Look further down.
[The second question: Using the Segmentation Method for retro-synthetic analysis, please provide retro-synthetic analysis]
Li Zheng's eyes widened.
Only then did he understand.
This question wasn't about forming a ring.
It was about reverse ring formation.
Ring segmentation.
It involved segmenting a tremendously complex magic ring into several separate large rings, then dividing the large rings into smaller rings, and so forth, until finding sufficiently simple and common starting materials.
Comparing it to cooking, it's akin to giving a chef a finished dish to taste and asking him to deduce the recipe.
It was ingenious.
But this was already a graduate-level organic chemistry problem.
Even the Icho international competition might not delve this deep.
Even Li Zheng, who had prepared extensively, was rather flustered by such a demonic magic ring.
Of course, as much as he was flustered, he was equally excited.
