At No. 444 Beijing Road, once known as Tahe Street, stands a three-story French-style villa built during the Republic of China era. This structure, the private residence of Zhu Ziying—chief of the adjutant's office to the Yunnan general Lu Han—originally stood on the quiet outskirts of Kunming. Today, it rests in the shadow of modern skyscrapers, a preserved island of history.

The villa showcases French colonial architecture. Its exterior walls feature a light yellow granitic plaster, rough to the touch. Inside, the air carries the faint, sweet scent of aged wood. Visitors walk across patterned teak parquet flooring, its decorative borders still intact. Solid teakwood doors and windows frame views of a rapidly changing city. The building relies on a sturdy structural system of brick masonry, reinforced concrete beams, and clay brick walls.

In December 1949, on the eve of Yunnan's peaceful liberation, this quiet home became a hiding place. Xu Yuanju, a high-ranking Kuomintang intelligence chief, fled here to escape capture. He hid behind the heavy teak doors. When the Yunnan Uprising began, panic took hold. Xu changed into civilian clothes, slipped out of the villa, and fled in Zhu’s American jeep. In his haste, he drove directly to the gates of the police station, where officers promptly arrested him.

Decades later, the city grew around the villa. Between 2019 and 2022, the Panlong District government restored the villa, polishing the parquet floors and repairing the masonry. On January 8, 2025, the Kunming government designated the Beijing Road Zhu's Building as a municipal-level cultural relics protection unit. It stands today as a quiet observer of Kunming's past and future.