Mo Jinchen went back to the fields after lunch and Lin Yue went out to the yard. She settled into a lounge chair and the little white fox ran up and laid down in her lap. Wen Rong found her daughter in law sitting in the garden with Snowball in her lap. "It's good to see you, Yue'er. I see you are enjoying the scenery. How do you like the garden?" Lin Yue stood up and held Snowball gently in her arms. "Its so peaceful here, no wonder my Snowball likes to play in the garden." Wen Rong and Lin Yue began discussing the garden and how to manage it when Feng Dai came in the yard with several boxes of ingredients and glass jars. "Yue'er, boss said you needed these things. What are you making?" Lin Yue came forward and directed them to the kitchen to put away the jars and set the pressure pot on the second stove where they heat up water. The ingredients were placed in their respective cabinets and Lin Yue pulled out a large portion of beef and pork each. She set peppers, onions and mushrooms on the cutting board. "The meat has to be cooked before it's preserved in the jars. The same goes for the eggs, vegetables and fruits. We are doing something I learned. It's called preserved food." Lin Yue put the whole slabs of meat in separate roasting pans and began to season them with herbs and spices. "Remember to reduce the salt you use or it will be too salty when preserved. Pork is naturally salty so you don't need any salt but you will need the other spices." She put the pans in the stove to cook. "This is a long process and will take days before it's finished. But it will save us on food for the winter." For next several hours she taught Wen Rong how to make preserved food. She cut and cooked the vegetables and then fruits. She put all the eggs in a large pot to boil by themselves. Yue added different herbs and spices to the egg pot to add flavor. They then put the fruits and vegetables into twenty of the jars. The meat was still cooking so that had to wait.
Mo Jinchen came in the kitchen to cook and found his wife and mom putting jars full of vegetables and fruits into the pressure pot. The eggs were cooling on the side to be peeled before they too , will be placed in jars. "Why are you cooking the jar?" Lin Yue looked up and let Wen Rong seal the pot. "The jars need boiling water to seal properly for the preservation to work or it will go bad." She glanced at her watch. "we can take a break. The jars will be sealed in a quarter of an hour." Mo Jinchen marked the time then shooed the women out so he could make dinner. He smelled the meat she was roasting and went to the stove. He spotted the forty jars set aside for the preserved meat and eggs. He made a light dinner and brought the simple chicken soup into the main hall for them to eat. He noticed that his father had arrived and was listening to Wen Rong tell him about the preserved food. Lin Yue sat beside Mo Jinchen's seat and smiled when he set the soup on the table. "If I preserve some of each food we grow, we can have food for the coming winter and we can save on expenses like meat."
Mo Jinchen thought this was a good idea because of the accounts he found in the brigade office. "We should encourage the other ladies in the brigade to learn this as well. Grain production is too low, we will have a very lean winter." Mo Long nodded. "We had an official arrested for stealing grain and produce. If we can encourage the ladies to learn this technique of preserved food then we will have a lot less starving people this winter." Lin Yue pulled a book from her skirt pocket. "I can write down the recipes for the brigade to have printed and given to the ladies who want to learn. But I will only teach them if they are willing." Mo Long nodded and looked at his son. "Have an announcement made tomorrow for one lady from each family meet at the brigade building for a meeting with your wife." Mo Jinchen agreed and summoned Feng Dai to spread the message to the families.
After finishing their dinner, Lin Yue went back into the kitchen the demonstrate how to slice the meat and put the slices in the jars. Then she poured the drippings from the pans over the respective meat for more flavor. She added a half of a jar of vinegar to each jar before sealing them. Wen Rong helped by processing the pork while Lin Yue handled the beef. Mo Jinchen came in and pulled the jars in the pot out and put another set in the pot sealing it again. This continued for several more hours until every jar was pressure cooked in the pot and set on a long table to cool before storing them on shelves that Mo Long built in the vegetable closet.
Mo Jinchen began heating up water for his wife. "Take a bath, then go to sleep. I plan to go up the mountain tomorrow. While you teach the ladies I will look for a specific gift." He thought of the wolf he saved his first week in the village. It was a black wolf with fierce blue eyes. The animal would sometimes wait for him at the entrance to the deeper forest.
He had saved the animal from a Hunter's trap and the wolf has been his companion in the woods ever since. Mo Jinchen filled the bath tub for Lin Yue and left two buckets to warm for her. She came in wearing a thin night dress and robe. "Husband, let's share the bath. It would save you work." Mo Jinchen didn't need any brains to know what his little wife had in mind.