[Daily] Orchid Diary (3) Midnight White Phoenix: Survival Rules in the Worldly Dust

I thought switching to an administrative job would settle my days into a cool breeze and the quiet space of papers. Little did I know, the iron hammer of the world never spares anyone. Beyond the ink and paper, there was more dust and heavy lifting. Every day, I carried buckets, swept, wiped down desks, and before events, I sweated moving tables and setting up venues, turning a perfectly fine person into a hunched, fading shadow. Returning home late at night, a dim yellow light left by my mother always hung in the living room. That light was too faint to illuminate the dust covering me, but it precisely outlined her silent concern—a mother's heart, suspended in the air, swaying gently with the midnight clock. Dragging my almost-disintegrated body onto the balcony and turning on the dim light, I suddenly froze. In those days dimmed by the torment of trivialities, this pot of Phalaenopsis orchid had quietly, secretly, undergone a silent transformation. Pure white petals unfurled wildly yet delicately, their centers adorned with a breathtaking deep purple, like white phoenixes reborn from the ashes, clustered together, letting out a silent cry into the night. Several tightly-closed buds hung around, secretly brewing the next bloom. It turns out that while I was struggling to breathe under the weight of life, day after day wiping the thin layer of dust off it, this orchid, within its small clay pot, was using its entire life's vitality to polish a lighthouse for me in the dark night. The trivialities of the world still arrived as scheduled, but looking at this pot full of proud white phoenixes tonight, I know that those heavy dusts ultimately couldn't drown the greenery deep within my soul.