Explore "Red Scarf Girl" by Ji-Li Jiang on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Finally, one May evening, Uncle tian brought us some thrilling news: Dad was cleared of the charge of listening to foreign radio.
It turned out that Uncle Zhu-not Uncle Fan -was to blame. Uncle Zhu had been detained himself, and had wanted to improve his own situation by cooperating with the investigation. He had made up the story about the foreign radio, thinking that if he confessed to something, he would be treated with leniency. When Dad steadily denied his participation, the theater people got angrier and angrier. They pressed Uncle Zhu for details. He stupidly told them that he and Dad had used a transistor radio, which they had buried in Zhu's courtyard. The theater people went straight to Zhu's house and tore up the courtyard looking for the evidence, but they found nothing. They were furious and gave Uncle Zhu a good beating. Finally he admitted to making up the whole story.