Pu was born into a poor landlord - merchant family from Zichuan (淄川, now Zibo, Shandong), and may have had Mongol ancestry. At the age of nineteen, he received the gongsheng degree in the civil service examination, but it was not until he was seventy - one that he received the xiucai degree.

He spent most of his life working as a private tutor, and collecting the stories that were later published in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Some critics attribute the Vernacular Chinese novel Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan to him.