In 1895, during the twenty-first year of the Guangxu reign, builders in Zhoucheng Village raised a grand wooden stage. Positioned directly opposite the Longquan Temple, this west-facing structure served as a sanctuary of song for weary merchants traveling the ancient Tea Horse Road. The stage stands on a two-meter-high platform of hand-hewn stone blocks, measuring 9.15 meters wide and 5.5 meters deep. Its convex, T-shaped layout projects performers directly into the open air of a thirty-meter-square plaza.

Underneath these eaves, nineteenth-century artisans carved nine rectangular wooden panels depicting classic opera scenes. These carvings employ a traditional scattered perspective, allowing multiple moments of a story to exist on a single flat surface. At the center of the ceiling, a deeply recessed, decorated caisson draws the eye upward, its circular geometry bordered by painted bands. Supporting this heavy timber canopy are stone columns engraved with a poetic couplet celebrating local literacy, music, and peace.

For generations, this stage has shaped the sensory memory of the Bai people. Children once squeezed through the dense crowds, dodging the gentle scoldings of elders to catch a glimpse of the actors. The air here carries the faint, earthy scent of natural indigo dye from nearby workshops, mixing with the sharp, high-pitched flutes of Chuichuiqiang opera and the rhythmic storytelling of Dabenqu ballads. Two massive banyan trees, each towering over twenty meters high with trunks nearly two meters thick, flank the plaza. Their leaves rustle in the mountain breeze, providing shade for daytime gossip and evening markets.

Designated as a cultural relic in 1985, the stage remains the active heart of the village. On the second and sixteenth days of each lunar month, the stone platform becomes a living theater. As dusk falls, the square transforms into the "Wan Jie" evening market. Under the shadow of the ancient banyans, the glow of market stalls illuminates the weathered wood, connecting modern villagers to the travelers who rested here a century ago.