How to Properly Raise a Grudge-Holding Mushroom

Little mushroom Ruili receives an honorable mission: take down He Mu, an SSS-ranked dangerous-species examiner. In a book, he labeled mushrooms as "some varieties edible, but hallucinogenic." This is nothing short of blasphemy against all mushroomkind!

He poisons the milk, poisons the food, and passes spore liquid over during kisses...

Then he discovers that this human is completely fine!

He Mu is full of energy. He cooks for him every day, tucks him in, and holds him close, kissing him over and over.

Ruili covers his mouth. "Y-you stay back! You're so hot!"

"Don't mushrooms like warm places?"

He Mu glances at the two spores that have floated out and blows gently.

The spores wobble. "Biu~" Two more pop out.

Ruili puffs up angrily. "Keep blowing, and I'll grow on you!"

He Mu smiles, looking terribly pleased with himself.

Later, when the mission fails and the passage to the Mycelial World closes in an emergency, the little mushroom signs an agreement with the Department of Reproduction so he can survive among humans.

"If we have two babies, we'll get lots and lots of money."

"Are you short on money?"

"Yep." Ruili counts on his fingers. "I want to ride the bus and see the sights, drink strawberry-flavored drinks, buy teddy bear cookies, and... and take care of you."

"Take care of me?"

"You're behind the teddy bear cookies." Ruili speaks with complete confidence. "Cookies won't bite me. You will."

He Mu reaches out and pulls him into his arms. "So how are you planning to have them?"

Ruili takes out a little USB drive. "I studied a tutorial. The first step is..."

"You don't need a tutorial," He Mu interrupts. "I'll teach you."

"You're not very good at teaching," Ruili mutters. "You always stop halfway through."

He Mu falls silent for three seconds. "...That's because you sound too good when you call me 'big brother.'"

Ruili lifts his head and glares at He Mu.

He Mu looks at his red nose and red ears, then leans down to kiss his nose.

"You're so cute, baby."

"Hmph."

Later, employees at the Cross-Species Administration Bureau notice that their new assistant is late every day, with the tips of his ears and his lips bright red.

A coworker quietly asks him, "Did the captain get mad at you again?"

Ruili shakes his head. "No, he's teaching me how to have babies."

A coworker in the office asks, "It's been so long and you still aren't pregnant? Is the captain, you know, not up to it?"

Ruili thinks for a moment, then answers honestly. "No, when I call him big brother, he just..."

He Mu rushes over and covers his mouth. "You little menace, you can't say that out loud!"

-

A cute, grudge-holding mushroom assassin x a seemingly cold species examiner whose heart belongs entirely to his wife

One-on-one, both pure (really, both pure: the woman who appears earlier is the gong's older sister)

Cute, sweet pet romance; sci-fi in space; set somewhere other than Earth; adorable, cozy everyday life

Please add my next book, I Am a Serial Killer in a Famous Painting, to your reading list!

Cheng Yan, a college freshman studying animation.

He is dragged into the Infinite World of the Cycle of Obsession, where only those with deep-seated obsessions can fall.

To find a chance at survival, he joins the Judge's team, becoming an assassin who walks the line between life and death.

Rule: Place in the top seven on the points leaderboard to break free from the endless cycle and return to reality.

But his severe dissociative identity disorder makes him the most unstable weapon of all:

First personality: The Red Queen

He kills on a whim, elegant and deranged. He made a name for himself in the Cycle of Obsession by leaving a Q on his targets' corpses.

Second personality: The Repairman

Quiet and focused, like a regular worker. In his hands, broken machines and cursed, uncanny objects can be restored, or even turned into deadly weapons.

Third personality: Three

Pale and aloof, he can glimpse the final fragments of someone's memories by touching death...

Including the kiss from that one time with Kui Si.

He thinks he's a lone misfit in this brutal arena, unaware that a pair of dark eyes hidden behind a playing-card mask have been watching him for a very, very long time.

Instance: Sunrise: Impression

The setting becomes a man-eating swamp, and just as Cheng Yan is about to sink beneath it, the masked Judge Kui Si appears and declares coldly, "Player Cheng Yan, you are suspected of violating the rules. The Inspectorate is intervening."

The rules are quietly rewritten. No one sees him pull Cheng Yan free and take a poisonous arrow from the shadows in his back.

Instance: Sunflowers

Nameless corpses keep appearing inside golden frames. The instant Cheng Yan touches one, Three is forced to read its bloody memories, and Cheng Yan drops to his knees in pain. Kui Si's fingertips come to rest on his trembling eyelids. "Don't look."

Instance: Along the River During the Qingming Festival

In the ghost market of Bianjing, two versions of "him" speak at once: "We're one short. Need another ghost. Are you in?"

Behind him, Kui Si's voice sounds icy. "Are you inviting the Judge... to play mahjong with you?"

[The Judge: Kui Si]

A ruthless Inspectorate officer wearing a playing-card mask, responsible for judging and punishing players who break the rules.

Beneath the mask is a strikingly handsome face. Tall, long-legged, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, he has a deep-set, almost mixed-race look, with eyes as black as the night.

When Cheng Yan finally loses patience, he drives a knife toward Kui Si's heart. "Who gave you permission to spread rumors that I kissed you?"

Kui Si calmly takes out a handkerchief and wraps it around the knife handle. "Good boy. Don't push too hard, or you'll hurt your hand."

He leans in and reveals every disguise beside Cheng Yan's ear. "Today's kiss tasted like mint. Yesterday was peach. The day before..."

"It was the scent of coffee on the Left Bank of Paris, in 1932."

With so much time having passed, Cheng Yan has no idea that someone searched for him, fueled by an obsession so deep he refused reincarnation. He endured countless trials and rose to become a Judge, all so he could wait for the day they would meet again in this endless Realm of Obsession.

"Cheng Yan," those deep black eyes beneath the mask fill with love and obsession spanning centuries. "This time, you won't get away."

"Your madness, your crimes, every side of you, all belong to me."

The Buddha teaches that all beings are reborn again and again through the six realms due to karma and ignorance. This is called reincarnation. But those with obsessions too deep do not return to heaven and earth. They form a realm of their own: the Cycle of Obsession.

They seek neither the next life nor the past. This is where the obsessed belong, and yet it is a place with no way out.

Two strong leads, loving and at odds | Devoted Judge x art student with three personalities

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Theme: Even a mushroom has to work 996 to finish its job!