The present study explores what substitute teachers’ emotional labor is like in senior high school and how they handle their emotions. With a qualitative approach, the present study conducted in-depth interviews with six substitute teachers in a public senior high school whose teaching experience ranged from one to three years. Results showed that in terms of school administration and working environment, the substitute teachers were situated in a friendly campus, but still faced with the burden of being a temporary worker, emotional labor coming from their peculiar identity. With respect to specific emotional experience and adjustment, smiling and suppressing were the primary strategies. Regarding emotional variety and interactional degree, positive and negative emotions were mainly determined by students, and sometimes by colleagues. Concerning surface acting and deep acting, the former’s strategy was obedience and affinity, while the latter’s was harmony. As for emotional harmony, dissonance, and deviance, the decisive factor would be significant others’ perception. Based on the above-mentioned findings, substitute teachers’ emotions are depicted, and implications of further study are presented.