As a person who came to the city from the countryside, after the 90s, I experienced the simple era of no mobile phones and game consoles, and I knew to play with my friends on the hillside all day.
Especially when reading, it is the most fun, every day when you go to school, you can chase with your friends on the road, and after school, you first go to the ditch in the village to remove the stones to catch crabs and small fish.
At that time, as long as you touched it in the ditch for a while, the plastic bag in my hand could contain crabs, green shrimp and some small fish that we did not know before.
There seemed to be a lot of this small fish in the picture when we were young, and I used to hear adults say that it was called "coated fish". But we didn't care, because this small fish is really hard to eat, except for the cats and big roosters at home, no one eats the coatfish at all.
Of course, at that time, we would not play with our mobile phones as soon as we got home, but found many interesting entertainment activities on our own. Among them, the coatfish to "fight yan" is an entertainment activity that we still like.
In fact, the coatfish is very good-looking, the soft fins make it look good when swimming in the water, and the long tail fork is much better than the goldfish.
Not to mention the pattern on the body of the coatfish, that is what we and our friends care about the most, as long as you look closely, you will find that the pattern of each coated fish is different.
And because the coatfish are easier to keep than other fish, only a plastic bottle filled with water is needed to keep them alive for two or three weeks, during which time they can also change the water.
The coatfish have been loved by us for a while, especially when we put them together with the crucian carp and you may see a fierce fight, which is really interesting.
Once we saw a coated fish somehow run into the mud and fight with a loach, although it did not win, it had to bite the loach's tail.
And why that fight is particularly memorable, because it is the first time we have seen that the catfish can survive in a place where there is not much water, and it is almost like a catfish that can hide in the mud.
It wasn't until I left my hometown after studying that I found that there was a mantle in the pet fish shop, and it was also an ornamental fish. After asking the boss, I learned that the real name of the coatfish is Heaven Fish (also known as the Chinese Fighting Fish).
The price is even more shocking to us for a while, an ordinary paradise fish can sell for 4 yuan a piece, and those with good quality can sell for hundreds.
Our first thought at that time was "the people in the city are really rich", after all, the paradise fish was not uncommon in our place at that time, and no villagers were willing to ask for it.
Only not long ago, I went back to my hometown to take a look, and the ditch was about to dry up, and the river was full of all kinds of garbage, and there were no fish anymore.
Alas, I really miss the days when I could see the heavenly fish everywhere, and I haven't gone down to the field to play with the mud for a long time, sorry.