The road to research and development was fraught with difficulties; only persistence could bring success

The group brought their tools to Little Haizi and found that no one had been there for a long time.

Thick snow covered the entire ice surface. There were tracks left by small animals, as well as marks where little birds had landed before flying away again.

Tao Daqiang said wistfully, "Life's gotten better. Every family has meat to eat and spare money to buy big fish. Nobody wants to put in the effort to break holes in the ice and catch fish anymore."

Li Long had already picked out a spot. As he walked forward, he said, "It's not like a couple of years ago. Back then, putting in the effort meant you could catch fish and sell them for money. Now plenty of people are afraid they'll go to all that trouble and still catch nothing."

Following Li Long through the snow, Tao Daqiang nodded. "That's right. There aren't as many big fish in Little Haizi as there used to be."

Both recalled their fishing trips back then. They knew perfectly well that they had caught so many big fish through holes in the ice because no one had done it before, and plenty of big fish had accumulated in Little Haizi.

In the ten years since then, the Li family, the Tao family, and many other village families had taken many tons of big fish out of Little Haizi.

Big fish needed time to grow. The more they caught, the fewer naturally remained.

But they had come purely for fun this time and did not much care how many they caught.

The two adults trudged through the snow ahead, with the children following. Li Long soon marked out an area, swept the snow off the ice with his feet, and prepared to break through.

No one had