Chapter 285: Peace Prize Nomination·International Conflict Resolution

Zhao Chen put the emotion regulator in his pocket, his finger touching the still-vibrating terminal. He lowered his head and glanced at it; the screen flashed a line of small text: Signal abnormal, source unknown. He said nothing, just flipped the terminal face-down onto the table.

Just ten minutes earlier, he had just been picked up from the Future Wing's listing scene, the car driving straight into the underground passage of the Foreign Affairs Liaison Center. No one told him what had happened; they only said two countries were about to go to war, and the opposing delegation had already been waiting in the holographic conference room for half an hour.

As he entered, people on both sides were standing, their voices rising one over the other. The translators, wearing headphones, relayed messages back and forth, their faces flushed red. The Chinese coordinator stood in the corner; seeing Zhao Chen enter, he gave a slight nod.

"What can you do?" one representative asked, frowning, "You're still just a child."

Zhao Chen didn't refute, walking to the center of the conference table, he pulled out the silver disc and placed it on the tabletop. The disc lit up briefly, emitting a faint blue halo.

"I'm not here to negotiate," he said, "I just want you to hear each other clearly."

Someone scoffed, saying this little toy could resolve decades of conflict? Zhao Chen ignored him, first lowering the frequency, making the room's air feel as if it had quieted for an instant. That tense feeling gradually eased, even the breathing sounds became a bit steadier.

Then he activated empathy mode, linking into the translation system. The two translators froze for a moment, then when they spoke again their tone changed—no longer a stiff word-for-word relay, but carrying a hint of understanding. One even said, "They actually aren't unwilling to talk; they're afraid that talking would be useless."

As soon as those words were spoken, both sides fell silent.

Zhao Chen seized the moment, having both people place their hands on the edge of the disc simultaneously. The blue light brightened, and the projection showed a blurry image—one was a boy as a child launching paper boats by the river, the other a kid chasing kites in the courtyard. Neither were real memories, just childhood snippets simulated by the device, but enough to let people lower their guard.

"As children, none of us wanted war," Zhao Chen said. "And we still shouldn't now."

The room remained silent. After a few minutes, one chief representative sighed and proposed a plan to redraw the buffer zone. The other side stayed silent for a long time, then finally nodded.

A system prompt rang in his mind: 【International conflict mediation completed, triggering the Peace Prize nomination process】.

Before he could react, the large screen on the wall switched images. The UN Secretary-General appeared on camera, with the UN flag hanging behind him.

"Based on the records of this incident and the full audiovisual assessment," that person said, "I hereby announce the nomination of Mr. Zhao Chen as this year's Nobel Peace Prize candidate."

The conference room erupted. Someone stood up to object, saying a minor couldn't be eligible—it was against the rules. The Secretary-General didn't rush to answer, instead playing a video of the very mediation that had just taken place. The final frame froze on Zhao Chen retracting the emotion regulator, his line "I'm not here to change you, I'm here to help you hear yourselves" singled out and clipped.

After the screen went dark, no one spoke again.

Zhao Chen stood where he was, feeling something extra in his mind. It was as if a pile of data had suddenly been shoved in—historical negotiation cases from various countries, the meanings of microexpressions in different languages, and dozens of methods for breaking deadlocks. He knew this was a new ability granted by the system, called Diplomatic Expertise.

Outside, the sky had already brightened. He walked to the window and saw the city still operating normally. Buses came one after another, pedestrians walked the streets, nobody knowing the world had just come close to war.

His terminal vibrated again. This time a map marker popped up, showing a strong electromagnetic fluctuation at an abandoned substation three hundred li away. The timing coincided exactly with the moment the Secretary-General announced the nomination.

He felt the emotion regulator in his pocket, confirming it was still there.

His phone rang; it was a message from Zhao Yang: "Pulse signal detected, strength low, possibly a test."

Zhao Chen replied with a single character: "En."

He knew this wasn't a coincidence. Over there, they were afraid. Not afraid that he'd won an award, but afraid that he could make those who were about to fight sit down and talk.

He turned to leave the conference room, and the Chinese coordinator stood at the doorway.

"The higher-ups want you to attend next week's International Youth Forum," that person said, "to publicly talk about this experience."

Zhao Chen shook his head. "I don't tell stories," he said, "I just get things done."

The coordinator smiled, not insisting. He knew this kid didn't like the spotlight, but some things he couldn't avoid.

Footsteps echoed down the end of the hallway as staff hurried past with folders. Zhao Chen watched them bustle about, then suddenly asked, "Did that disc leave any data records?"

"Yes," the staffer replied, pausing. "According to procedure, it's been stored in the National Science and Technology Archives, with the highest encryption level."

Zhao Chen nodded, saying nothing more.

He walked out of the building, sunlight on his face. Across the street was a breakfast stall; the fried dough sticks had just come out of the pot, their aroma drifting over. A few student‑type people sat on small stools drinking soy milk, looking at their phones and laughing.

He pulled out the terminal and forwarded that pulse‑segment data to Zhao Xing and Zhao Yang.

Zhao Yang replied instantly: "Received. Reverse tracking activated."

Zhao Xing only replied with an emoticon—a simple stick‑figure wearing sunglasses.

Zhao Chen put the terminal away and headed for the bus stop. He didn't drive, nor did he want the unit to send a car to pick him up. Today's affair shouldn't be turned into a big deal to show off, even if the whole world was refreshing his name on hot searches.

His phone rang again. This time it was the system alert tone, audible only to him.

【International recognition obtained, reward 【Diplomatic Expertise】】

After the message vanished, he felt more in his mind—not knowledge, but intuition. He knew when to stay silent, when to speak, and which words sounded gentle but were actually the most hurtful.

The bus arrived; he tapped his card to board, found a window seat and sat down. There weren't many passengers; an elderly woman holding a vegetable basket stood by the door. He rose to give her his seat, and she smiled, thanking him.

After the bus started moving, he saw a public telephone booth by the roadside. That old‑style red telephone booth, long unused but never torn down, had a crack in its glass, as if something had smashed into it.

He stared at it for a few seconds.

The telephone suddenly rang.

It wasn't his mobile, but the landline inside the booth. The ring was old, a ding‑ding‑ding that sounded especially shrill in the quiet morning.

No one went to answer it.

He watched the phone ring three times, then go dead. The handset trembled slightly, hanging in midair.

He pulled out the terminal, calling up the electromagnetic‑fluctuation map from earlier. The coordinates refreshed—the new spot lay in the city's southeast corner, less than five kilometers away.

He held the emotion regulator in his pocket, staying still.

The bus continued forward, turned a corner, and left the telephone booth behind.

The next stop was three hundred meters ahead.

The driver's stop‑announcement voice sounded.

Zhao Chen rose, gripping the handrail as he waited to alight.

His shadow fell on the bus window, blending with the tree shadows lining the street.

Far off, the curtain on the top floor of an office building twitched slightly.

An automatic cleaning robot was slowly descending along the glass exterior wall.

Its base had an extra black box, flashing a red light.