Qin Xiao was truly caught off guard. He was engrossed in talking to Tony, and he genuinely hadn't expected the Rocket to openly fire shots right there in the street.
Most importantly, Qin Xiao subconsciously regarded these two people as his own.
As a result, he was hit in the face twice by a fierce Rocket.
Two white orbs of energy exploded directly on Qin Xiao's face.
"Phew!~"
Qin Xiao opened his mouth and exhaled a puff of slightly black smoke, then turned to Rocket with a serious expression and spoke.
"Damn it, why did you shoot right away!"
As he spoke, he unconsciously increased the pressure on his hands.
The two shots only made Qin Xiao's face darker; otherwise, there was no change. Rocket stared at Qin Xiao's face in surprise and said...
"What kind of person are you? How can you be so tough? Damn it, Groot, stop talking to the little guy, bring on a tough one!"
'Whoosh!'
As Rocket yelled and shouted, Groot's two arms instantly transformed into long vines, which he lashed out at Qin Xiao with both hands.
"I am Groot!"
A childish voice rang out.
Before the two whips could be lashed out, they were intercepted in mid-air by two small vines.
Compared to Big Groot's two vines, the little guy's two were like the difference between a stool leg and a pillar.
Despite the huge difference in size, the two stool legs easily blocked the two pillars.
"Sizzle!"
A crackling sound rang out, and lightning crackled around the little guy as two high-voltage currents traveled up the vines and directly into Groot's body.
Almost instantly, the two vines that Groot had extended were electrocuted into ashes.
The little guy seemed to have held back; the electric current burned the vines before the little guy retracted them, without causing any harm to Groot's main body.
The arm was burned off; for the tree-man, it would simply grow back in a little while, and it wasn't a big deal.
"I am Groot!"
Big Groot stared at the two bald shoulders and asked the little guy in confusion why he, as a member of a race that was almost extinct in the universe, would attack him.
Rocket's expression was even more incredulous.
"Damn it, how come I didn't know tree people had this ability? Groot, I suspect your mother had an affair with an ordinary tree."
Even at this point, Rocket was still verbally attacking Groot.
Qin Xiao snatched the gun from Rocket's hand and crushed the energy core to pieces with one hand.
He placed the Rocket on the roadside flowerbed with one hand.
To prevent him from making any further moves, a hand was placed on his shoulder.
"Can we talk properly now?"
Before the words were even finished, small warships from the Nova Corps arrived from all directions, and more than a dozen warships stopped above the group.
The warships emitted a faint yellow glow.
"We are the Nova Corps. Your actions have violated the laws of Xandar. Now we..."
"This has nothing to do with me. Nova Corps, open your eyes and look carefully! This is the guy who attacked me and broke my pet's arm. Come and take them away!"
Rocket stood on the flower bed, waving his hands and shouting loudly.
Tony rolled his eyes, then pulled out an ID and waved it in the air.
Everyone in the Nova Corps already had photos of these elderly men from Earth. When they saw the identification in Tony's hand, they remembered that these Earthlings were their VIPs.
Then they turned the guns around, directing most of the yellow light at the Rocket, and some at Groot.
"Hey! Now we can have a proper talk!"
Rocket shrugged resignedly and repeated what Qin Xiao had just said.
Inside a suite at a luxury hotel on Xandar, this was the temporary accommodation prepared by the Nova Corps for Qin Xiao and his companions.
Little Groot didn't lie to his people, and Qin Xiao didn't try to hide anything either, repeating what he had told the Avengers.
Time loops, conquering health, the Time Variance Authority, and more.
"You mean, my past—being altered, being called trash—was all pre-programmed, and if I'm lucky enough to escape this damned fate, I'll be caught and thrown into some so-called garbage dump."
The hairs on Rocket's body stood on end, clearly indicating that he was extremely angry.
"Yes! You can understand it that way!"
Qin Xiao nodded in agreement.
"Then I'll join, but on one condition: when that day comes, I want to personally blast a hundred holes in that bastard's body, a hundred of them!"
"Rocket said angrily."
"I am Groot!"
"He meant that he wanted to personally snap the necks of every Kang the Conqueror."
Little Groot, in his childish voice, is translating for his grown-up self.
"Um?"
Rocket was a little unaccustomed to having his translation work taken away, and after giving an unexpected "hmm," he said...
"Finally, someone else can understand it! It feels so good not having to translate. But don't try to take it from me, Groot, this is my goal from now on!"
"I am Groot!"
"You mean this time? Of course we can't give up. We're already here, we should definitely grab that guy on Xandar. He's worth 40,000 now, that's a lot of money. Besides, we're not afraid of the Nova Corps anymore, are we?"
Rocket and Groot came here for the same reason as in the movie.
This is all because Yondu put a $40,000 bounty on Star-Lord.
They didn't have accurate intelligence that Star-Lord had arrived on Xandar, but they knew that Star-Lord possessed something that others were interested in.
So whether it's for selling stolen goods or for hiding oneself, Xandar teeming with diverse races, is definitely the best place.
Sure enough, with the assistance of the Nova Corps, they were able to pinpoint Star-Lord's location directly using monitoring equipment in the atmosphere.
This is a small shop that specializes in selling various souvenirs from the surrounding star systems, but secretly it is Xandar's largest dealer and middleman for stolen goods.
However, the services they offered were quite extensive and slightly illegal.
About 20 meters across from the small shop is a row of flower beds used for roadside decoration.
Qin Xiao, Tony, and Rocket pretended to be tourists and sat on the flower bed.
Natasha dragged the two Groot around the streets, treating one like a pet and the other like a purser carrying their bags.
These three had received intelligence from the Nova Corps; Star-Lord had only been inside the shop a short time.
Their hotel was nearby, so they walked straight over.
"How long has this guy been in there? Shouldn't we go in and check on him?"
Rocket kept fiddling with the safety on his new gun, speaking somewhat impatiently.