In the Xia Dynasty, there were songs about guessing a certain food by suggestive methods. Later, with the development of culture, people's ability to use words became more and more proficient, and riddles developed faster and faster. But before the Three Kingdoms, it was still a verbal game. In the Three Kingdoms period, crossword puzzles written on paper began to form.

During the Tang and Song Dynasties, because the country was rich and the people's living conditions were good, the entertainment festivals like the Lantern Festival developed greatly. Lantern Festival can last more than a week, and there is no curfew at night, so everyone can take to the streets to play as much as they like.

In the Song Dynasty, the government adopted the policy of valuing literature over martial arts, and the culture developed rapidly. In order to increase the fun of watching lanterns, some vendors began to write crossword puzzles on lanterns to attract tourists, and everyone scrambled to imitate them, thus forming a "lantern riddle".

Extended data:

Lantern Festival, also known as Shangyuan Festival, Xiaoyuanyian Festival, Yuanxi Festival or Lantern Festival, is one of the traditional festivals in China, which falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month every year. The first month is the first month of the lunar calendar, and the ancients called "night" "night". The fifteenth day of the first month is the first full moon night in a year, so it is called "Lantern Festival". According to the Taoist saying of "Sanyuan", the 15th day of the first month is also called "Shangyuan Festival".