Ti02

Xie Zheng kissed her forcefully once. They have kept it in the drama, I saw reuters video. But except that instance, he was always good to her. He was possessive, but there was no controlling nature or anything.

I know, I have read the novel. Its just people who have not read the novel, don't know anything about him, so for now because I did not add a spoiler tag to it, I said complicated grey, because as per the previews released, people can expect that. Let people imagine for a while what kind of person he is.

I suspected Deng Kai's character to be a villain in The Wanted Detective, for 20 episodes, and he wasn't. That was such a let down for me.
So I am glad he is complicated grey character here. Also so hot with his white hair.

Its moving, but there are many changes. Like the main plot remains the same, but there are changes in few subplots. Few characters have been introduced way too early, few characters have been little altered, and few scenes are cut.
Again it was a long novel, they have to make additional changes to it in order to fit it in 40 episodes.

Its her ex husband, father of her son. He was possessive, complicated as a man.

In the novel, their separation, and ML's going to the war had nothing to do with the identity reveal. They also spent time after their reunion, then the identity reveal happened. The problem due to the identity wasn't as huge, they cope with it, the identity of FL plays a huge role.
But that was in the novel, drama has already made few changes. Its possible that their initial separation is due to the identity reveal, like because its just 40 episodes, they might combine 2 problems in the novel into 1.
Also he doesn't tell her the truth about his identity, she realizes on her own.
As per previews released, its not clear when they will do it, because they have brought changes to it, but according to airing calendar there is a heartbreak sign in ep 16-17, so maybe then.

When his friend asked him if he fell for FL, he said if you were in my situation, dealing with revenge, palace politics, national issues, would you have fell for someone. So he denied. But yes as you said, that means if these issues were not part of his life, he would have.
He still has fell for her, he has just not admitted it outrightly. Because actions speaks louder than words. But your initial question was the exact moment where he becomes self aware and admits to himself about his feelings, no such scene is shown till the ending of ep 9.

Till ep 9, there has not been such a moment, where he accepts it himself, verbally. His friend, he, even as audience we can understand his feelings, but he has not admitted it himself till now.

No no its not at all hard. They were never really close, ML already suspects him. He was never happy in that house. At least it was like this in the novel.

Someone in X said, the leads have failed their fake marriage! Lol.
(Like now its the real one)

Her father initially a servant bought by Wei family later trained as an assassin served in the army under ML's father. Her mother Meng Lihua was the daughter of General Meng Shuyuan who also served under ML's father. Prefect He Jingyuan shown in ep 9, the old man, he was a comrade of FL's father, they fought together.
Wei Family children were ML's mother and PM Wei, they were siblings.

Does Li have a student? I think you are confusing him with Gongsun Yin, ML's friend. Yin is the master of an academy and his student looked at him lovingly. Li is the guy who gave lift to FL when she was injured after a wolf attack. Or am I wrong?

Its sadly not. Its very similar though.

Fingers crossed!

You're welcome!

FL dubbed her own, Linghe is dubbed by some one else. Its mentioned under cast list, even in the post credit scenes, even by his fanclubs.

In the novel, there were separations, yes plural, but none of them were very bad, okay the last one made me cry. But the point it, none of them were too long. Also felt kind of necessary for the plot. But the way they talk and makeup, is nice. So if they follow the novel about the separations, its okay its bearable.

Also I had written a comment previously. It doesn't have spoilers as such, it only has data given to us in the 9 episodes. Its about all the characters mentioned lately and their relationships. So you can just check this out, if it helps-
https://kisskh.at/760409-zhu-yu#comment-25332624

As you have seen till ep 9, then you know that there is a 16 year old case of ML's family. So yes, what happened there, what lead to that, aftermath, consequences, now different factions of people doing things for their benefits, leads, their identity, everything is there. We have lot of war scenes, after the village, but ultimately everything is related to the palace politics.
There are still people left to be introduced, in fact very important ones. So yeah these days you have to carefully watch the episodes, maybe slowly it will be cleared to you.

You can check the airing calendar released in any social media platform. Till 15th March, we have 2 episodes per day. From 16th to 21st we have 1 episode each day. On 21st and 22nd March, we have 2 episodes each. But from 23rd March we have 1 episode again, till it ends on 30th March. Express schedule not announced till yet but maybe its on 26th or 27th March. Even with express, we have at least 10 days in total having 1 episode each.