I2C sending data from arduino to python gives gibberish data

Question

It's my first time working with SMBUS and I've read the docs of arduino and the Wire object. It states that I can send a string. To quote the docs: string: a string to send as a series of bytes. https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/language/functions/communication/wire/write/

When I convert my int to a String type and pass it along to Wire.write, I can't read it with Python.

Slave address: 0x8

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(BaudRate); delay(10);
  Wire.begin(SLAVE_ADDRESS); 0x8
  Wire.onRequest(sendData); 
}

void loop() {
   sendData(1272); // right now hard-coded for testing purposes
}
// callback for sending data
void sendData(int data) {
    String dataString = String(data);
    int len = dataString.length() + 1;
    char charDataString[len];
    dataString.toCharArray(charDataString, len);
    for (int i = 0; i < len; i++) {
        Serial.println(charDataString[i]); -> SHOWS THE CORRECT VALUES
        Wire.write(charDataString[i]);
    }
    delay(1000);
}

My python code (how I read the data):

import smbus
import time
bus = smbus.SMBus(1)
address = 0x8
while True:
    data = ""
    for (i in range(0, 10))
        ##BOTH VARIANTS DO NOT WORK
        data = bus.read_i2c_block_data(address, 99, 3)
        data += chr(bus.read_byte(address));

    print(data)
    time.sleep(1)

I can't wrap my head around what I am doing wrong here.