In Xi’an’s Nanyuanmen district, the Former Site of Sun Yat-sen Library—locally called Liangbao Lou (Treasure Pavilion)—hides a legacy as intricate as its late Qing brick carvings.

Built in 1902 to safeguard Empress Dowager Cixi’s stranded treasures—lacquerware, palace lanterns, and tribute rarities—its vaults once drew crowds paying tickets to glimpse imperial splendor. By 1918, it became a sanctuary for rescued national relics: four of the plundered Six Steeds of Zhao Mausoleum rested here, their fractured stone flanks echoing Cao Jiguan’s lament, "Great carts laden pass Xianyang...already two are lost to sorrow." Among 5,594 volumes of the Song-Qing Qisha Buddhist Canon and Yongzheng-era movable-type books gifted to a retired scholar, the building evolved into Shaanxi’s first public library (1914), later rebranded Zhongshan Library under Yu Youren’s calligraphic plaque.

Decades of neglect left its siheyuan courtyards crumbling until 2011, when meticulous restoration resurrected arched gatehouses and dancing tree shadows. Today, locust boughs brush against walls that once muffled debates of Republican scholars, their whispers now cradled by Shaanxi’s Literature and History Museum.