thank you for this comment. My friend told me "you wont be able to do this challenge" so of course I've been trying extra hard not to look at the solutions. I wrote several different permutations but it just seemed impossible to both return the answer AND the reference to the next function. This comment seems to confirm for me that it is indeed impossible to complete this as described. If I understand properly, the solution is to manipulate the prototype of the returned function such that functions which evaluate it see the answer we've stored, but this is something I considered and dismissed as it does not fulfill the instructions as I read them :(

Am i understanding this right?

Then this should be specified in the instructions