He offers tens of thousands of sacks of rice during a famine to help the people of Korea and receives a government post.
In the late Koryo dynasty, there was a scholar named Jeon Suk, who never held a government office, and his wife surnamed Choe.
The next year, on the way to a temple where a demon is supposed to be tormenting people, he meets an old man, who gives him a rope and a paper talisman.
He makes a fool of the king, helps ordinary people in need, and plays tricks on government officials.
As Unchi kicks up a storm throughout the country, the king gives him a government post to stop him from his mischief.
Even in hiding, he uses magic to punish a Buddhist monk who harasses a widow, torments a government official who told the king to kill Unchi, and sets an envious wife straight.
When he tries to help a friend, who falls head over heels for a widow, Unchi is scolded by Gangnim Doryeong, who is a Taoist god.
Aside from the fact that the protagonists of both stories are born to a parent who is a slave, and become kings by the end, and that their spaces of activity are expanded from Joseon Korea to overseas, the Jeon Uchi-jeon version and Hong Gildong-jeon have other similarities in terms of specific events in the plot.
On the other hand, the Jeon Unchi-jeon version does not copy the Hong Gildong-jeon in terms of the format.
The plot of this version largely consists of three major events: 1) the birth of Jeon Uchi and his learning of Taoist magic, 2) his various activities using Taoist magic, and 3) his competition against Seo Hwadam and defeat, and his disappearance into the mountains to cultivate himself.
In this way, Jeon Uchi-jeon combined excitement and seriousness by using colorful and fascinating Taoist magic to criticize reality.
In 2012, it was also turned into a TV series with 24 episodes under the title Jeon Woo-chi, starring Cha Tae-hyun as the titular character.
There are only handwritten scripts of the Jeon Uchi-jeon version of the novel, including the one owned by Nason Kim Dong-uk.