Before dark, Li Long carved two rocket-shaped heads. He was not working particularly fast.
He did not mind, though. There was no rush, and the tools available now were not as handy as those of later years-if he had been a professional carpenter, these tools would actually have been quite good.
But he was not. He had simply grown accustomed to the extremely convenient hand tools and power tools of later years, so these more traditional implements felt somewhat awkward.
In any case, he had made some progress.
The two children had also had a wonderful time. They had tossed aside the two sticks Li Long had given them, and the two finished rocket heads had now become their trophies. They followed beside Li Long, swaying with the heads clutched in their arms.
When Gu Xiaoxia came home from work, Mingming and Haohao immediately abandoned Li Long and ran over to show her their trophies.
They did the same when Gu Boyuan arrived. Looking at the two rocket heads, Gu Boyuan patted the children's heads approvingly and asked Li Long:
"What are you making? Stakes for brooms?"
Broom stakes were used for making large brooms and needed a forked section of wood left at the end. These clearly were not those.
"I'm planning to make a few drag-net devices," Li Long said with a smile. "Fish in Little Haizi are getting hard to catch. Breaking holes in the ice only gets us a few kilos a day now, and no big ones. There's still more than a month until New Year. We ought to have a big common carp on the table for a bit of festive cheer."
What he said was true, but not entirely. Catching fish had been weighing on Li Qingxia's mind, and Li Long had merely