The appeal, half-desperate and half-defiant, appeared at the start of the 2008 fall semester at Nanchang Aviation University. “Do you think it’s possible to start a Dream of the Red Chamber association at a school like ours?” a student posted online. “I think if a university doesn’t even have a ‘Red Chamber Association,’ then it cannot be called a university.”

Published posthumously (and unfinished) in 1791, Cao Xueqin’s Dream of the Red Chamber has been declared a masterpiece and “the book of the millennium” in translation, yet remains almost unknown in the West. In China, though, the book—a vast, allegorical portrait of Qing household life, sometimes known as The Story of the Stone—is so beloved, it has spawned its own field of scholarship, known as redology. For professional redologists, there are mysteries to solve and manuscripts to authenticate; while for regular fans, there’s period costumes, themed parties, and endless WeChat articles to share.

The aviation student’s plea in this case fell on largely deaf ears: The author updated the thread just two months later to say that he’d given up due to lack of interest, though he logged on five years later to urge new students to keep trying. But whatever stymied his efforts, it wasn’t because he underestimated the popularity of the literary classic in campuses and beyond.