It makes nothing.
It lets everything
be made.
它自己什么都不产。
它让别的东西得以被造出来。
A radiant tube leaves the furnace with nothing to show for itself. The strip, the ingot, the tile — those are the products. The tube is the reason they exist. 一支辐射管在炉子里烧完一炉又一炉，自己交不出任何东西。带钢、铝锭、瓷砖才是产品。而它，是这些产品得以存在的原因。
Zibo has been putting earth through fire for three thousand years.淄博把土送进火里，已经做了三千年。
This was the state of Qi — iron smelted here, pottery fired here, long before any of it had a name. What the place has always made is not the finished thing. It is the thing the finished thing needs. 这里是齐国故地。冶铁在这里，烧陶在这里，比这些行当有名字还早。这地方历来产的不是成品本身，而是成品所必需的那样东西。
It stands in the heating zone and passes heat through its wall, cycle after cycle, and is never part of what ships.它立在加热段，一炉又一炉地把热量透过管壁传出去，却从不出现在发货单上。
Cast and fired in our works, checked, and then quietly holding a geometry that nobody looks at again.在厂内浇注、烧成、检验，此后安静地守着一个再没人去看的形状。
It exists to disappear. What it leaves behind is the only evidence it was ever there.它存在，是为了消失。它留下的那道缝，是它来过的唯一证据。
Earth through fire becomes a vessel. Guoshi makes the vessel other vessels need. 土经火而成器。郭氏做的，是让别的器能成器的那个器。
Five families. Each one lives somewhere you never look.五个系列。每一件都待在你不会去看的地方。
Tell us what the furnace has to do. We will tell you what it needs.告诉我们炉子要做什么，我们告诉你它需要什么。
Temperature, atmosphere, cycle, and what failed last time. 温度、炉内气氛、生产节奏，以及上次是怎么坏的。