At 14 years of age, Bai Zou joined the army to be a butcher after his father had passed. He had two younger siblings and a sick mother who had been injured in one of the many beast tides that hit the area.
At such a young age, he quickly grew in repute because of how meticulous he was in processing the spirit beast's body, and not only that he had shown to have an almost genius level aptitude for cultivation.
At 16 years he had already broken through to the foundation establishment realm and had blue grade pillars to boot.
The royal family quickly used its scant resources to help nurture him and even offered to move him and his family to the capital and have his post changed from a butcher.
While Bai Zou did agree to have his family move, he wanted to remain as a butcher. It was during that period that he started his cooking. He'd clean damaged carcasses and parts that were unwanted and make a few meat dishes from them.