When he was 14, Wu was selected to receive medical training at Chengde Health School in the provincial capital Chengde.[1] In 1954, he moved to Shanghai to study at the Shanghai Institute of Forensic Medicine. He excelled in his studies, and two years later was admitted to the four-year graduate program at the institute to study forensic science under the guidance of Soviet experts.[1][3]
Over a career spanning more than 50 years, Wu solved about 1,000 cases. He served as chief detective of the Ministry of Public Security and was voted China's "Most Popular Police Officer" in 2011.[1][2] Since the 1980s, he had been acclaimed as "China's Sherlock Holmes".[3]
According to Wu himself, the most difficult case he solved was the Chen Ping (陈平) murder case. In September 2003, the half-naked body of Chen's wife was found in her bed at her home in Xianyang, Shaanxi. She was bound and gagged, in what appeared to be a rape-and-murder scene. After collecting and analyzing the evidence, including traces of sleeping pills in her stomach, Wu determined that it was Chen, a district prosecutor, who had killed his wife and attempted to disguise it as a rape-murder case. In January 2015, Chen was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.[2]