Ancient village under private protection

Zhang Zhengyan, owner of a hostel in Pingshan village, an ancient rural village in Huangshan city. ZHU LIXIN/CHINA DAILY

Many of the buyers choose to run hostels, although only a fraction of them could match the delicacy of Zhang's.

"Take the Yixian County as an example, there are now approximately 10,000 hostels in the rural areas of the county, which has been a very popular tourism destination in the last few years", said Zhang.

Huangshan city attracts tens of millions of tourists every year, and local authorities estimate that more than 2 million of them will come from overseas this year.

Zhang sold the Xiuli film base to a capital fund company two years ago, as the value had appreciated to several times higher than his investment.

Now Zhang also owns seven ancient houses in the nearby Tachuan village, all operating as hostels, while it is the Imperial Bodyguard that he loves most.

"Maybe in the future I will close the hostel and take it as my family dwelling, since living in such a picturesque place with scattered ancient villages everywhere is pretty cool", said Zhang.