Wu Cheng'en, whose word is like the middle, was born in He Xia, Shanyang County, Huai 'an Prefecture (now Huai 'an District, Huai 'an City, Jiangsu Province), and was a writer in the Ming Dynasty.

Since childhood, Wu Cheng'en has been reading extensively in Minhui, especially fond of fairy tales. He was repeatedly defeated in the imperial examination, and was promoted to a tribute student during Jiajing period.

In the 28th year of Jiajing (1549), he moved to Nanjing to make a living by selling documents. In the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing (1560), he served as a county official in Changxing, Zhejiang Province, and soon resigned and returned. Because of his difficult career, he never planned to be an official in his later years and wrote behind closed doors. The Journey to the West, his masterpiece, is one of China's "Four Classical Novels".

When Wu Cheng'en was a child, he was eager to learn and read and recite quickly. He is good at painting, calligraphy, lyrics and music, and he is also proficient in Go. He also likes to collect calligraphy and painting posts of celebrities. As a teenager, he was famous in his hometown for his outstanding literary talent and was appreciated by people. According to the Records of Huai 'an Prefecture, Wu Cheng'en "Minhui read widely and wrote for poetry".