We were making for the Daoist temple where, according to legend, the ancient philosopher Lao Tzu wrote down the Tao Te Ching. We crossed through unkempt gardens of kiwis and passed a lettuce field where a farmer had placed a hand-written sign: Steal Vegetables and Your Family Will Die. But there was nobody around to pilfer high-fiber, leafy greens of any kind. This was during the height of the zero COVID policy, and the land was as bereft of humans as if our species had never been born. The temple too was locked up. The monks hadn’t ventured beyond their walls in 10 days. Lao Tzu got around on an ox. Fed up with civilization’s moral decay, he rode into the wilderness never to be heard from again. We empathized.