The Xinglong Pagoda does not merely reach for the sky; it tells two distinct stories against it. Rising 54 meters within the grounds of the Yanzhou Museum, this thirteen-story octagonal structure is named for the ancient Xinglong Temple that once sanctified this ground. Its story is one of layered time, a physical chronicle of reconstruction and reverence spanning over a millennium.

Its origins are traced to a sacred act. A stone tablet records that in 970 AD, a monk named Fazang returned from a westward journey bearing treasures: a Buddha statue, sacred sariras, and a Bodhi tree. To house these relics, a pagoda was erected on a site already consecrated by a wooden predecessor from the Sui Dynasty, first erected in 602 AD. The defining moment in its architectural life, however, was a reconstruction in 1063 AD, during the Northern Song Dynasty, which established the enduring form. The pagoda’s most arresting feature is its unprecedented "tower-on-a-tower" design. It is a structure of two distinct voices. The lower seven stories speak in a robust, monumental dialect, their wide corridors and steep staircase suggesting an era of greater ambition and perhaps a different structural logic. This robust base culminates in a two-meter-wide balcony encircled by a stone balustrade—a stone skybridge that separates the old from the newer.

This unique form was compelling enough to draw the most distinguished architectural minds of a generation. In 1936, Liang Sicheng and his wife Lin Huiyin, pioneers in the study of Chinese architectural history, made a special visit to study its form, its very defiance of a single, graceful taper. This unique structural puzzle was one they considered worthy of their meticulous study.

The pagoda’s deepest secrets, however, were buried beneath its foundations. In September 2008, during a crucial reinforcement project, workers broke through into the silent chamber of its underground palace. Within this crypt, the past was waiting: a stone casket, a gilded silver coffin, a gold bottle containing sarira relics, and even a skull bone believed to be that of the Buddha himself.

Through the centuries, the structure has been continually cared for, with the current structure largely dating from a reconstruction during the Qing Dynasty's Kangxi era. This discovery was profound, transforming the pagoda from a mere monument into a reliquary of profound spiritual significance. These artifacts, now carefully preserved in the adjacent Yanzhou Museum, form a direct material link to the Buddhist pilgrims and patrons of the Northern Song. Its cultural significance is formally recognized; designated a provincial-level cultural relic in 1977, it was elevated to a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit in 2013, a status that officially honors its millennium of endurance.