After holding back for a day, Liu Cheng learned from Xie Xuan the next day why white deer were taboo for the Huan brothers.
As it turned out, Huan Yi's father Huan Jing was unlike his cousin Huan Xuan, who had the image of a loyal minister and fine general. He was a nailed-down case of a "slanderous sycophant," who had become Danyang Governor by pandering to Wang Dao without restraint. While he was alive, people had denounced him by name as a petty flatterer right in front of Wang Dao.
One of his most famous performances had been presenting an auspicious omen to those above: he had caught a white deer and sent it up.
It was easy enough to imagine that he might have done Wang Dao's dirty work, and Wang Dao, one of the clearest-headed politicians around, certainly would not have treated such men poorly.
But once he had taken on that work, its impact and consequences within aristocratic circles were equally easy to imagine. Especially after Wang Dao died, his elder cousin Huan Xuan died, and he himself died, all he could really count on was the Langya Wang Clan someday remembering the white deer he had presented and letting a little something trickle down to his children.
Except that now even the Langya Wang Clan's own descendants had to pool resources and trade favors for a post as Langya Interior Minister. How could they spare another share for the child of a former running dog?
Hence Wang Huzhi's recommendation.
But it had to be said that he really was an excellent fit: a fellow native of the same county, from a family that had once made it onto the public stage, and even a distant kinsman of Huan Wen's if one went back five hundred