@Hobnobs I don't think I'm reading too far into this, I'm just bothered by the narrative and my explanation is undoubtedly a little long-winded which makes it seem like I'm reading way too deeply into something that, frankly, doesn't deserve it. In any case, it is fun to analyze a piece of art, perhaps, beyond its intention.
There are many yaoi and yuri archetypes and despite not reading very much of the genre, I can point a couple of them out. One of them is that the there is some semblance of a love triangle or obstacle to the fruition of the MCs' pastoral love. The obstacle mostly serves as a metaphor for the societal reservations towards homosexual love. It's a modern sentiment, these yaoi yuri narratives. Logically, beyond the influences of religion of which a majority of China and Japan don't follow under Christian denomination, the only apt response to homosexuality is that it's unnatural, like square pegs in round holes.
I think the most progressive components of this manga/comic is that none of the characters appear to parallel this sentiment. They're unrelentingly and confidently apathetic, as though it were a normal thing. The yaoi subtext echos this theme, there's never a question of incompatibility that normal logical hetero relationships have. They're straight-forward and they don't play the exhausted pursuit. This comic excels in this aspect. They deal with it in a different novel way and, in addition to having interesting and intriguing characters, it's provocative.
Another is that the two character's characteristics compliment one another, as opposed to be in direct opposition such as the popular tsundere archetype in Hetero narratives. The way this manifests is in two ways; either they're both similar in personality with one being a more pronounced variant of the first or they're driven by intense physical lust (its similar to the first but the complementary feature exists in viscerality).
Sun Jing's personality no longer compliments Qi Fang's in a consistent way. Their relationship starts off like that. When they first meet, they're both really excited, ecstatic, and inexperienced; they compliment each other well. However, as the story progresses, Sun Jing forgoes this character trait. All of a sudden, she's stoic, self-assured, and confident. It's not merely the physical features of Sun Jing, though that is an issue. She loses the female form in both psychology and tangibility. They compliment each other in the terms of a hetero relationship.
