What kind of story is Xiao Hong's novel Hulan River Biography telling?

The story happened in Hulan River, a small town in the northeast of China at the beginning of last century. Xiao Hong was born in a landlord family here. She lived with her grandfather since she was a child, and people here lived an ordinary life. There is a big mud pit in the city. It turns into a river when it rains, which brings a lot of inconvenience to everyone. However, no one wants to fill it. When someone falls in, everyone laughs. Sometimes, someone's pig falls into the river and drowns, so people will rush to buy pork because it is cheap. The most lively activities in the town are dancing to the gods and putting out river lanterns. These celebrations are to worship ghosts and gods. Here, people are used to enduring poverty and hardship, but they never want to change.

There are three stories in this book. The first story is about little reunion, a child bride of a neighbor's family. She is a girl of 12 years old and has a lively and cheerful personality. But because of this character, the neighbors hung her from the beam every day, flogged her and branded her feet with a soldering iron, making her unable to walk. Every time she screams, the whole city can hear her. So, little reunion was seriously ill. In order to cure the disease, the husband's family invited people to dance with the great god. The idea of the Great God Dance is to let her neighbors bathe little reunion with boiling water. After this turning point, little reunion was finally tortured to death.

The second story is about a grandfather in his thirties who came to work in Xiao Hong's house. When Xiao Hong was born, she was over 60 years old. He is very poor. The Xiao family didn't pay him. He is withdrawn and doesn't like talking to people, but he likes chatting with stones, yellow dogs and sparrows. He is very brave. When the Russians invaded northeast China, he kept his home. He is also a face-saving person. He is happy when someone calls him the second boss, and he is angry when someone calls him the second friend. He can't get married and have children because of poverty. When someone tells him to die, he will cry bitterly. Once or even several times, he tried to commit suicide, but in the end it was fruitless.

The third story is Feng's crooked mouth. He is a lazy man because he and his wife are free to fall in love. The relationship was opposed by his wife's parents, who finally escaped and lived together. Because of unmarried cohabitation, people began to curse each other and arrange his wife every day, but they still resisted these rumors, lived their own lives and even had two children. But his wife died of malnutrition after giving birth to a child, and people don't care about their lives, just waiting to see his jokes. However, Feng's crooked mouth was not depressed. He raised his children and saw the hope of a new life in them.