On the seventh day after the nuclear apocalypse, subway repairman Pan Kai survives by eating glowing mushrooms, only to unexpectedly form a symbiotic bond with the underground mycelium network.
He gradually discovers that the nuclear war was an extreme measure taken by Big Beautiful to cover up a “mycelium leak,” and that he is the only person capable of controlling the network.
From establishing a subway shelter and uniting the remnants of the radiation cult, to developing a mycelium vaccine and exposing the truth behind the nuclear blast, he seizes national fortune and kills the Squid.
Pan Kai struggles between the “corruption of human nature” and the “temptation of power.” In the end, he chooses to overwhelm the mycelium's collective consciousness with human memories,
rebuilding a new world of “human-myc elium symbiosis” amid the radioactive ashes.
The setting is novel and beautiful