I came across this journal article, a comparative review of 3K Workers and 穿进赛博游戏后干掉BOSS成功上位 (After Transmigrating into the Cyber Game, I Defeated the Boss and Successfully Rose to the Top @ novelupdates), which discusses the evolution in depiction of female characters' moral norms within a yanqing context from Qiong Yao to Legend of Zhen Huan etc. and how these two novels, while nominally yanqing, have protags reconstructing moral norms within narratives that are essentially divorced from romance. It doesn't address baihe at all, and I can't say I agree with everything the author's saying (I haven't read that widely in the relevant genres), but it's interesting food for thought!

Read some stories that ranged from "meh ok forgettable" to "hilarious black comedy BUT with a glaring issue that totally ruined the 2nd half" /SIGH; I've also been reading bits and pieces of 世说新语/A New Account of Tales of the World in the original CN vs. EN tl... for ficcing purposes XD