EF core, handle arrays

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SQL

LINQ

EF-Core

Hello everyone. This is my Entity, which is stored in database:

public class Rule
{
    [Key]
    public int ruleId { get; set; }
    public string name { get; set; }
    public int[] categoryIds { get; set; }
}

I have a converters for it like this:

public class ArrayConverter : ValueConverter<int[], string>
{
    public ArrayConverter()
        : base(x => string.Join(";", x), x => x.Split(";", StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Select(int.Parse).ToArray())
    {
    }
}

public class ArrayComparer : ValueComparer<int[]>
{
    public ArrayComparer()
        : base((c1, c2) => c1.SequenceEqual(c2), c => c.Aggregate(0, (a, v) => HashCode.Combine(a, v.GetHashCode())), c => c.ToArray())
    {
    }
}

Converters are applied like this:

modelBuilder.Entity<Rule>(builder =>
   {
       builder.Property(x => x.categoryIds).HasConversion(new ArrayConverter());
       builder.Property(x => x.categoryIds).Metadata.SetValueComparer(new ArrayComparer());
   });

What I have tried:

And this works OK, on client side. I need somehow to utilize this property (

int[] categoryIds

) on server side instead. It is stored in a string column like this: 1;2;3
What is the best way I can achieve it using linq to sql?
I have tried EF.Property<string>(p, "categoryIds").Contains("1") but it fails with some error that ef.property is not used correctly. I need to run it on server side.
categoryIds are not tied to Rule object, they are system wide entities, used by all of other entities, so I cannot do this:

public ICollection<Category> categories {get;set;}

because category would need to have relation to Rule, and it cannot have such.