Li Long returned to the Big Courtyard with the crabs and Mingming and Haohao. Both children had already fallen asleep in the vehicle.
Li Long switched off the engine and carried the two children to bed. By the time Gu Xiaoxia had taken off their clothes and shoes and tucked them in, he had carried the crabs into the kitchen.
These crabs were hardy enough to spend a night in a bucket of water without any trouble.
Li Long had brought back twenty or thirty, enough to steam for a meal tomorrow.
When they went to bed that night, Li Long told Gu Xiaoxia about catching the crabs, and she was a little tempted too.
"We'll go back next Saturday evening, and I'll take you all out to catch some," Li Long said with a smile. "We'll buy headlamps and all go together."
"What about Mingming and Haohao?"
"We'll take them too," Li Long said. "Bring more people, with the older ones looking after the younger ones. There's a gentle slope along the West Dam Line by Little Haizi. The children will be fine down there as long as they don't wander off."
"Maybe we'd better not." Having worked in the County Seat for several years, Gu Xiaoxia thought like a town resident and was much more careful with the children, unlike the more hands-off approach in the countryside.
Li Long was fine either way. Catching crabs now proved his idea had worked. If he released more young crabs over the next couple of years, Little Haizi would have a much richer variety of produce.
He had no intention of fencing it off for his exclusive use. There was no need, and of course, it was too big to enclose anyway.
Besides, he had stocked it himself, and Little Haizi