Quiet, intelligent, solemn and recently dumped by his girlfriend, graduate student Lee Weon-san takes a job at a literary magazine, ostensibly to supplement his income, but really to get close to the editor - the reason he’s now single. The editor, unaware of who Lee is, takes a shine to him and makes him his personal assistant.

Once at a pagoda Mongryong Lee, a scion of a well-to-do family, meets Chunhyang, the young daughter of a courtesan and an aristocrat. Despite her low social standing she is smart and well-educated. The young people fall in love and think about marriage so that they could always be together. Mongryong is soon to go to the capital to take the state civil service exam. They part and in Chunhyang's life there appears the greedy and lustful Byun Hak-do, who tries to seduce her.