Query processor could not produce a query plan

hello, I had a search query as mentioned below:
select p.serial_number from products p
left merge join
(select distinct(serial_number) from rare_items) ri
on ri.serial_number = p.serial_number
where p.serial_number = 20
when i run this query it gives the followgin error message:
Msg 8622, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Query processor could not produce a query plan because of the hints defined in this query. Resubmit the query without specifying any hints and without using SET FORCEPLAN.
If in the where clause i donot use serial_number then no any error message displayed.
plz can anybody help me find out the root cause... and the best solution for this, i have no other options than using left merge join

can you try sub query with order by Serial_Number as merge join requires data to be sorted on both tables