La Gata

For that you need to use the irony emoji, otherwise it's impossible to tell.

I know 3 modern languages and understand 2 more, plus 2 ancient ones. Sometimes I think or say something and my immediate reaction is 'where did that come from?' But, hey, I also understand and sometimes speak Felinish (that's my cat's language), so I no longer care. 😹

No problem, I suspect a few of us are dealing with several languages. 😄

'I'll make it clear - 1) the drama is following te novel exactly no plot changes'

In the novel Shen Run and Xie Qingyuan don't even meet as children, they only meet for the first time after she's back living in the Xie house again. There are no 'childhood promise' and 'copper penny' tropes, all that has been added on the drama.
In the novel Xie Qingyuan is 14 when she arrives at the Xie house. In the drama she's been aged up to her early 20s in order to make the romance acceptable, as Shen Rui is 26 in both.
Chunzi also has different endings in the novel and the drama.
There are other differences in dynamics and plot focus, but I think it's already clear the drama doesn't follow the novel exactly.

A commissioner of multiple areas is still a commissioner. Not the Prime Minister, not the Minister of Finances, at least not in the drama.

From Google search: 'No, Hu Xing is not the Minister of Finance. The official in charge of managing national funds, taxes, and expenditures is the male lead, Shen Run, who serves as the prominent Minister in the imperial court.'

I trust yo have watched ep 24 where Shen Run calls Hun 'a mere commissioner' in the wedding hall in front of everybody, so if you disagree you are welcome to take it up with him. Jokes aside, Hu is undoubtedly a very powerful man, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to corrupt so many officials and build such a tight and widespread network of corruption under him. He also has power over some key military factions, which makes him very dangerous for obvious reasons, so we are in agreement on this.

I just searched the Xien Yu/Xien Shu issue and here you have the answer:

In the original web novel Yi Ou Chun (一瓯春), his name is Xie Shu (谢纾). The confusion comes from the live-action drama adaptation, Spring of the Blade. In the television series adaptation, his name was changed to Xie Yu (played by actor Fu Dalong).
To summarize:
In the Novel: Xie Shu (谢纾)
In the Drama: Xie Yu (谢纾 / 谢羽 depending on the script localization, but listed officially as Xie Yu)

I wrote Xie Yu because that's how it's spelled in the cast list on this MDL page. I thought it might be a mistake but wasn't sure, so just went along with it. I trust we both know whom I was referring to.
We are mostly in agreement except on the minister issue. Shen Run calling Hu, quote, 'a mere commissioner' in front of everyone at the wedding makes me think he's not portrayed as a minister in the drama regardless of his position in the novel.
You previously wrote that commissioner Hu was backed by Xien Shun, which is why I commented it is the other way around. Everything else in your post is also as I see it.

Mama Chen goes away to get their bed ready in the evening. Next thing is they are weeding the Shen mansion in the morning. In their wedding attire, no less.

So, did they have their wedding night or are they still wearing their wedding robes to let us know they didn't? And if not, why not? Did Shen Run spend the night burning paper with his perma-furious brother? What's going on here 🧐?

Calling someone 'unable to see' is impolite. It shows dismissiveness. It looks like you are the 'unable to see' one here. I'll leave it at that.

I do not lack the ability or acumen to notice other indicators, I simply prefer making up my own mind and stating my own opinion. I could also say you may likewise be focused on your 'other indicators', none of which are conclusive to me, and be unable to see the all telling camera work, but I won't because it's a dismissive way to put it.

I have already said you may be right, I have left that possibility open. I'm being polite here, you could try to do the same. It usually works well.

Agree on both counts. I like the marquis, he's a good guy. Comments on this forum are banging the Hu, Xie and Li families together as a corrupt bunch, but that's not the case. While the Hu and Xie are villains, the Li is a good family. The Marquis is an honest commander who tried to improve his army's conditions and pay, but his petition to the emperor ended up on corrupt Hu's desk. His wife 's only fault is being too doting on her son and perhaps easy to influence. The son is a good at heart mamma's boy.

As for Xie Shu, I also want to look up the actor, he's absolutely nailing his role.

Again, he could have moved aside after the fait accompli. The conversation about waiting for him or not could have taken place on either scenario.

She could have decided to sleep with him before marrying the other guy precisely because that may have been the last time they were together. About him not wanting to take advantage of her while she was drunk, that's a good point. On the other hand, he may not be that bothered because he already had the emperor's decree.

That scene is badly filmed and even worse edited, so I'll just keep an open mind.

We also saw him pulling away, but was this meant to have happened before or after the deed? We all know cdramas never show the actual scene, they only suggest it via fade out/in. In this case it looked to me like the camera work indicating the time lapse was there, but the editing of that scene is infernal, so it could be either.

It was so clear..., to you. That doesn't mean you are wrong, you may be right, but it is ambiguous at best. The camera work did indicate that time lapse. I think what is confusing is the atrocious editing, that whole scene seems to have been edited with a rusty hatchet.

No, the condition for using the edict is not discussed in the wedding episode. Please put a spoiler mark on it if you post it, I want to find out by myself.

I'm going with the camera work, the all telling fading out when they lie down in bed and then fading in again when he's pulling her clothes back on her, indicating the lapse of time needed to do the deed.

Afterwards he tells her to wait for him to do what he needs to do and then he'll come back to her, which has no bearing on whether they went all the way or not. What makes you so sure they didn't?.

You could be right, it was ambiguous at best. The bts would show him pulling away in any case, wouldn't they? 😂

If commissioner Hu had used the marquis soldiers against the imperial guards that would have been an act of rebellion against the emperor, I would think.

I found the first 3 eps slow and uninteresting, then it got better up to ep 20. I almost dropped it after 26, but then it picked up again and now I have watched 37 eps and want to see how it finishes. I do find it very overrated, but I'm still enjoying it.

I love Xie Shu's ever so subtle comedy details. After the emperor's decree is read, he leisurely rolls up his patriarch's fan of command: His authority is out of the window. He then calmly gestures to the marquis that they should all shush. 😂😂😂

His comedic timing is perfect, brilliantly played. I know he's a villain, but he cracks me up 😂.

It looked to me like he left after everything happened. The camera did the all telling 'pan out' and then 'open again', indicating a period of time had passed between them in bed and him leaving.