“A legend for ordinary people, and a calming pill against restlessness. In days when no one has your back, holding onto your true self is already greatness enough.”
— China Youth Writers Newspaper (Ren Shitong)

“The most refreshing anti-cliché in this novel: being born with a curse of poverty… even the smallest person can find their own way to reconcile with an unfair world.”
— Douban reader “Wen Daodao”

“The most delightful aspect is the clever setting of Xuanqiong‘s ‘poverty curse.’ It is precisely this poverty that keeps his heart true — poor in fate, but not in spirit.”
— Douban reader “Anye Dahao”

★ First print run of 300,000 copies — sold out within hours, triggering an emergency reprint of 100,000 copies in just 6 hours. Rated 7.6 on Douban with over 15,000 ratings. The third installment in Ma Boyong‘s “See the Micro” series, following the million-copy bestsellers “The Litchi of Chang’an” and “The Annoyance of the Supreme Immortal.”
★ Junior Daoist Xuanqiong is born with a curse: any unearned fortune brings a lightning strike. His monthly salary: two taels and three qian. His job: mediating neighbor disputes, breaking up children‘s fights, settling marital squabbles in Peach Blossom Spring — a secret realm where humans and demons coexist.
★ Written over 12 years, from youth to middle age. Ma Boyong says in his afterword: “I didn’t deliberately polish away the uneven patches. Consider them the rings of my life.”
★ Inspired by Tao Yuanming‘s “Peach Blossom Spring” and Pu Songling’s “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” — where the legendary explorer Liu Ziji not only found the spring but continues to guard it after death. Demons as mirrors, fantasy as truth.
★ Not an epic of heroes — a story of ordinary people holding onto their integrity. “No great karmic debts, just small merits.” For everyone who keeps going through the grind of daily life.

Junior Daoist Xuanqiong is born with a peculiar fate: any attempt at unearned fortune brings a lightning strike. He can’t earn anything beyond his meager salary, so he takes a job as the clerical Daoist of Peach Blossom Spring.

Is this the Peach Blossom Spring from Tao Yuanming‘s famous fable? Yes — and no. Its residents are not only humans, but also demons: Ao Xiu, the Third Prince of the West Sea; Yingning, the fox spirit; Zhu Xia, the spider demon. A secret realm where humans and demons coexist, protected jointly by the Daoist order and the demon community. Xuanqiong’s job: mediating neighbor disputes, breaking up children‘s fights, settling marital squabbles. During the day, he handles petty quarrels; at night, he processes Daoist paperwork. Monthly salary: two taels and three qian — barely enough to get by.

One day, a hallucinogenic elixir called “Xiaoyao Dan” (Carefree Pill) starts circulating in Peach Blossom Spring, triggering a crisis that threatens every resident — and directly impacts Xuanqiong’s meager pay. As he investigates, he uncovers connections to the death of his predecessor, Daoist Xuanqing, and a conspiracy involving high-ranking Daoist figures manufacturing and selling the drug for profit. Alongside Yingning the fox spirit and others, Xuanqiong works to break the case — guided by his personal creed: “No great karmic debts, just small merits.”

“Peace in Peach Blossom Spring” is Ma Boyong‘s longest-in-the-making novel — conceived in 2013 and completed in 2024, spanning 12 years. The inspiration came from an anecdote a community police officer told him: a restaurant owner kept blocking the fire exit despite repeated warnings, until a Daoist priest passing by said it was bad feng shui blocking his fortune — the owner cleared it overnight. Ma thought: “What if I wrote a story about a Daoist managing a residential community?” Later, reading Wang Zengqi’s retellings of “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio,” he decided to set it in Peach Blossom Spring — a community full of demons.

This is not an epic of heroes. It is a story about a poor, lowly Daoist holding onto his integrity through the grind of daily life. As Ma writes in his afterword: “Some passages still belong to that young man obsessed with anime and video games — flighty and frivolous. Some passages, however, reflect the realities only a middle-aged man would notice — steady and weary. I didn‘t polish them away. I let them keep this mottled texture, as a record of the rings of my life.”

Ma Boyong was born in 1980 in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia. He is a contemporary Chinese writer, screenwriter, member of the China Writers Association, and a first-rank literary creator. He serves as an adjunct professor at Nanjing University’s School of Arts.
He won the Galaxy Award in 2005 for “City of Silence,” the People‘s Literature Award for Essay in 2010, the Zhu Ziqing Essay Award in 2012, the Mao Dun Newcomer Award in 2021, and the Junma Award in 2024 for “The Great Physician.”
His major works include “The Longest Day in Chang’an,” “The Antique Bureau,” “The Wind Rises in Longxi,” “The Secret of the Three Kingdoms,” “The Litchi of Chang‘an,” “The Annoyance of the Supreme Immortal,” “The Great Physician,” “The 15-Day Journey Between Two Capitals,” “Under the Microscope: The Great Ming,” and “The Southern Food Traveler.” Many of his works have been adapted into films and television series.