I wanna say this is worth reading even if it regressed into subtext, for how cute it is, but I despise the idea that she was forced to dial it back because of government interference. May it consume me as much as it will, it changes nothing.
Hopefully Tanjiu can give her vision form in a careful manner.
Woah, hey, a plotline may have been dropped, but it is -not- subtext. They've been repeatedly shown that they end up living together, and the most recent storyline made reference to them dating, had QT hop in SJ's lap, involved them sharing their second kiss, and had Sun Jing explicitly refer to herself as Qiu Tong's girlfriend.
Even this latest strip, while not explicitly romantic, speaks to the importance SJ holds to QT.
Their relationship is text, and there's no sign that Tan Jiu has backed off on that.
The theory that matches the fact pattern is that she ditched the sad storyline because life was depressing, not that she's censored the story itself. Unless you have another source of info that I haven't seen.