Potted Famous Flower Withers and Fades, Reader Submission Recalls Its Glory
Literature is like a rare potted plant that cannot withstand wind and rain. When it first breaks through the soil and sprouts, you feel its extraordinary strength and boundless vitality, and all who admire it marvel at such a tender yet vigorous life. But as time flows on, the sprout gradually grows, and it needs more and more fertilizer and sunlight to thrive. Yet at this very time, the owner who cares for it is forced by life's circumstances to leave it behind for a while.
It falls into a hopeless situation of being neglected, but it still struggles to stay alive. It tries to reduce its consumption, strains its body toward the sunlight, survives by absorbing rainwater, and lets weeds and small insects invade its body. It lives on like this at all costs! Living, waiting for its owner's return. Finally one day, the door handle wrapped in layers of spiderwebs is turned, and amid the creaking of the door, the owner's face slowly appears. Filled with excitement, the owner crosses the living room, passes through the hallway, and hurriedly opens the door to the flower room, his mind fixed on the appearance of that rare potted plant. But when he sees the potted plant, he is utterly disappointed.
It is no longer the peerless, renowned beauty that everyone admired, the one of a kind in a garden of a hundred flowers. Instead, it has become a twisted, filthy, ugly and grotesque inferior variety. The owner howls at the sky, complaining about why the flower he had always cherished and earnestly awaited has fallen into such a state. At this moment, the potted plant uses its last bit of strength to turn its broken, trembling flower stem around to face its owner, as if to say: You've finally come back! After this final movement, the potted plant withers and dies, leaving the heartbroken owner standing alone in the flower room. He is filled with fury, nearly driven mad! In the end, he slams the door and leaves.
After that, he still grew flowers, but never again was there one as vibrant as that, nor one that could truly enter his heart.