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Little Mushroom: Judgment Day

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The quilt, pillow, and bedsheets were all the base's standard issue, with no differences whatsoever from the bedding of the underground prison. This one was quite a surprise. I bought it on a whim to support a small business translating Chinese novels, and didn’t even read the synopsis, so it’s not really an understatement to say I was surprised at every turn. More than anything, I was surprised by how much I liked it. I WAS HOPING THERE WOULD BE A SPICY SCENE BUT JUST HAVING LU FENG SAY THINGS LIKE THAT SATISFIED ME BECAUSE WHHHAAAATTTTTT???? Sir said let’s turn this into a kink along with that sexy hyphae 😏😏😏 To keep it spoiler free, this second book in the duology was absolutely wild. It's the most unpredictable book I've ever read - anytime I thought I could guess what would happen next, I was proven wrong. I'm convinced the author's brain is just built different from the rest of us mere mortals.

Number of women with speaking roles counter: Doussay (dead), lady who comes to lu feng on behalf of the government to ask him to donate sperm, Lily, Lu Feng’s mom

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i also don't mind when the plot takes precedence over the romance - this is a plot-driven cnovel after all, that comes with the territory. i do mind, however, when the two romantic scenes we get are actually not that romantic. again, their emotions were so restrained and suppressed and for what?? an zhe had more genuinely heartwarming moments with this random old man introduced towards the end of the story than his actual love interest (though the epilogues were sweet i guess). Or, "Lu Feng's willpower to protect humanity is his biggest virtue but his mental health is barely being held by a thread." Language: English Words: 4,231 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 5 Kudos: 27 Bookmarks: 6 Hits: 262 are there other jobs in the outer city besides mercenary, supply depot person, and sex worker? like who made all that potato soup they ate out there? Later me: Ok, so it seems like the garden of eden also grows the vegetables? But do they also cook the soup?

I also liked that – while Lu Feng and An Zhe have a lot of cute moments - they aren’t actually a couple until after the book technically ends, since it is only then that the conflicts that made their goals too incompatible are resolved. I also liked that there is another good chunk of time before it become a sexual relationship. See, An Zhe reads as kind of “grey asexual” – which makes a lot of sense given his species’ spore-based reproductive system. And while this could have easily been one of those rather predatory-feeling romances…I don’t get that vibe. This is in part because Lu Feng does not bring up the idea of sex at all until An Zhe asks, and even then only in a “What if I did want that? How do you feel about it?” kind of way. There’s a few moments I don’t particularly care for, but overall you get the feeling they are just figuring out what works for them – and if they happen to get different things out of the experience, that is fine. However, the fact that our protagonist is a nice young man who is secretly a sentient mushroom in search of his “kidnapped” spore is nicely bonkers, and since we share his POV we also tend to view the fate of humanity with a touch of detachment. The fate of the “little mushroom” An Zhe and his spore, on the other hand – and that of the human kids he somewhat incongruously ends up teaching - I am VERY invested! I also love the intervals when An Zhe risks using some of his “mushroom powers”, like turning into a ball of hyphae so he can explore the air vents of the base! they said that they can’t let the xenogenics get human genes, so humans must be incinerated immediately if they die, but didn’t we see that people who die in the wilderness aren’t incinerated? or are they supposed to incinerate dead bodies and an zhe’s group (and an ze’s group) just ignored the rules? I feel like the whole going out into the wilderness thing seems high-risk, low reward. how are what the mercenaries have found in the wilderness worth this risk? Lily: “they only know how to sleep, but I know everything”— are they keeping the women in the garden of eden in comas????? As of the end of this volume they are definitely not together, but it is starting to seem like a possibility.anyway, 3 stars for an zhe and mr. pauli for being the only characters who felt like people and who i could get attached to. and also for the plot concluding in a satisfying way.

i can guess though - there's only one scene in the entirety of little mushroom in which a character breaks down sobbing and it's our little mushroom protagonist an zhe. maybe to show how the non-human character was actually the most human of them all? i don't know, it feels like a stretch. and it led to me being disappointed and detached from the story. How will he find it, if he can’t get past the human gates because of the “judges”, who stand guard at the gates of human bases, killing the infected and the beings of the elements?An Zhe is determined to go to the human base to search for his spore, which had been harvested by humans. Once there, however, he faces the omnipresent risk of discovery and certain death as he tries to keep his non-human nature hidden from the Judges, whose responsibility is to inspect for and eliminate xenogenics like himself. And of all the Judges, Colonel Lu Feng is the most perceptive and merciless—as soon as he determines that someone is a xenogenic, he will execute that person on the spot. The plot loosely follows the original plot of Little Mushroom towards the end. Genshin lore is also mixed into the plot.) Language: English Words: 33,471 Chapters: 9/? Comments: 84 Kudos: 249 Bookmarks: 35 Hits: 4,730 Little Mushroom is set in an apocalyptic future where radiation has wiped out most of humankind and the survivors live in bases to protect themselves from mutated creatures. An Zhe is a sentient mushroom who inadvertently ends up with a human form. His spore has been harvested by humans - thus begins An Zhe's journey to search for his missing spore in the human base, while keeping his non-human identity a secret to avoid being executed.

And it’s this sweet, naïve mushroom who may be the solution for humanity. I first began to suspect An Zhe may be more important to humanity’s overall survival when he was bit by bugs and didn’t mutate. Instead, An Zhe appears to be capable of creating full, unblemished genetical replication of what he “absorbs”, human genes included, as can be seen by Doctor Ji’s examination, which found no abnormalities within An Zhe, deeming the little mushroom “human”. I suddenly recalled that An Ze, in An Zhe’s company, did not mutate either. And maybe he was too fatally wounded to mutate, but he has chatted with An Zhe for quite a while before his death, so that seems a little unlikely. Then the scientists spoke of An Zhe’s spore being the potential future solution and that just cemented it for me. I am super excited to see if this bears fruit in Revelations! I was not expecting to like Lu Feng as much as I did. I was nervous he would just be the gritty anti-hero that is apparent in most YA books, but surprisingly, he had a lot more depth. Yes, he has killed many in cold blood in a morally gray situation and he’s a stern person, but he’s not an evil one. He does what he does for the greater good of humanity, so that future generations won’t have to suffer the way they do now- at least, that’s how Seraing put it. He puts up with universal hate and fear towards him, which MUST take a toll on his psyche, but he does not fight this opinion of him. Not only that, but he does have compassion and a sarcastic side; we see that with how he interacts with An Zhe. These two have unmatched chemistry, despite the very direct way they both talk to each other. The world of Little Mushroom is divided based on infection level, with level 6, The Abyss, being the highest. That’s where our main character comes from. Truly, one of my favorite dynamics. But here it’s especially interesting. Lu Feng is the most terrifying man on the human base. If he deems you a risk, he will shoot you on the spot—no reason given. However, it’s clear from his first official meeting with An Zhe that the man knows more than anyone can imagine and that he does in fact care. If he didn’t, he would’ve shot An Zhe on sight. And it’s those little things that make this ship compelling—Lu Feng will show An Zhe his reasons. He will slow down when An Zhe asks for it. He will accept his inventions, answer his questions, and listen to his explanations. And for the cold man who everyone is terrified of, those little things make him very warm toward An Zhe. i'm sorry if i want big, dramatic, soul-crushing emotional moments in my big, dramatic, world-ending novel - but little mushroom simply refused to give that to me. i can appreciate quiet subtlety and restrained emotions but not when the world is coming to an end. like, humankind is on the brink of extinction and you're NOT gonna be screaming, crying, throwing up for the guy you love??? this is about lu feng of course but even in general, the story felt so muted and stifled when it came to emotional moments and i don't understand why.i like how many gay people there are. Even an zhe’s prison buddy had a boyfriend (before being sent to prison). NOTE: gay people do die in this! But it’s not bury your gays if everyone is gay and only some of them die? like side characters The characters in this book are incredibly well-developed. The author has a talent for making characters feel vivid and real, whether they're a passerby described in one sentence or someone who'll accompany the reader for a few chapters. An Zhe in particular was a delightful protagonist. His perspective on the story events and his exploration of what it means to live as a human is equal parts endearing, funny and bittersweet. As for Lu Feng - I won't say much but as the second most important character, every scene with him in it had me gripped! Translation (if i got anything wrong, pls tell me! these terms were translated with my beginner level chinese, google translate, and pleco): An Zhe is just a little mushroom so he must use An Ze’s memories to get by. This means he is not as socially aware as he should be. There are nuances in human relationships and he can’t quite understand when he is being teased (or bullied as he loves to say). It makes for adorable situations, especially with Lu Feng whom he struggles to understand. I have other issues with the text. Clunky sentences, commas and periods placed outside of quotes ("like this", for example, and "this".), words occasionally left out, dialogue that sounded unnatural (seriously, what kind of mercenary would ever say "thus"??). A few instances of one or two of these wouldn't faze me, but this stuff was happening enough, my immersion in the book was being interrupted enough, that I started to read with a pencil handy to clean up sentences that bothered me. It's not even a matter of this being translated into English, either. Translation is a transformative act. It's on the editors to look at the text, realize something sounds clunky or odd in English, and rearrange it so it reads naturally. Instead, we have sentences in this volume like:

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