"Since your mind is made up, let the playback of your memories begin," Judge Steward declared.

The first memory played.

It was from before Rodney was born, when Hannah had just started elementary school.

Back then, she wasn't as sensible as she was now. In fact, she was quite a handful. She was always running wild around the neighborhood with the other kids, and I took a hands-off approach to raising her.

My husband, Toby Wright, was still alive at the time, and Hannah had a lively personality. Toby and I got along well and never felt the need to be overly strict with her.

One day, Hannah came home from school just as her great-aunt, Olga Porter, had passed away. It was also the first time in Hannah's life that I ever laid a hand on her.

Hannah carried this memory deep in her heart, and as she grew older, she would always say that I never loved her as a child and that I humiliated her by hitting her in front of so many people.

But did she even know what she had done?

It seemed people really could suffer from selective amnesia.

The footage continued playing.

After school, Hannah went with Toby and me to Aunt Olga's wake.

Aunt Olga lived in the countryside. She and Hannah weren't close at all, so Hannah wasn't the least bit saddened.

Having rarely been to the countryside, Hannah ran wild everywhere. At one point, she happened to come across a shepherd driving a flock of sheep along the road.

Hannah followed behind him and collected a whole bag of sheep droppings. She then carried the bag of sheep droppings into the funeral home.

Frantic, I pulled her over so we could pay respects to Aunt Olga together.

"Hannah, stop running around. Your great-aunt's passing is a very serious and sad matter. Come over here right now and pay your respects."

"Oh, fine," Hannah replied, reluctantly paying her respects to Aunt Olga.

At that moment, Hannah glanced at the crowd, and her face suddenly broke into a grin.

"There are so many people. This is going to be fun."

I had no idea what she meant at the time.

Suddenly, a relative shouted, "Why are there sheep droppings in the tea?"

Hannah immediately burst out laughing. "Oh my God, you people are so stupid! You can't even tell the difference between tea leaves and sheep droppings!"

Then, right in front of me, she pulled out handful after handful of sheep droppings and started flinging them wildly at the relatives.

It stank and was absolutely disgusting.

The relatives were seething with rage after being hit.

Hannah kept laughing and gleefully throwing the droppings everywhere, as if she were some kind of warrior queen.

"I'll take you, enemies, down!"

Hannah was my daughter, so no matter how naughty she was, I could never bring myself to hit her.

However, we were at a wake. In such a solemn and sorrowful setting, she had behaved so outrageously and even pelted the relatives with sheep droppings.

If I didn't discipline her, every relative in the village would point their fingers at me. It probably wouldn't have stopped there—they might have thrown Hannah out themselves.

Thus, I instantly erupted in anger.

"Hannah Wright, what do you think you're doing? You little brat! I'll teach you a lesson if it's the last thing I do!"

I only meant to give her a light beating and leave it at that. It wasn't like anyone could tell I was going easy on her anyway.

"This is child abuse! You can't hit me!"

The moment Hannah saw that I was about to strike her, she ran. That would've been fine except she went and climbed right into Aunt Olga's coffin.

"Let's see if you dare hit me now that I'm holding Great-Aunt Olga!"

By this point, there was no getting out of it—I had to give her a good beating.

I could see my cousins standing by, barely holding themselves back from disciplining her themselves.

I quickly pulled Hannah out of the coffin and gave her several hard smacks with a stick.

When this segment finished playing, Judge Steward fell silent for a moment.

"Hannah, I fail to see how this connects to your accusation of your mother's favoritism toward Rodney. If I were her, I would have hit you, too."

Hannah's expression darkened. "Even if what I did was wrong, would a mother who truly loved me really have the heart to hit me like that? The fact of the matter is, she never loved me! Play the next memory! The truth is all yet to come!"

The comments on screen started flooding in again.

"Sure, Hannah was a little mischievous as a kid, but that's no reason to beat her half to death. If Hannah were a boy, would Sandra have the heart to hit her like that?"

"Exactly! Just look at Hannah—she must have suffered so much!"

The first round of voting was mostly in Hannah's favor. They still believed that I favored sons over daughters.

Then, the second memory played.

It was when Hannah was in middle school—the moment I found out I was pregnant.

"Honey, I'm pregnant."

Toby looked worried. In fact, there wasn't a trace of the joy an expectant father should have.

"Given how sensitive Hannah is, I'm afraid she might take it the wrong way. Do you think we should keep this baby?"

At the time, I just looked lost when I heard that.

"Honey, I can't decide, so I'll leave it up to you."

As a mother, I naturally didn't want to abort my own child. However, I was also Hannah's mom, and I knew her well enough. I was afraid she would think we didn't love her anymore.

At this point, the comments started flooding in wildly.

"Oh, spare us the act. You went ahead and had the kid anyway. If you wanted a boy that badly, you could've just said so. There was no need to dress it up so magnanimously."

"You can't decide? Please. You just wanted a boy to carry on the family name, didn't you?"

They were all furious that we had given birth to Rodney.

The memory kept playing.

"Mrs. Wright, if you terminate this pregnancy, you may need to have your uterus removed. There is already an abnormality in your uterus, and it simply cannot withstand another miscarriage."

The doctor shook his head. "Having your uterus removed would be very hard on your body, so I do not recommend an abortion."

Thus, after weighing the matter, we decided to keep the baby. However, neither of us could figure out how to tell Hannah. It wasn't until my belly grew too big to hide that Hannah found out on her own.

"Mom, you're pregnant!"

Hannah stared at my stomach in disbelief, and her first reaction was to rush forward and hit me.

"I don't want a younger brother or sister! I don't want one!"

Toby quickly rushed over to shield my belly.

"Hannah, you can't do this to your mother! We didn't have a choice. If we didn't have this baby, your mother would have to have her uterus removed. You wouldn't want her health to suffer, would you?"

But Hannah didn't care about any of that. She shoved me straight to the ground.

In an instant, I saw blood. Clutching my belly, I cried out, "It hurts. It hurts so much!"

Hannah just stood to the side, her smile cruel, looking utterly pleased with herself.

"I'd be happy if the baby were gone!"

Toby, seeing what had happened, rushed to take me to the hospital. But he slipped and slammed the back of his head hard against the coffee table.

Hannah's shove sent me into premature labor. I barely made it out alive, while Toby lost too much blood to be saved."

Before he passed, he held my hand and said tearfully, "Honey, don't blame Hannah. She's still just a child and doesn't know any better."

How could I not blame her?

But Toby was right. Hannah was just a child who needed reassurance.

After this memory segment finished playing, the comment section fell silent. After all, Hannah was only a child back then. She couldn't possibly have understood the terrible consequences her actions would bring.

Nevertheless, the viewers still believed that after Toby's death, I must have done other awful things. So, this round went to Hannah.

She had already won two out of five rounds. If I didn't win the remaining three, I would be imprisoned for life.

I knew I wouldn't lose, because according to the timeline, the next memory was about something else entirely.

After Toby passed, I shouldered the burden of supporting the family alone. However, Rodney was only five years old, and on most days, I had to rely on the neighbors and Hannah to watch him when they could.

I knew Hannah was resentful, so I did everything I could to give her whatever she wanted. If she found Rodney annoying, I would rather send him off to the countryside than let her be bothered by him.

One day, Hannah was in a good mood and offered to watch Rodney for a couple of days.

I happily brought back strawberries and mangoes. Since Hannah loved strawberries and Rodney loved mangoes, I was sure they'd be thrilled when they saw them.

But when I gave Hannah the washed strawberries and handed Rodney the cut mango, Hannah exploded.

"Mom, you're playing favorites! Why does Rodney get mangoes? You've never bought me a mango my whole life!"

As the footage reached this point, Hannah glared at me with fury from the plaintiff's stand.

"You've always favored Rodney. You've never once cut up a mango for me."

She stared at me with pure hatred.

The comments all blasted me for favoring Rodney. No one was surprised that my true colors were showing once Toby was gone.

However, I looked at Hannah with bewilderment. "Hannah, don't you know you're allergic to mango? I gave you some when you were a child, and you passed out and ended up in the hospital. That scared the life out of me."

The comment section erupted in disbelief.

"Holy crap, I thought this was going to be some classic favoritism sob story. Turns out, Hannah is just allergic to mangoes."

"Hannah really knows how to hold a grudge. She carried it all these years, yet the whole time, she was just allergic to mangoes."

"I don't know why, but I'm starting to side with Sandra now. Hannah seems really self-centered, like she's been living in her own little world."

The viewers kept debating as the footage continued to play.

After the mango incident, Hannah grew to despise Rodney more and more.

Whenever it was her turn to watch him, Rodney would always end up covered in bruises. All of them were from Hannah pinching him.

"You stole my mom from me, you little bastard!" Hannah cursed viciously.

After I found out about it, it broke my heart. But I didn't dare to scold Hannah. Instead, all I could do was try to keep the two of them apart.

But while I was at work one day, Hannah and Rodney were home alone, and a segment about weed killers happened to be playing on TV.

Hannah took a bottle of weed killer out of the cabinet, her eyes gleaming with malice.

"Rodney, do you think I'd be happier if you were dead?"

She then poured the weed killer straight into Rodney's milk.

The comment section exploded in shock.

"What is she doing? Don't tell me she's actually trying to kill her younger brother?"

"Holy crap! And here I thought Hannah was some sweet little angel. How could she be so vicious?"

"I can't believe she's trying to murder Rodney. Forget taking Sandra to court—she should be thanking her lucky stars no one's taken her to court."

Even though the viewers were horrified, there was no altering the memory that was playing out.

Hannah still poured the weed killer into Rodney's milk and brought it over to him.

"Here, Rodney. Have some milk."

No one watching could believe that Hannah, who seemed so delicate, would actually try to kill her own brother.

The memory continued to the moment I came home, just as Hannah was about to feed Rodney the milk.

"Hannah, what's that you're giving Rodney?"