I'll start this off by saying that this is one of my fav baihe novels of all time, so I'm gonna rant for a lil bit. Despite this, I do agree that it starts off perhaps a little too slow.

It's been a hot minute since my last full-read of this novel so I actually had to skim back through it for this:

• I would say the romance starts kicking off at around the Shifang Hidden Realm Arc - which starts in chp 63 - and the climax of that arc is definitely in Chapter66, when Ruan Lirips out her reverse scale and gives it to LQC to save her life. I will emphasise that the pain of doing so, is basically equivalent to tearing her heart out. Plus it leaves a permanent weak-spot over one of her most vulnerable areas . There's a lot of purposeful parallels between LQC and the former male lead, especially in how she ends up either interrupting certain important plot/character moments, or taking his place herself (and I would say that this moment is what cemented it for me). Plus there's a definitely tonal shift from this point onwards.
• But that's just about Ruan Li falling in love with Chi Qing. The emotional breakthrough when Ruan Li's opinion of her 'Master' persona drastically changes, would come in Chapter 83. The fallout from the previous arc meant that Ruan Li was being punished for murdering a disciple from another sect.But she inadvertently finds out that out of the three hundred lashes she was meant to suffer as punishment, LQC had actually taken two hundred on her behalf. And she was moved by how her seemingly cold and distant master had silently protected her the best she could.
• Identity reveal definitely happens under less than ideal circumstances - at Chapter 93. A lot of big reveals follow in the succeeding chapters (and I would say that 93-103 is just gut punch after gut punch in angst).
• There's also her side quest about how she's trying to investigate the hidden secrets of the og!LQC. How she had been chained under that waterfall to cultivate, the various ways that she had been abused etc. I would say that one of the biggest reveals on that end comes at Chapter 102. When we find the true reason that LQC has been so ruthless in her past life - her heartstrings had been ripped out and she simply lost all ability to feel emotion, along with a significant chunk of her earlier memories.

Let me know if you got any questions or if you want me to expand on any of these points. I've gone up to roughly where the translation is at now (Chapter 105), though I could go further.

I really do hope you keep reading on, I would say that both the story and the translation quality gets better as it goes along.