Qi Zhen was very salty, and very aggrieved. Dude's been in the middle of court drama all his life, and then the one who he finally could let his guard down with and love got assassinated. Worse, his enemies (aka everyone else in the palace) sent countless fools and actors to try and get under his skin. Dude's had it rough. Then the fool he put on the throne as puppet emperor starts acting weird, so he suspects it's another play... So Qi Zhen plans to scare him. But then turns out it's actually his darling, somehow. Why hide? Why leave? Why lie? Qi Zhen isn't very emotionally mature, but he does grow. Then again, Lin Yan isn't emotionally mature either. Qi Zhen doesn't care that Lin Yan's innocence was an act, but he's afraid of what else could have been an act too. He's a little confused, a little lost, and still very much in pain and afraid that his darling will leave him again. Pretty unhealthy, yes. But they get a happy ending together as a stupid couple and they're super lovey-dovey and cuddly and sickeningly in-love. Twice over.
Chapter 48 is so sudden. MC literally tells ML that his wife (aka him) says to move on and forget him, but he does like him. So why is ML suddenly saying MC played with his feelings and never liked him? He also told ML he came back for ML when he was drunk and wrote that he wished for ML’s wellbeing on the plaque, so I don’t get why ML suddenly turned all dark when he said he didn’t care that MC’s innocence was an act.