In 1851, Zhu Wo, a retired Financial Commissioner of Shaanxi who had earned his imperial degree in 1829, returned to his hometown of Shiping to recuperate. He donated 7,000 taels of silver to build Yuping Academy, a south-facing, 3,303-square-meter sanctuary of learning at the foot of Yuping Mountain. For over a century, this wood-structured, multi-entry courtyard complex echoed with the recitations of scholars studying the classics. It later served as a primary school and a middle school before closing its doors to active classes in 2006. Today, the restored complex houses the Shiping County Museum, preserving the intellectual legacy of a town once celebrated as the Home of Literature.

Visitors enter through the stone-paved courtyards, where the scent of sweet osmanthus, plum trees, and crapemyrtle lingers in the air. At the heart of the academy stands the Longmen Archway, a brick, wood, and stone structure measuring 8.70 meters high and 9.33 meters deep. Four massive stone bases, each carved with the recessed symbols of the Eight Immortals, support four stone columns. These columns feature lifelike carved dragons, though their heads are noticeably chipped.

Looking upward, the archway ceiling reveals a coffered design of 24 wooden panels. Each panel displays a unique seal-script variation of the character for longevity, totaling 100 distinct characters carved into the dark wood. Beyond the archway, the spacious Lecture Hall spans 12.60 meters wide, supported by a hybrid post-and-lintel and column-and-tie wooden frame beneath a single-eave gable-and-hip roof.

The academy remains a place of deeply personal memory. Shortly after the museum opened in 2018, a 96-year-old alumnus returned, carried by his family into the courtyards to see the rooms where he had studied as a boy. Inside, the museum now displays over 1,300 cultural relics, including a rare imperial calligraphy scroll written by the Kangxi Emperor. The rustle of bamboo in the brick flower beds connects the quiet of the modern museum to the generations of scholars who once walked these halls.