[Daily] The Orchid Cultivation (4): Flesh and Buds - Silent Explosions on the 1st and 15th

The corrosion of administrative work is silent. Day after day of sweeping, mopping, and moving heavy objects grinds the joints and spine like a worn-out machine running in overload. The system has compressed me into a nameless part, and the oppression from 8 AM to 8 PM has reached its breaking point—I know the resolve to resign has sprouted in my blood and is about to detonate. Yet, on the verge of my body's near collapse, the orchid on the balcony unfurled itself with a brutal vitality. On the first and fifteenth of the lunar month, when we honor deities at home. My mother brought this orchid indoors and placed it on either side of the altar. Once a discarded remnant from a builder, now a cluster of blooms has opened wide, plump and white, its heart spewing a rich crimson, like a warm, breathing plant body. In the red glow of the deity lamp, it stands proud and solemn, a fresh flower capable of meeting the gaze of gods and buddhas. I stood before the altar, watching its petals tremble in the dim light, feeling the slight ache in my fingertips as I clenched my fist. It accumulated strength in the sphagnum moss for months of silence to escape its fate of abandonment; and I heard the sound of my own bones cracking. I can no longer obey this soul-consuming job. As the incense smoke curled, I took a deep breath. The plant completed its breakthrough, and my resolve and rebirth will also erupt from this moment.