Chapter 23: The Atavism Project

So, what should I go and do then?
Douglas asked this.
Su Ziye did not know how to answer.
As a member of the First Light Clan and the Seventh Prince of the Starr Empire, he naturally had some understanding of this history. However, he truly had no idea that the Xia once had such a powerful external backup like Douglas.
If the Xia could genuinely play this trump card, victory would almost certainly be within his grasp.
"Therefore, I naturally had to find something for myself to do," Douglas continued.
"For instance, creating the true Alaya-vijnana."
"How?" Su Ziye could not help feeling a bit curious.
"To create the true Alaya-vijnana, one first needs pure-blooded descendants of the Vijnana Clan. On this point, even I did not reach the standard of pure blood," Douglas continued. "And if one wants to create pure blood, there is only one method now: ensuring endogamy within the clan."
Su Ziye did not speak.
He knew that endogamy could indeed ensure the purity of the bloodline, but the most crucial problem for the Crawfords was that their bloodline itself had already been diluted and polluted. Relying solely on internal clan marriage might eventually reshape the ancient bloodline, but it would likely take a very long time.
Perhaps a few hundred years, or a few thousand years.
"I tried for about fifty years, but found that the results were negligible. My lifespan is limited, and I simply cannot afford to wait for the ultimate birth of the Alaya-vijnana. If I want to accelerate the progress, there is only one way," Douglas said, looking at Su Ziye.
Su Ziye also thought of that method.
"Consanguineous marriage."
"Yes, that is the method," Douglas nodded and said. "I hesitated for a long time, but ultimately decided to do it."
"After all, my time really is running out."

"Among the family members at the time, my bloodline was considered the most pure. Therefore, I served as the initial paternal ancestor. After selecting ten female family members with relatively pure bloodlines, I fathered the earliest first generation with them."
Douglas calmly narrated his decision and his actions, showing neither shame nor glory.
"Next, these first-generation members intermarried and procreated, allowing us to obtain subsequent generations with even purer bloodlines."
"At the very beginning, these children of mine did not show much resistance toward me, because they all knew they were making a great sacrifice for that lofty goal. The hardships our ethnic group had suffered for thousands of years would completely vanish the moment the Alaya-vijnana was born, welcoming a brand-new future."
"However, as this intermarriage continued, the voices resisting me grew louder and louder. I was forced to start killing to suppress them," Douglas continued. "Moreover, due to the pollution of commoner blood, by the middle stage of the experiment—or rather, starting from the fifth generation of children—the proportion of congenital malformations and disabilities became higher and higher."
"There is also another point that was my fault," Douglas sighed.
"As for the initial children, as their father and grandfather, I could still feel some familial affection and love for them. But as the bloodline extended further, when the fourth, fifth, and even sixth generations were born, I no longer had much emotional fluctuation in my heart for those newly born lives. To me, they were almost no different from laboratory mice."
"Even though those later children all called me grandfather, we perhaps already had a generational gap of six, seven, or even more generations."
"I was also getting closer and closer to death, and the reason I was unwilling to die was simply because I wanted to witness the birth of the Alaya-vijnana with my own eyes."
"Then, was it finally born?" Su Ziye asked.
Although he was somewhat shocked and incredulous, what he felt more was a sense of nausea.
With his formidable strength and terrifying prestige, Douglas controlled his descendants generation after generation to engage in close-relative marriages with the attitude of a tyrannical dictator. Brothers and sisters, sisters and brothers, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons—these original close relatives violating ethical boundaries combined to give birth to descendants whose bloodlines might be more concentrated, but who were malformed and disabled.
Although he could understand it, he did not believe what Douglas had done was right.
"I don't know," Douglas smiled, though his smile was slightly desolate. "Yilan Shan was one of those children."
Su Ziye took half a step back in shock.
He had not expected this.
"He is my ninth-generation descendant, born with severe flaws. To put it accurately, he had a male body with female facial features and lacked the ability to reproduce," Douglas said calmly. "Such a defective product served no purpose in my plan, so he suffered a lot of hardship within the family and ultimately chose to flee the family and enroll in the academy."

"Yet now he has grown stronger and stronger, to the point of surpassing all my other descendants."
"So, is Yilan Shan the Alaya-vijnana?" Su Ziye asked.
He had long recognized Yilan Shan's strength, and what was most formidable about that man was not his raw power, but his infallible calculations and flawless strategies.
From this perspective, Yilan Shan might truly be the Alaya-vijnana.
However, Douglas shook his head: "The Alaya-vijnana will never be a defective product like Yilan Shan. Although he reached or even surpassed the heights that the pure-blooded Vijnana Clan could achieve back then, he still will not be the Alaya-vijnana."
"If Yilan Shan is not it, then who on earth is it?" Su Ziye could not help asking.
Now that he knew what the Alaya-vijnana was, the second question immediately followed.
Who on earth was the Alaya-vijnana?
Douglas did not answer this question immediately, but instead looked at Su Ziye: "Over the past hundred years or so, I have grown closer and closer to death, and my management of the family's ordinary affairs has become less and less."
"Coincidentally, the children born under the Alaya-vijnana project have also become increasingly outstanding and brilliant, almost reaching the standards of the ancient pure-blooded Vijnana Clan. I handed over most of the family's affairs to them."
"If I am not mistaken, the masters behind all multinational chambers of commerce, including the Flash Gold Chamber of Commerce, are the Crawford family, right?" Su Ziye asked.
Douglas smiled: "His Royal Highness the Prince shouldn't still be harboring resentment over that incident, should he? The Crawford family has intricate connections with the Starr Empire. When the other party came holding the token of Emperor Qingli to demand we do that, we had simply no room for refusal."
Douglas was referring to the incident where the Flash Gold Chamber of Commerce suddenly launched a substitute for Happy Water to counterattack Su Ziye.
Su Ziye smiled calmly and said, "I don't care about that matter."
"What I care about is—why this city has begun launching attacks against the Dark Star."