3 pieces from Journey to the West — each retold in modern English and traced to its source.
An emperor wants the souls of his war dead set free, so he sends one gentle, fearful monk west to fetch the scriptures that can do it — a road no man survives alone. Five hundred years after heaven buried him, the strongest creature alive is still pinned under a mountain, waiting for someone to come by.
Banished again for killing what his master would not, the Monkey King goes off to nurse the insult — and a second Monkey King walks in, identical down to the last hair, and takes everything. Two Wukongs, same face, same rod, same powers, and no one in heaven, hell, or earth can tell which is real.
A corpse-fiend who wants the holy monk's flesh comes at the pilgrims three times wearing three borrowed faces — a girl, an old woman, an old man. Only one of the travelers can see what is under each disguise, and seeing it is exactly what gets him thrown off the road.