After looking at the place where the lady disappeared for a few seconds, Pacheco turned his head and said to Barton:

"Let's go back to the Foundation."

"Not going to the suburbs?" Barton asked subconsciously.

Pacheco said with a smile:

“Didn’t you already give the bottle away?

“There’s no need to go to the suburbs anymore.

“Maybe his real purpose is to get us to hand over the bottle to the lady from the Tamara family, and everything he said before was a lie.

"Of course, this has nothing to do with us. No one will be innocent in the future, no matter who lives or dies. We just need to do some monitoring to prevent their fight from affecting ordinary people. This will be handled by the police, not the responsibility of the Foundation and the Compliance Department."

Vernal didn't look like he was in a condition to pull off a trick of this magnitude... Barton muttered, and without asking any more questions, he turned and walked out the door.

Frankly speaking, returning to the foundation is the answer he wants most right now.

His previous question about whether they still wanted to go to the suburbs was just a momentary impulse, an old habit he had not been able to overcome for many years.

After returning to the foundation, Barton spent the day with some trepidation and welcomed the evening in a tedious and repetitive daily routine.

I used to think that life was too monotonous, but now I find that monotonous life is so precious. Alas, I just hope that everything will be like this afternoon, without any unexpected events... May God bless you... Patton stopped at the door of his house, stretched out his right hand, clenched it into a fist, and lightly hit his left chest.

After finishing his prayers, he opened the door and went inside, took off his hat and coat, and handed them to his wife who came to greet him.

"What happened to Vernal?" his wife asked cautiously.

Patton replied calmly and indifferently:

"He has offended some people and is being tracked down. The police have taken over the matter.

"After this, if Vernal comes to visit again, don't let him in, and remember to send someone to notify the police afterwards."

Patton's wife was relieved when she heard that the police had intervened:

"OK."

After dinner and playing with the children for a while, Barton found an excuse to go into the study and sat near the window.

He needed a space to be alone so that he could calm down his emotions and get out of the panic caused by the Vernal incident.

To this end, Patton took out a cigarette from the drawer and put it in his mouth.

He is not addicted to smoking, but sometimes he needs to socialize, so he prepares a box of cigarettes at home and on his body.

Patton struck a match, lit the cigarette, and took a deep breath.

He immediately leaned back in his chair and watched the smoke come out of his mouth and nose bit by bit.

The pale white gas quickly spread all around, reminding Barton of the mist coming out of Vernal's mouth and nose.

Faintly, he smelled a faint smell of blood.

To Barton, this was not a very strange discovery, because Vernal had stayed in his study before, which must have left some traces that ordinary people could not detect at all.

Barton didn't smell it before, purely because he was too nervous and panicked, and his attention was focused on Vernal's whereabouts and the text he left behind.

Of course, the bloody smell in the study was very faint, not as strong as that in the hotel room and the ruins before, which was also one of the reasons.

As the cigarette gas diffused freely, Barton's eyes suddenly narrowed.

He had a bad feeling!

An instant later, the pale white gas shrank in one direction, carrying a bloody smell, and formed a human figure.

The upper body of this figure is normal, with a signature red nose. It is the archaeologist Vernal.

His lower body was made entirely of gas, like a monster drawn by smoke.

"F, Vernal..." Barton shouted as if he was almost suffocating.

His voice echoed in the study, failing to penetrate the walls.

"Haha, I have gained immortality. As long as there is any mist left, I can come back to life!" said Vernal with a loud laugh.

Compared to before, his expression became more insane, and his eyes seemed to have a pale color.

He, he had already died once? This thought flashed through Barton's mind subconsciously.

Then, he said calmly:

"What can I do for you?"

As he spoke, Barton impulsively wanted to stand up, but he sadly found that his body was covered by a cold and thin mist and he had lost most of his consciousness.

Vernal stopped laughing, looked into Patton's eyes, and said word by word:

"You didn't take that bottle out to the suburbs."

Although Patton was impulsive, he knew that he could not answer this question directly, so he quickly thought about it and tried to find a good way to deal with it.

A few seconds later, before Vernal could speak again, he changed the subject:

“Why did you convert to that person?

“Are you not a faithful follower of the Lord?”

Vernal was silent for a moment, his expression gradually becoming fanatical:

“I saw a wider, more vast world.

“Compared to that, this planet we live on now is like a grain of sand in the desert.

“There are countless civilizations there, and ancient relics left over from hundreds of thousands, millions, or even tens of millions of years ago.

"This is what the universe really looks like!"

Seeing that his question had caused Vernal to change for the worse, Barton shut his mouth and thought about what topic could be insensitive but still interesting to the other party.

He took a slow breath and said:

"Besides the altar, what else did you find in that Quaternary ruins?

"How much do you know about Tamara's family?"

Vernal's eyes flickered a little:

“The Tamara family had a change of coat of arms.

"That means they've encountered something pretty significant."

As he spoke, the archaeologist, whose upper body was a human and whose lower body was mist, stretched out his right hand and used smoke to outline two symbols in the air.

The first symbol is composed of a layer of thorns, a layer of shield wall and a long sword inserted vertically on them; the main body of the second symbol is a double door, and the gap in the door is served by the vertical long sword.

As a professional who could barely be called a famous historian, Barton instantly thought of the words of the Tamara family member:

“They are them, and we are us.”

"Has Tamara's family ever split?" Barton blurted out.

"I think so." Vernal smiled with relief, then approached Barton and said enthusiastically, "Your brain is more attractive than I thought. It is the best supplement for me. Relax a little, your mind will merge with mine, and we will witness great civilizations together."

He looked very weak and in urgent need of recovery.

Patton's heart began to beat wildly, and he tried hard to avoid the other party, but no matter how he struggled, his body seemed to be frozen and he could not move at all.

Just as Vernal's face was close to his eyes, Patton felt a sudden pain in his right hand and regained consciousness instantly.

The pale white mist and the monster-like Vernal in front of his eyes disappeared as if they had never appeared.

Barton looked down woodenly and saw that the cigarette in his right hand had burned to the end, burning his fingers.

"Was it just a dream? But I feel it is so real." Patton threw away the cigarette in his hand, stood up according to his spiritual instinct, and walked to the window.

He looked toward the street outside, and saw many pedestrians passing by under the lit gas street lamps in the increasingly dark night, trying to get home as quickly as possible.

Among them, a big golden retriever was walking normally.