An Zhe

An Zhe (安折) is the protagonist of Little Mushroom.

He is a mushroom Xenogenic, who absorbed the genes of a dying human, An Ze. He obtained An Ze's memories and a human conscious. After absorbing An Ze's genes and gaining a human form, he sets out to find his missing spore.

## Appearance

### As a human

An Zhe's human form looks almost identical to An Ze, since his body was build on An Ze's genes. This is also evident by the fact that Josh recognizes him as An Ze, and he passes facial recognition upon entering the base.[reference needed] He describes himself as having "soft black hair and eyes that were the same color." He also says that: "they were alike in many ways, but there were some details that weren't the same. In addition, he didn't have An Ze's gentle and calm expression."

### As a mushroom

An Zhe's mushroom form is a tiny white mushroom. He is described as being a common mushroom found all over the place in the abyss. He is safe from predators due to his lack of nutritional value and makes people lethargic. He describes his own taste as soft, sweet, and very tasty.

## Personality

An Zhe's priority throughout most of the novel is getting his spore back. His decisions are influenced by the desire to retrieve and raise his spore. He decided to go to the human base despite warnings from An Ze that it he would undoubtably die. He considers his spore more important than his own life, even on the extremally low chance of retrieving it.

> *"Raising it's spores to maturity was a mushroom's sole lifelong mission, but he had list his only spore when it was far from maturing."*
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Despite having human memories, some of his actions and speech are telling, and probably the reason Lu Feng was able to recognize him as not human, but not be sure as to whether he was a xenogenic. An example is the following:

> *"The doctor said, "The color of yuor blood is very healthy."*
> *"Thankyou for the compliment," An Zhe replied."*
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## Abilities

### Toxins

When part of An Zhe's mushroom form is eaten, it makes the consumer lethargic.[Reference Needed]

### Immortality

Due to his asexual reproduction and ability to transfer memories to his spore, he is effectively immortal.[Reference Needed]

### Body Morphing

He is able to change his body between human and mushroom form, including partial transformations. At one point he uses this to protect his arm from being injured, by removing it and then regrowing it when safe to do so again.

## Relationships

### An Ze

An Ze met An Zhe in An Zhe's Cave, where An Zhe accidently consumed his blood while his hyphae was attempting the stanch the blood of the dying human. This resulted in An Zhe gaining a human consciousness, language skills, and An Ze's memory. He was given his name by An Ze, after An Zhe told him his first memory - him separating into his own mushroom.

> *""How about I give you a name, little mushroom?"*
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> *"Is there anything you have a deep recollection of, little mushroom?"...*
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> *...a raindrop falling at an angle had struck [An Zhe's] slender stem, snapping him at the waist...*
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> *..."Then I'll call you An Zhe, written with the chinese character for 'snap'.""*
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An Ze refers to An Zhe as 'little mushroom', and believes that him dying and giving his memories and skills to An Zhe is his chance to do something meaningful, claiming that he has wanted to die for a long time already. He expresses to An Zhe that he should not go to the human base, as it is incredibly dangerous for a Xenogenic to do so, however An Zhe ends up ignoring his final wish.

Once An Ze dies, An Zhe takes his map, his clothes and boots, and his ID card along with his backpack, and leaves to find his lost spore at the human base.

### Lu Feng

After first meeting him, An Zhe is scared of Lu Feng, due to him being an Arbiter. Later in the novel, he will warm up to him as Lu Feng continues to do kind things for him, and eventually he will no longer be afraid.[reference and expansion needed] Later, An Zhe will admit to loving him, coming to a shock to him as well, since romantic love is a human emotion, and he considers himself first and foremost a mushroom.[reference needed]

### Vance

Despite not knowing him for very long, An Zhe considers him a friend, and tells a woman grieving at the gates that, after Vance's body was taken away. He also takes his ID card.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Book 1, Chapter 4: Lu Feng, I hope you die a miserable death-!
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Book 1, Chapter 1: You're just a little mushroom
3. ↑ Book 1, Chapter 3: Darling, don't vomit from disgust
4. ↑ Book 1, Chapter 2: Are you going back to the Northern Base?