Mid- to late-Míng (Jiājìng / Wànlì era) classicist of the Zuǒ tradition and minor official, native of Tàicāng 太倉 (modern Jiāngsū). Zì Shìkǎi 士凱. CBDB (id 390238) records the name but no firm lifedates; the man’s floruit is fixed by his own preface to the Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn shǔ shì, dated Wànlì 13 / yǐyǒu 乙酉 (1585), and by the prefaces of his patrons Wáng Xījué 王錫爵 (1534–1611) and Wáng Shìzhēn 王世貞 (1526–1590); he was a kinsman by marriage of Wáng Xījué’s lineage and a younger associate of Wáng Shìzhēn’s literary circle. Pupil of the senior Tàicāng literatus Guī Yǒuguāng 歸有光 (1506–1571). His own preface and those of Wáng Xījué describe him as long-frustrated in the examinations (kùn dùn cháng wū 困頓場屋); he eventually entered the bureaucracy through suì gòng 歲貢 selection and held the modest post of Jiànchāng xùndǎo 建昌訓導 (Sub-instructor at the Jiànchāng Prefectural School).
In Zuǒzhuàn studies he is significant: the Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn shǔ shì 春秋左傳屬事 in 20 juǎn (KR1e0084) — built on a draft begun by his friend Wáng Zhílǐ 王執禮 and completed by Fù — applies Yuán Shū’s 袁樞 Tōng jiàn jì shì běn mò 通鑑紀事本末 method to the Zuǒzhuàn, organising the narrative by event-and-state rather than by year. The work is also notable for systematic correction of Dù Yù’s 杜預 Jí jiě 集解 (which it both supplements and emends). The SKQS tíyào describes Fù as Dù Yù’s “remonstrating minister” (zhèng chén 諍臣) and the Zuǒzhuàn’s “filial grandson” (cí sūn 慈孫). Fù’s own statement — “without Dù Yù I could not have made this commentary; Dù Yù without the Hàn scholars could not have made the Jí jiě” — became one of the most-quoted formulae in Qīng evidential-school discussions of the cumulative nature of philology.