Push open the creaking wooden door of the Yu Family Courtyard at No. 127 West Main Street, where the warm afternoon sun slides across the blue-stone pavement. In the center of the courtyard stands the Shipingfeng, the natural stone screen that gave Shiping Ancient City its name. This tufa rock formation, created over 10,000 years ago during the early Holocene epoch by mineral-rich spring water sprays, rises directly from the subterranean bedrock. Its base is as thick as a water vat, anchoring it so deeply that when Republican-era bandits tied ropes around it to drag it away, the stone remained completely unmoved.

The screen stands 2.78 meters high, 3.34 meters long, and 0.48 meters wide. Its porous, fan-like body is pierced by numerous openings of varying sizes, creating a distinctive pattern across the sandstone surface. Run your fingers over the rough, weathered surface. You can feel the cool, hard sandstone pearls embedded in the rock, which locals touch for good fortune.

Natural forces sculpted the stone into vivid forms. The left side suggests a green dragon rising through clouds, while the right resembles a crouching white tiger. In the center, a small natural niche holds a shape resembling a seated Guanyin Bodhisattva. This uncarved artistry inspired the Qing Dynasty writer Xu Yinfang to compose his poem, Song of Yu's Stone Mountain, praising its divine origin. Later, the local scholar Yu Rusheng composed a couplet celebrating the stone as the root of the town's rich literary history, which produced dozens of imperial scholars and Yunnan's only top-ranking provincial graduate, Yuan Jiagu. Visitors pass beneath an entrance sign hand-lettered by the contemporary calligrapher Shen Peng to stand before this ancient geological anchor, touching its stone pearls and listening to the wind whistle through its hundreds of open eyes.