Reginald Johnston, the Scottish academic and diplomat who tutored Puyi, gave Yunying an English name, Lily.

Yunying was born in the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan in 1913 as the third daughter of Prince Chun and Princess Consort Youlan.

When Yunying arrived there, she was immediately approached by members of the Japanese imperial family, who wanted her to serve as the honorary president of the women's association.

In his memoirs, Puyi described Yunying as spoiled, idle, and interested in pointless matters during the Manchukuo period, foremost to be in his favour.

Yunying and her family were evacuated by train from Xinjing to Dalizigou (in present-day Linjiang, Jilin); her husband, their three children Zongyan (宗弇), Zongguang (宗光) and Manruo (曼若), her parents, two of her sisters, her brothers, the family's physician and a servant took a plane to Mukden (present-day Shenyang, Liaoning), where Puyi was arrested and taken to a prison camp in Siberia.

[1] In 1954, Zhang Shizhao, the president of the Central Research Institute of Culture and History, chanced upon the book containing the letters exchanged between Yunying and Puyi.

With help from their uncle, Zaitao, Zhang Shizhao contacted Yunying and asked her to write an autobiography, which he then presented to Mao Zedong.

He then sent the autobiography to Zhou Enlai for him to read too and appointed her as a delegate representing Beijing's Dongcheng District in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Her husband, who had become the owner of a small clinic that treated gynecological diseases and nervous disorders, was interviewed by The New York Times in 2000[2] and died in 2007.