I think I can talk for short segments now... Although now that it's winter in China, there's a lot(!) of noise outside my window. I think it's from people's heating, but I'm not sure...
To listen while using other apps, switch the player to Picture-in-Picture (PiP) during playback — it keeps playing in a small floating window (the screen stays on).
To listen with the screen fully off, in-browser playback stops by YouTube's design. Open the video in the YouTube app to keep listening where background playback is supported (e.g. with YouTube Premium).
Open in YouTube app