Money Inn - 29

On the forty-second day since the butterfly ginger bloomed, a new piece of bark grew on the banyan tree in the backyard. It wasn't ordinary bark. When Shopkeeper Jin discovered it, he was squatting under the tree peeling edamame. Looking up, he saw a flat, dark brown, glossy area on the trunk. It was irregularly shaped, but the surface was as smooth as if sanded, with faint patterns subtly floating on it, like a piece of paper grown by the tree itself. He reached out and touched it—the surface was warm. The moment his fingertip made contact, the pattern flickered slightly, like a sensory organ being touched. He didn't spread the word, but when Asu came to the backyard to water the flowers that evening, she stopped in front of the bark and stood there for a long time. Then, without turning her head, she said in a low voice, "Wuxuan, the tablet has grown." After that, whenever a sentient being approached the banyan tree, the bark would display text or patterns. It wasn't a fixed language but a form that the reader could understand—insects saw scents and frequencies, beastmen saw markings and runes, and humans saw words. The first to leave a message was that pale purple spirit bee. It left a faint silver trace on the tablet, not text, but a fine, pollen-like shimmer. As Asu approached the tablet, the trace automatically translated into a sentence in her mind: "The flowers in the backyard can bear fruit."