I love that Bai Yu and Zhu Yilong read the novel to prepare for their roles. And I love that they so clearly conveyed the romantic underpinnings in their characters' relationship through body language and facial expressions. They may not have been able to say it explicitly but they didn't have to.

And it also feels that with fic you can try things out that you're not 100% convinced are absolutely right or the only true answer, but because it's fic there's always the what if...?. I feel a lot of meta discussion draw much harder lines? People there share what they feel actually happened or what things actually mean, whereas again, in fic it's just one possibility?

Yes, this 100%. And you can explore different possibilities in different fics, you don't have to completely commit to one explanation.