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The day Jiang Cheng turned into a frog began as just another night hunt.
Working together with Nie Huaisang, the three of them, Jiang Yanli, Jiang Cheng, and Wei Wuxian, tracked the yaoguai to its lair in a cave, brought it down, and rummaged through the monster's nest in search of a potential source of curses or other dark energies.
Wei Wuxian was the one who found the artifact, discarded in a shadowy corner amidst a pile of other treasures: he studied it for a moment, then shrugged, flipped it across his fingers, tossed it in the air, caught it behind his back, and made Jiang Yanli and Nie Huaisang laugh by holding it up and mimicking the expression on the tiny wooden frog's face.
“What are you doing,” demanded Jiang Cheng, who was elbow deep in a mummified human torso and not in the best of moods.
“I found a thing! It’s a cute little frog figurine, Jiang Cheng. Look at its grumpy little mug! You know, it looks a bit like—“
“Stop screwing around,” Jiang Cheng snapped, surging over and snatching the thing out of Wei Wuxian’s hands. “It doesn't matter what it looks like, it could kill y—!”
There wasn’t a puff of smoke. There were no sparkles, not even a ‘pop’ or a ‘poof’ of in-rushing air.
One minute, Jiang Cheng: the next, a frog.
A very, very small frog.
Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian froze, eyes wide with horror.
Jiang Yanli bent, trembling, and picked it up with gentle fingers. “A-Cheng…?”
The frog emitted a high-pitched, angry squeak.
~*~
“A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli scolded, as they brought Jiang Cheng down the pier to their waiting parents, “you shouldn’t laugh, this isn’t funny!”
“I know, I know, Jiejie,” wheezed Wei Wuxian, stumbling, “it’s not funny, I swear I don’t think this is funny! It’s the hysteria setting in!! Our brother’s a frog!”
“Your brother’s a what,” snapped Madam Yu.
“Oh no,” said Jiang Fengmian.
“Wei Wuxian, what did you do?!" Madam Yu raged.
“Fucked around with a cursed artifact and turned Jiang Cheng into a frog,” Wei Wuxian said. Madam Yu stared at him in bafflement. “When I actually mess things up for him, which I definitely did this time, I think the right thing to do is admit my mistake,” he said patiently. "So we can move on and grow as people."
A chain of purple lightening picked him up and chucked him bodily into the lake.
“Mother,” squeaked Yanli, clutching her frog brother to her chest, as her other brother did a credible impression of a human-sized frog, spitting water. "Please be reasonable!"
“Reasonable?! Your idiot shidi turned your didi into a frog!! Don’t you have anything to say about this,” Madam Yu snarled, rounding on her husband. “Our son is a frog!”
Jiang Cheng the frog let out a long, flatulent squeak of outrage.
His parents froze.
“An embarrassing frog,” Madam Yu said slowly, stiff with rage herself. “A cut-rate, squeaky toy frog. Probably not even properly poisonous. Who's going to be intimidated by such a crappy frog?!”
“I’ll go consult the family records,” Jiang Fengmian said, carefully disentangling his robes from his wife’s fists. “A-Xian, A-Li, perhaps check the library? A-Yuan, you may want to, hm, go do some breathing exercises.”
Madam Yu’s eyes narrowed.
“He’s a perfectly fine frog, I’m sure,” Jiang Fengmian said, sounding as if the words had been squeezed from him.
As their mother pursued their father down the pier with her whip, shrieking, Jiang Yanli fished Wei Wuxian out of the lake, and they both looked down at Jiang Cheng, who squeaked up at them from Yanli’s palm.
“I suppose it’s up to us to fix this, then,” Yanli said mournfully. She looked up to see Wei Wuxian shaking, his hand over his face. “Oh, A-Xian, don’t cry, I’m sure A-Cheng doesn’t blame you…!”
“It’s not that,” gasped Wei Wuxian, bursting into giggles. “Look—at his little—frog butt! And his grouchy little face! Oh my gosh, Jiejie, how can he be so mad and so cute at the same time…”
“A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli said, gently but firmly, “please be serious, or I will put you back in the lake and call Meng Yao for help.”
~*~
Wei Wuxian sobered up quickly, and the two of them tore through the library together, only surfacing to bring Jiang Cheng some flies (which he turned his tiny snub nose at) and beetles (which he ate).
“Says here,” Wei Wuxian said, walking back and forth with a large, heavy, cloth-bound book in his arms, “that there’s sources from Daixi about curses turning people into frogs…and the cure is kissing them?”
Madam Yu chose that moment to come alight, next to the table where Jiang Cheng was perched with his lunch, and glare at her unwanted adopted son. “You must be joking.”
“We haven’t found anything else that would help, Mother,” Yanli said wearily. “We’ve been looking all morning. This is the best we’ve got.”
“Hm,” said Madam Yu, “well,” and leaned over and kissed Jiang Cheng on his little frog head.
Mother and son stared at one another. Nothing of interest happened.
“There,” Madam Yu said, “it doesn’t work! And don’t think I’m kissing you again while you’re like this,” she added to Jiang Cheng, who replied with a displeased squeak. “You taste like dirt and bugs.”
“A-niang,” Yanli said, reproachful, then scooped Jiang Cheng away from her. “Does it say who needs to kiss him, A-Xin?”
“Uh, some say ‘true love’,” Wei Wuxian mumbled, turning pages with his thumb. “Others say like…brotherhood? Princesses? It’s not very clear on the point.”
“Wonderful,” growled Madam Yu. “That's all completely useless!”
“Well, not completely! Like, it mentions brothers, so I’ll give it a try,” said Wei Wuxian, and bent over Yanli’s palm to peck his brother’s tiny head.
Thirty seconds of panicked screaming and five transformations later, Yanli kissed the very upset hammerhead shark that had once been her brother, and breathed a sigh of profound relief when he turned back into a harmless, displeased, tiny frog.
“What,” Madam Yu demanded, “was that?!”
“Um,” said Wei Wuxian. “Electric eel, blue-ringed octopus, some kind of BIG snake thing, a weird-looking shark, an even weirder-looking shark—“
“I meant the—“ Madam Yu managed to restrain herself with difficulty. “Alright,” she said stiffly, “so the kissing obviously does…something. Under certain circumstances. There must be somebody out there that he—knows, or something, who can change him back. It’s just a numbers game!”
“We’ll have to ask everyone we know,” Yanli decided.
“Don’t go running off yourself,” her mother ordered. “You have a newborn! Try your father and husband first, maybe some of the senior disciples…”
“Yes, A-niang,” Yanli said. Behind her mother’s back, Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes.
~*~
Jiang Fengmian’s perfunctory peck turned Jiang Cheng a bizarre shade of yellow and made him scream until Yanli kissed him again.
Jin Zixuan’s clumsy, puckered smooch while burping A-Ling had no visible effect.
“Weird,” said Wei Wuxian, taking notes. “We obviously need a bigger sample size.”
“We’re going to have to travel,” Yanli said. “A-Xuan, you’re sure you don’t mind looking after A-Ling?”
Jin Zixuan gave his wife a kiss that turned her into a happier, warmer wife. “Between me and the nurse, we’ll be fine. Go get your brother out of trouble,” he said softly.
~*~
“That peacock,” Wei Wuxian said, shaking his head, after they’d set off next morning, Jiang Cheng riding tucked between his collar and his shoulder with his eyes squeezed shut against the wind. “He’s been like a different person since he moved in with us. He’s a natural house-husband!”
“Jinlintai was hard on him,” Yanli demurred.
“He’s definitely happier being Jiejie's wife,” Wei Wuxian agreed solemnly. Jiang Cheng bit him on the collarbone and gave an outraged squeak. “Ow, what the hell?! I wasn't picking on him! He's a good wife!"
Squeak!
"Shut up! You don't get to have an opinion when you’re tiny and naked! Jiejie, A-Cheng bit me!”
“A-Xian, be patient with your brother, please, it's hard to be tiny and naked. Anyway, we’re almost at Nevernight.”
~*~
Wen Qing looked from the frog in her hands to Wei Wuxian. “Is this a prank,” she asked flatly. “If it is, fair warning, there will be needles in your future."
"Qing'r, is that any way to talk to your best mad science buddy?"
"They will go somewhere soft, unpleasant, and hard to extract.”
“We’re perfectly serious, Wen-guniang,” Jiang Yanli assured her.
Wei Wuxian reached out and chucked his frog brother under the chin. “And Jiang Cheng really likes you—ow, quit biting! Bastard—so we figured you were a good starting point!”
“Hm,” said Wen Qing, examining the frog. “He does?”
The frog, if possible, glared at Wei Wuxian even harder.
"Look at that cute little face,” Wei Wuxian said, changing the subject. “How can you resist?”
“Easily. He’s an extremely small frog with the buttocks of a tiny person,” Wen Qing said. “It’s...mildly disturbing, and very undignified, and your brother is a man of considerable dignity. You should put a little robe on him and give him a tiny sword. Perhaps a very small guan. At the very least, some pants.”
Squeak.
“See? He agrees with me.” She gave in and kissed his head gently, then frowned. “Ah, nothing. Oh, well.”
Jiang Cheng made a small, squeaky sound that was close cousin to a happy sigh.
“At least he calmed down,” Wei Wuxian observed. “Hey, is A-Ning free to smooch a frog, too?”
Wen Qing raised an eyebrow at him. "Why would my brother...?"
"You were our best shot," Wei Wuxian said. "Now we're gonna have to go through literally everybody Jiang Cheng knows."
"A numbers game," mused Wen Qing. "Hm. All right, it's worth a try."
~*~
“Sorry, Wei-gongzi,” Wen Ning said through swollen lips, as his worried retainers dabbed salve and ointment onto his puffy face. “Looks like I’m ‘llergic t’ frogs.”
“Looks like,” Wei Wuxian agreed gravely.
"Didn’t know you could be this ‘llergic to frogs,” Wen Ning slurred faintly. “Thank goodness for m’golden core, right, jiejie?”
“If you didn’t have one, you’d probably be dead,” Wen Qing agreed solemnly as she fed him a stream of healing qi.
Wei Wuxian abruptly brightened. “Or! Hey! You might just be allergic to cursed frogs. Or maybe just to Jiang Cheng. We should get some more frogs, like a couple dozen different ones, and…”
"You are forbidden from testing the extent of my brother's newly discovered frog allergy, Wei Wuxian,” Wen Qing said icily. "Focus on your brother, and let me take care of mine." She bowed to Jiang Yanli with courtesy. “Come back and visit any time, Jiang-guniang.”
“Hey,” Wei Wuxian protested, "I thought we were science buddies," but Yanli was already dragging him away.
~*~
Over breakfast at Lotus Pier, while Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian made preparations to fly out to Lanling, Madam Yu could be heard saying to her frog-son, “You brought this on yourself, you know.”
Squeak!
“Don’t talk to me like that! I am still your mother, frog or no frog!”
Eek!
“And don’t think this gets you out of getting married! I expect grand-tadpoles from you, young—man.”
SQUEAk!
“There’s no need to take that tone with me.”
~*~
Jiang Fengmian, who looked exhausted, nevertheless supplied his children with a bag of beetle larvae. “The merchants,” he said wearily, “are starting to ask some very pointed questions about my sudden interest in edible insects.”
“Don’t give up yet, Uncle,” Wei Wuxian assured him. “We’re not done, not by a long shot.”
“I wonder,” Jiang Fengmian mused, eyeing his glowering son-turned-frog, “if perhaps he’s being stubborn. Perhaps he wants to be a frog.”
Jiang Cheng hissed.
“…it was only a suggestion.”
“Thank you for the beetles, Father,” Yanli said, and kissed his cheek.
~*~
Before her advisors could stop her—before Wei Wuxian could even finish his explanation—Luo Qingyang picked up Jiang Cheng and smooched his froggy face, then squinted at him. "No dice, huh?"
She kissed him a couple more times, just to be sure. Each time, he contrived to look even more disgruntled than the last.
Finally, he let out a loud, indignant squeak.
“I think I like you better like this,” she informed him, and handed him back to his siblings. “He’s awfully cute. Does anyone have a handkerchief? My lips have a frog taste.”
“Luo-zongzhu,” an aggrieved advisor said. "Please refrain from intimacy with amphibians in the Fragrance Hall."
Luo Qingyang glared at him. “Are you going to tell me that kissing a frog is immodest, now? God forbid women do anything. Anyway, I’m married, if my husband objects to me kissing frogs, you can take that up with him.”
"If a frog bothers these geezers, imagine what they'd say if they knew you were kissing your husband's sister, Mianmian," Wei Wuxian mused, once the dispirited advisors had left the Fragrance Hall and the four of them, three humans plus a frog, were left alone.
Mianmian frowned. "You know, I swear, I think they know already? They care a lot less about what I actually do than what I do in public, in front of witnesses. And A-Su is the empress of discretion."
"It's a very Jin ethos," Jiang Yanli agreed, a little sadly.
"Right? Ugh. Remind me why I agreed to lead this sect?"
"A-Xuan hated doing it," Yanli recited placidly, "and it was either you or Jin Zixun, and Meng Yao didn't have the social capital to make a bid for leadership himself. Also, you are the best sect leader Jin has had in generations."
"I know," Mianmian grinned. "Anyway, if I start to fuck up, A-Yao has promised to stage a fake coup against me and set Jin Zixun up to take the fall. His idea of a warning shot."
"You two are adorable," Wei Wuxian cooed cheerfully. "Shame he's gay and you're...Mianmian."
"The heart wants what it wants," Mianmian sighed, stroking Jiang Cheng's tiny head. "He has his two big buff hotties; I have my precious little A-Su. We make it work. Oh, hey, you know, you should try him out? He and Jiang Cheng talk. Sometimes. Mostly about A-Ling and how cute he is, but still. Actual conversations!"
~*~
Meng Yao stared dubiously at the frog on his desk.
The frog stared back, equally dubious.
“I assure you, Wei-gongzi, Jiang-guniang,” he said eventually, “your brother and I do not have the kind of relationship where I would feel anything but the greatest reluctance at the prospect of kissing him, frog or no.”
Wei Wuxian laced his fingers behind his head, smiled, and waited.
Meng Yao’s eye twitched. “In fact, my reluctance is heightened due to the fact that he is a frog, and thus unable to express his opinion on the subject.”
Wei Wuxian beamed pleasantly at him.
“I have a great deal of work to do today,” Meng Yao hinted politely. “Due to the fact that I have recently been elected Chief Cultivator. A post which you, yourself, put me up to, Wei Wuxian. I’m sure you’ll have better luck elsewhere. Your brother tolerates my company because of our co-avuncular status. Perhaps you might try someone with whom he has a more genuine connection? The Nie brothers. Lan Xichen. The fish in the northwestern koi ponds, he feeds them sometimes...”
“Sorry to have disturbed you,” Jiang Yanli said, pulling Wei Wuxian away, disgruntled frog in hand.
"You can't possibly be that busy," Wei Wuxian complained loudly from the doorway. "It's just a little smooch!"
"No means no, Wei Wuxian," said Meng Yao blandly. "Good day. Jiang-guniang, please come back and visit anytime."
~*~
Lan Xichen obligingly pecked Jiang Cheng’s tiny frog head. There was no effect. He stepped aside and gestured to his brother. “Your turn.”
Lan Wangji stared at Jiang Cheng in Wei Wuxian’s hand, then at Wei Wuxian. “No,” he said flatly.
Wei Wuxian’s eyes, somehow, got bigger. “Lan Zhan.”
“Wei Ying.”
“Lan Zhan.” He batted his lashes. “Please? For me?”
Lan Zhan eventually crumbled and gave in.
The moment his lips touched Jiang Cheng, the outraged frog swelled to ten times its previous mass and began to emit a distressing smell.
Yanli kissed him back to normal, but not fast enough to save Lan Wangji’s sleeves.
Lan Wangji studied the black gunk staining his robes, then turned a reproachful look on Wei Wuxian.
“Sorry, sorry,” Wei Wuxian said fervently. “Ah, lemme help you wash your clothes? I made this new laundry talisman that--”
"No,” said Lan Xichen and Jiang Yanli, firm and simultaneous. They both knew all too well where that would lead.
~*~
Nobody thought to ask Lan Qiren.
~ *~
Nie Huaisang had no effect.
Nie Mingjue’s kiss gave Jiang Cheng a very tiny, froggy mustache.
As Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang leaned on each other and cried with laughter, Jiang Yanli and Nie Mingjue examined the end result.
“It’s rather dashing, I think,” Jiang Yanli said finally. “Would you like to keep it, A-Cheng?”
Jiang Cheng chirped. He looked displeased, but that might have just been his face.
~*~
“Occasional night hunts together is hardly the stuff of curse-breaking,” said Song Lan dubiously.
Jiang Yanli sighed. “A-Cheng doesn’t get out much. He’s very focused on his family and sect.”
“Not a social butterfly,” Xiao Xingchen agreed sympathetically. Then he looked up. “A-Yang, what are you doing?”
Wei Wuxian, who’d taken his eyes off Jiang Cheng for ten seconds, looked over in time to see Xue Yang giving his brother, a frog, a big, sloppy lick, while holding him in his clenched fist and making offensive direct eye contact with the party.
Song Lan and Wei Wuxian lunged for Xue Yang at the same time, over Jiang Cheng’s ear-splitting squeal of fury; both men hit him at the same time, knocking him over, sending the frog flying, and forcing Xiao Xingchen and Jiang Yanli to try and simultaneously catch Jiang Cheng in mid-air, which led to them tripping over each other and falling into a ditch.
Attracted by Jiang Cheng’s enraged squeaks and Xue Yang’s raucous laughter, A-Qing left the roadside stand where she’d been buying dried foodstuffs, came over to stare, and then heaved a hefty sigh. “Unbelievable, daozhangs. I really can’t leave you alone for one minute, can I?”
“It’s Xue Yang’s fault,” accused Wei Wuxian.
“It almost always is,” muttered Song Lan.
"Excuse you," Xue Yang said from under a pile of black-robed, pointy elbowed cultivators, "not almost."
"Just throw him in the ditch again, where he belongs," A-Qing suggested. As an afterthought, she helped Jiang Yanli and Xiao Xingchen up, and wiped Jiang Cheng off on her sleeve before giving the frog a perfunctory kiss. "Oh, ew, he's still sticky. Xue Yang, did you lick him after eating candy?"
"Maybe."
Jiang Yanli clasped Jiang Cheng against her shoulder and gave Xue Yang a look of open outrage.
Xue Yang had the decency to pretend to be ashamed for about two seconds. "Okay, but, not on purpose?"
"We really can't take you anywhere," Xiao Xingchen said fondly. "Ah, give Wanyin to me, please, I'll give it a try."
~*~
Jiang Yanli sat beside Jin Ling’s cradle, drying her hair as she frowned over Wei Wuxian’s notes. “There must be something we missed here. Sect Leader Yao…?”
Next to her hand, stationed on sleepy little Jin Ling’s blanket in his cradle, Jiang Cheng gave a piercing squeak.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”
“As hilarious as this has been,” Wei Wuxian said sternly to Jiang Cheng, “and as adorable as you are with your little naked person butt and squeaks and grumpy face, you’re a lot more fun as my shidi. Would you mind unclenching and letting somebody’s smooch game fix your problem? Please?!”
“I don’t think it works like that, A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli said as her husband drifted past, and then:
“A-Li, stop him!”
“Wha—Jin Ling, no,” Yanli cried, but it was too late: Jin Ling had done what babies did, and put the interesting new object in reach—his uncle, now a frog—into his mouth.
This time, there was a pop, and a puff of fast-fading smoke.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Wei Wuxian said gleefully.
Braced over Jin Ling’s cradle, restored to as he had been during the night hunt, his nephew chewing on his nose, Jiang Cheng gritted out, very quietly, “Not. One. Goddamn. Word, out of you, Wei Wuxian.”
“How about ‘welcome back’?”
“Two words,” Jiang Cheng muttered. “That’s two legs I’m gonna break. Yours, just so we’re clear.”
Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan wrapped themselves around him, Yanli crying with relief. After an interval to ensure it was safe, Wei Wuxian joined them.
~*~
Jiang Cheng refused to acknowledge the events of his time as a frog, and pretended they did not occur with such obstinate fervor that the people involved decided among themselves never to raise the issue in public.
With two exceptions.
First, the next time he encountered Xue Yang, the two got into a fist-fight, much to Xue Yang’s delight.
Second, he visited Nevernight with an apology gift for Wen Qing, which led to an awkward confession, which led to another kiss. Wen Qing pronounced it a much more pleasant experience kissing Jiang Cheng when he was not a frog, and he left in much improved spirits.
(“Oh, so Qingqing gets an apology gift and I get a 'don't worry about it',” Luo Qingyang complained to her girlfriend and husband over dinner some days later. “I see how it is. See if I kiss Jiang Wanyin the next time he turns into a frog!”
Qin Su looked up from her tea with a frown. “When was Jiang Wanyin a frog?”
“Don’t worry about it, A-Su,” Meng Yao said gently.
Qin Su pouted. "If he turns into a frog again, I want to know about it. Did you kiss him, gege?"
"Absolutely not."
"I kissed him five times," Mianmian informed her, grinning.
Qin Su's pout intensified, her eyes becoming enormous. "You had better recompense me with three times as many."
Meng Yao hid his grin behind his hand. His little sister, it seemed, was picking up some of his tricks and using them on her girlfriend. Luo Qingyang's ears had gone a fetching shade of red.
They passed the rest of their dinner in peace, until Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue’s arrival, and parted amiably, as they did on such nights, Qin Su and Mianmian to her rooms, Meng Yao and his sworn brothers to his.)
Jiang Cheng also spent a good deal more time hugging his sister, and, after some minor misgivings resolved, his brother-in-law. He did not in fact break Wei Wuxian’s legs, and eventually forgave him for his mirth at his expense, after pushing him in the lake a few times as punishment.
Wei Wuxian did not learn his lesson and continued to take too many risks on night hunts; he only stopped after Lan Wangji married him and, unfairly in Wei Wuxian’s opinion, threatened to stop kissing him entirely if he didn’t take his own well being to heart.
~*~
Jiang Fengmian seemed to have decided that he had not quite stepped up to the plate as a father during his son's amphibian phase. As always, this realization changed his behavior very little; however, he did go out of his way, occasionally, to kiss the top of Jiang Cheng's head in passing.
After carefully checking to make sure their father hadn't been possessed, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng agreed that this was his way of saying sorry.
"It's weird," Jiang Cheng muttered, the third time it happened. "I'm a grown man. He hasn't kissed my head since I was six."
Wei Wuxian shrugged. "No time like the present, I guess?"
Jiang Cheng grumbled, but that was all he did.
~*~
"I would still love you," Yu Ziyuan said one night, after dinner, when it was just the two of them, "even if you had stayed a sad, squeaky frog."
Jiang Cheng coughed. "Less than you would if I was a person."
"A little," she agreed. "Yes. But...not that much less." A long pause. "You're a much better conversationalist this way."
"Wow, thanks," said Jiang Cheng.
~*~
Jiang Cheng spent the days after he de-frogged carrying Jin Ling around Lotus Pier and Carp Tower whenever he could, pointing out interesting sights and sounds, 'flying' him over the ponds and lake, and bouncing him on his knee as they watched the fish swim by.
“You’re my favorite,” he told his nephew quietly. “But don’t ever put my head in your mouth again, okay?”
“Ba,” Jin Ling agreed solemnly, and patted his uncle’s hand.