Amid the ongoing social transformation of rural elderly care models， the academic community has developed extensive discussions on mutual-aid elderly care. Exploring rural mutual-aid elderly care requires not only attention to institutional embedding but also a focus on the logic of local practices. Based on structural theory and practice logic，we construct the theoretical framework of “ institutional embedding-practice transformation” to analyze the generative logic underlying actions in rural mutual care. It is found that the embedding of two external resources，namely “institutionalization” and “professional complementarity”，provides the basic impetus for rural mutual aid for the elderly. However， structural embedding needs to be based on the reflective adaptation within local practices，and the adaptability of local practices should be maintained through the strategies of joint negotiation，differential mobilization，and organizational empowerment，so as to ultimately achieve the integration of structural goals and the needs of the elderly in a symbiotic manner. Further research reveals that the construction of governance paths for rural mutual care is on the surface an interactive process between the structural embedding of national resources and the reflective integration of local knowledge. At a deeper level， however， it represents a systematic reconstruction of the institutional， relational， and cognitive foundations that underpin rural society. Only by reconstructing these profound social foundations can rural mutual-aid elderly care realize a substantial transformation from externally driven initiatives to an internally sustained model.