminal, but a blue battleship.
The battleship was called "Oriental" and was converted from a retired old battleship. It was the battleship that Mr. Rong often sailed.
He paused again as he was about to leave, and turned back to read the wanted notice carefully.
When he saw that the warships once belonged to a very famous interstellar pirate group and the evil deeds they had committed, his eyes paused.
It was a passage he had seen before—in a novel he had read before.
However, the battleship he had seen was not called "Orient", but "Black Ghost".
But it seems that it once belonged to a famous interstellar pirate group. Later, this interstellar pirate group suddenly disappeared, and this modified old battleship was taken over by another group of suddenly emerging interstellar pirates and transformed into the "Black Phantom".
In the following years, a group of newly emerged interstellar pirates, driving the "Black Phantom", committed numerous crimes and became the most notorious pirate group in the Galactic Empire, topping the Empire's wanted list.
As for those notorious space pirates, no one could see their true appearance because they were wearing masks.
Even the wanted posters can only refer to them by code names, namely "God", "Sea Monster", "Firefox", "Evil Dragon", and "Half-Insect Man".
Unexpectedly, part of the content of the novel he had read coincided with the world he was in now. Ruan Shiqing was confused and didn't know whether it was a coincidence or he really just traveled into a novel.
Since traveling to another world is possible, it seems possible that you can also travel into a small world you have seen.
He tried hard to recall the contents of the novel, but found that a certain part of his memory did correspond to this world, but the time nodes were different.
At the beginning of the story, the Black Phantom had already gained a great reputation, and everyone in the Galactic Empire was terrified by it. Wanted orders were issued one after another, but no one could catch these interstellar pirates.
These interstellar pirates are rampant. As soon as they appeared in the movie, they blew up the royal spaceship of Queen Seya.
The emperor in power at the time was cruel and insane, and he ignored state affairs and even did not attend the imperial meeting. Queen Seya took over the government. He was called the "Mad King". He was indifferent to the queen's death and did not even attend her funeral.
The whole novel is told from the perspective of Soma, the son of the Mad King and Queen Seya.
In order to avenge his mother and save the entire empire, Soma stood up when the empire was in turmoil, conquered the four major chaebols, and formed his own army. He suppressed the civil strife and fought against the Zerg, and finally turned the tide and stabilized the empire that was on the verge of disintegration.
The five-member interstellar pirate group acts as the villains in the story, frequently interfering and destroying the protagonist's career and the peace of the empire.
In fact, Ruan Shiqing did not finish reading the novel, because he was usually busy with research and work, and he did not have the habit of reading novels. He only read half of the novel, and he did not know when he had some free time to read it.
But he had a very good memory, and after careful recollection, he remembered the general content.
—The place where he abandoned the novel, the hero Soma, through careful arrangement and planning, set a trap with his confidants, ambushed the "Black Phantom" and prepared to avenge his mother.
The "Black Phantom" was caught off guard after encountering an ambush. In order to break out, the star pirate member "Evil Dragon" transformed into a black dragon, with bat wings covering the sky and the sun behind him, and finally dragged the entire imperial fleet to the universe...
Ruan Shiqing originally didn't feel anything about the content of the novel. After all, it was just a casual pastime and there was no need to feel realistic about it.
But when he realized that Xiao Xiao's world might be the world he lives in now, and the five notorious interstellar pirates in the article might be the little cubs around him, he felt frightened.
He didn't believe that the cubs would do such a bad thing, and he was even more unwilling to believe that the cubs would end up in a miserable way.
The wanted poster on the TV bulletin board scrolled around and started again from the beginning. However, Ruan Shiqing had no time to watch it. He hurriedly squeezed out of the crowd and told the kids to go home.
His mind was in a mess right now, with all the explosive information making him unable to take care of the accounts for the moment. He just wanted to get the cubs back to the hotel safely first - although the cubs now didn't match the ones on the wanted list at all, but he didn't dare to take the risk.
"What's written on the bulletin board?" Seeing his father coming back, the little dragon climbed up his father's trouser legs and prepared to sit on his father's shoulders to take a look.
Ruan Shiqing quickly hugged him and held him in his arms, with a flawless expression: "There's nothing to see. It's getting late. Let's go back to the hotel."
The little dragon cub was pressed into his father's arms and saw nothing. But he didn't insist, and simply found a comfortable position in his father's arms, squinting his big golden eyes and swinging his drooping tail happily.
Ruan Shiqing lowered his eyes and looked at him. There was no way he could confront him with the "evil dragon" in the story that dragged the entire imperial fleet to destruction.
He didn't want the cubs to see the contents of the wanted poster, so he simply didn't wait for the hotel's sightseeing bus to pick them up. He directly stopped a taxi and had someone take them back to the hotel.
After returning to the hotel, Ruan Shiqing didn't bother to settle accounts with the kids. He locked himself in the room first and sorted out his thoughts.
He outlined two timelines.
One is the timeline from when he traveled to planet b3024 and adopted the cubs one after another; the other is the timeline from when he was a child.
When he traveled to planet B3024, it was the end of summer in 2021. Now, nearly a year has passed, and it is already the early summer of 2022.
However, the novel's story takes place in 2038, a full seventeen years apart in timeline.
Comparing the time and information he remembered one by one, many places were still consistent, such as the fact that they were both the Galactic Empire, the capital planet was Sikkim, and the Caesarea region where the "Evil Dragon" and the Imperial Fleet perished together was also one of the nine major administrative regions of the Galactic Empire today...
But there have been changes in many areas.
For example, there is no longer a "Black Phantom", only a "Vostok".
The notorious interstellar pirate gang that was on the wanted list was no longer a group of five people, but had also included several other people.
Ruan Shiqing combed the loose hair on his forehead back with his fingers, then lay down in the armchair and let out a long breath.
Even if Ruan Shiqing didn't want to believe such matching information and events, he had to believe it.
He really did travel into the novel he had seen, and it was seventeen years before the novel's timeline officially began.
The cubs he picked up one by one and brought home to take care of them carefully are the notorious space pirates in the novel and the villains who will eventually be defeated by the righteous protagonist.
And at some point, unknown to him, the cubs he raised were gradually becoming villains.
Ruan Shiqing stared at the ceiling for a while, his confused expression gradually became firm. He stood up, opened the door and walked towards the living room.
He would not let the cubs continue on the wrong path, nor would he let anyone hurt them again.