The own implementation of ActiveQuery does not work correctly. Why?

Question

Yii

Has its own ActiveQuery

class ValueQuery extends ActiveQuery
{
    public function forProduct($product_id): ValueQuery
    {
        return $this->andWhere(['product_id' => $product_id]);
    }

    public function forCharacteristic($characteristic_id): ValueQuery
    {
        return $this->andWhere(['characteristic_id' => $characteristic_id]);
    }
}

Another ActiveRecord Product has a getter

public function getValuesForCard(): ActiveQuery
    {
        $characteristics = CategoriesCharacteristics::find()
            ->select('characteristic_id')
            ->forCategory($this->category_id)
            ->forList(CatCharList::ATTR_LIST_CARD)
            ->orderBy(["sort" => SORT_ASC]);
        return Value::find()
            ->forProduct($this->id)
            ->forCharacteristic($characteristics);
    }

When I call $product->valuesForCard in the view, I suddenly get one model instead of an array of models. Why??? how to fix?